So I'm spending all this time researching keywords. I'm looking up words and phrases on the Google keyword search thingy. (Sorry can't remember what it's called) So my question is what number of searches would be considered a good word or phrase. I'm sure this is a matter of personal opinion. I'm picking keywords and phrases with an average of 20k searches per month thereabouts. Why 20k? Seems like it's not too high and it's not too low. If you don't want to share your secrets I sure do understand but am I anywhere close to doing this right? If anybody would be willing to give me some pointers on doing keyword research I'd sure appreciate it. Question #2. I'm trying to think up a domain name. I've read that keyword research is important in naming domains. So am I right to think there should be good keywords in my domain name? If so how important is that? If I have good keywords in my title and content will it make a big difference if my domain name does not contain great keywords or (a) great keyword. Thank you in advance. In fact thank you just for being here. I've already learned a lot simply from reading different threads. Shirley
I guessd you already have the main theme of your site. Lets say its about vacations in hawaii, so go to the Google thingy and search for this keyword. Order the results from results with more searches and there you have your list. Now, look for a domain (.com .net .org and the specific country code of yours) for all those keywords with high number of searches, If you find one, you may have a good starting point.
It is not just about search volume. You also have to be targeting keywords that you can reasonably expect to get rankings and traffic from. You should take some of your prospective keywords and analyze the top 10 ranked websites for those phrases. See how many links they have and how aggressively they are targeting that keyword. You might want to try using the seo for firefox addon to see some useful stats about each website in search results. If you need help picking keywords, I offer low priced keyword research services.
If you think you can rank for those phrases which receive 20,000 searches in a month, then go ahead. Keywords with 20,000 searches in a month tend to be reasonably competitive, and it isn't always easy to be No.1 for it. As Vansterdam said, you need to find an ideal mix of low competition+high keyword searches. Again, "low" and "high" are relative terms, and will vary from person to person. Choose one that suits you the best. If I had 1,000 searches for a particular term where I could easily rank and where the chances of the end user converting are greater, I would be happy. Assuming 80% of all traffic in that 1,000 came to me ( because my site ranks first), and 1% of people brought the product, which costs say £50. That is £400/mo guaranteed from one site, which is decent money for the effort put in.
vansterdam I'm assuming SEO for Firefox is for examining one's competition? Sounds like a great tool. I'm going to check that out for sure and thank you. gr8liverpoolfan Thank you for your wise advise. This keyword research is so new to me it can really make my head swim. I did realize I needed to be concerned about the competition after I'd been at it for what seems like forever. So then, working with adwords keyword tool,I started looking at the column showing stats for competing sites. So now that's what I'm doing as a starting point then I'll probably use the foxfire addon that vansterdam suggested. The figure 20k came from looking at all the search amounts that came up. So many were in the 50k and up even into the 100s and above so I thought 20k would be a good number. Then looking at competing stats I was able to narrow it down. Maybe I'm going at this all wrong. Like I said my head is swimming. I appreciate you guys so much. I know I have a lot to learn so thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sounds like you need a good keyword tool. It wasn't too long ago I was asking those same questions! I just posted this in another thread so I might as well here too... I use Market Samurai for my keyword research. A bit pricey at $147 but worth every penny. I'm sure there are other keyword tools that will do the job too. Look around and invest in one. You will be glad you did.
Okay, I learned a lot from your answers. And I am now thinking what niche should I start again, then do the keyword research then target the keywords... oh well, it's just hard to do that... but we need to try it to make more money
Don't choose a niche then find keywords in that niche, research keywords first then choose a niche to target based on the good keywords you found. Much less stressful that way
It makes sense but then you go back to the ole, sell and/or write about something you love or at least know something about. OK so I want to sell a line of skin care products that I use and love. I also trust the merchant completely because I've used her product for a long time and I know she has great customer service. So now you're telling me to forget all that and go for something else based only on keyword research???
Not totally for this type of thing you want to use a keyword/phrase that gets visits but not highly used by other people. Meaning use something that will go with your product but isnt used the most by other competitors. So using keywords/phrase that are used less by others and searched a good amount by people would be your best bet. Because if you get ranked #1 for that keyword you'll still bring in more money and profit then if you used a highly used keyword or phrase by another consumer. Get it?
Yes your domain is important when you want to rank for a certain keyword. When registering your domain include your main keywords in it. As long as your domain is new you have to target keywords with low searches and low competition. Say 1000-2000 monthly searches would be great that means you can make a few couple of hundreds a month ranking for a single keyword. It's not going to be that easy to rank for a low competition keyword there is still work to put in but it's a lot easier to rank for keyword with high search volume. Check your competition. They're backlinks (how many they have) and do some on-site SEO.
OK let me see if I've got this right. 1. Think of a niche 2. Research keywords related to niche 3. Pick keywords showing low competition 4. Name domain using keywords meeting searh criteria I just have to repeat how much I appreciate you guys. As soon as I've got enough posts to help ppl get those little thingies you can bet I'll make sure you get credit for your help. I'll have to go back and re-read about it though.
You can pick keyphrases that are 4 words+ and you can still compete against strong competitors. For instance, if your site is about how to train horses, then your keyphrase that you want to compete for is "How To Train Horses". Then you want most of your anchor text links to say "How To Train Horses" - forums, ezines, guest post in blogs, etc.
You are definitely on the right track there! When researching keywords with the intention of setting up a new website, I poked around in a few hobbies that I have. The research was to determine if it would be feasible to reach the top ranks in Google without spending a boat load of money. After researching keywords in those niches I couldn't find any keywords to target that met my criteria. No big deal, as I believe you don't have to be an expert in a niche to have a successful website in it.