Need advice on keyword research

[ND]

Hi,
A couple of questions about seo...I have an 8 year old site with good content, good onpage opt. but NO backlinks. Need advice on keywords.

using google keyword tool...

1. KEYWORD 1= 60k broad searches monthly, 694k allintitle broad search competition.
too much competition for me?

2. KEYWORD 2= 9900 search/90k comp (4110 in market samurai, ms also says 303k competition)

why the big, strange discrepancy between my google searching and market samurai?

3. KEYWORD 3= 2900search, 7420 comp

is this a good bet?

4. KEYWORD 4= 1600search, 12K comp (market samurai=660 searches, 154 k competition)

5. KEYWORD 5= 1900search, 10k comp (ms=780 search ,7170 comp)

any advice on this?
thanks so much!

[Jack Chase]

I would usually use exact match searches rather than broad match, it gives a clearer picture of how many people actually type that term in.

Also, it depends on more factors than just how many other sites there are - are any of these optimised for the target keywords and how many backlinks do they have?

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

I would usually use exact match searches rather than broad match, it gives a clearer picture of how many people actually type that term in.

Also, it depends on more factors than just how many other sites there are - are any of these optimised for the target keywords and how many backlinks do they have?

thanks Jack,
I just researched them for exact match...the numbers are still really close- not much change.

Not sure what you mean by your question- sorry, how can I search for how
"any of these optimised for the target keywords and how many backlinks do they have?"
thanks!

[sonic74]

Originally Posted by ND

thanks Jack,
I just researched them for exact match...the numbers are still really close- not much change.

Not sure what you mean by your question- sorry, how can I search for how
"any of these optimised for the target keywords and how many backlinks do they have?"
thanks!

you can check that with Market Samurai (paid)......

a free alternative tool is TrafficTravis.com (free edition)

[ND]

Originally Posted by sonic74

you can check that with Market Samurai (paid)......

a free alternative tool is TrafficTravis.com (free edition)

thanks, so you mean do a search on MS or TT for:

1. how many of my competition is optimizing each one of these keywords
and
2. how many backlinks each of my competitors have for each keyword

correct?

ok I did this for keyword #1 in traffic travis.
results=

opt title= 8 of 20 checked yes
opt desc =9 of 20
h1 tag =6 of 20
3 sites have 100k+ backlinks going to them
2 sites have between 50k-100k
3 between 10k-50k
2 between 5k-10k
the final 10 have between 375-3880
Travis says 2 stars difficulty rating

As for me, I currently have a pagerank3 (8 years), very few backlinks, but good onpage optimization.(opt tile, desc, H1 all good)
so how can I analyze this info to see if this keywords is get-able for me?
what are the goal numbers to look for?

thanks!

[sonic74]

an 8 years old domain and PR 3 it's an advantage......

but in order to get #1 spot in google for your keyword...

you need to overank the currently #1 spot...

it looks like that in the first spots you got authority sites,

pretty hard to overank them with a way a lot of backlinks

[ND]

Originally Posted by sonic74

an 8 years old domain and PR 3 it's an advantage......

but in order to get #1 spot in google for your keyword...

you need to overank the currently #1 spot...

it looks like that in the first spots you got authority sites,

pretty hard to overank them with a way a lot of backlinks

Well actually, for this business, I dont need to be #1, just get on page one.
With that in mind, what numbers should I be shooting for?
thanks

[jhonsean]

Google Adword Keyword tools will help you in determining your keyword monthly searches and competition.

[sonic74]

Originally Posted by ND

Well actually, for this business, I dont need to be #1, just get on page one.
With that in mind, what numbers should I be shooting for?
thanks

To get 5000 or 12000 backlinks it's doable, if you put some effort and in some depth of time.....

but don't forget also to optimize for secondary keywords with less competition and so strong competitors

[MikePP]

Yes, long tail keywords are really good and can be optimized in short time as well.

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by ND

opt title= 8 of 20 checked yes
opt desc =9 of 20
h1 tag =6 of 20
3 sites have 100k+ backlinks going to them
2 sites have between 50k-100k
3 between 10k-50k
2 between 5k-10k
the final 10 have between 375-3880
Travis says 2 stars difficulty rating

Are these numbers of backlinks to the page that's appearing in the Google results for the keyword you are targeting or the number of backlinks each site has in total?

A difficulty rating in TT suggests that it could take a while and a lot of work, but still possible with the right on-page and off-page SEO.

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

Are these numbers of backlinks to the page that's appearing in the Google results for the keyword you are targeting or the number of backlinks each site has in total?

A difficulty rating in TT suggests that it could take a while and a lot of work, but still possible with the right on-page and off-page SEO.

uh oh, those are backlinks for each site in total that I listed.
Do I need to do it for that page only?

BTW, when I put in [keyword 1] as an exact match in TT, it dropped the difficulty to 3 stars, medium difficult.
thanks

[Chris Cole]

Keyword Research:

Look ONLY at the TOP 10! that's it...

Learn how to gauge the top ten for your search and decide of you can beat them by better SEO.

It's as simple as that guys

[ND]

Jack,
As I mentioned, when I put in [keyword 1] as an exact match in TT, it dropped the difficulty to 3 stars, medium difficult.

"backlinks for this page" in TT=
18k,
9500,
5230,
3630,
2560,
1740,
601,
final 13=less than 500

is that the right way to do it?

I'm getting confused between exact match vs. broad and "backlinks for this page" vs.
"number of backlinks for whole site".

Did I do this correctly?
thanks

[Jack Chase]

To me that looks very competitive - but if you only want to get onto the first page and not necessarily the top, it is possible.

You will probably need to build about 5,000+ relevant backlinks (that Google finds) to get a good position on the page. This will take quite a lot of work and some time.

About broad match vs. exact match. I only meant use exact match for estimating the number of searches in Google's keyword tool, this is so that you can see how many people will actually search for that phrase rather than how many people type in one or more of the keywords used in any order. Here is a good explanation, but let le know if you need more advice on this: Broad Match vs Phrase Match vs Exact Match

Also, the reason I asked for backlinks to that page was because it's those competing pages that you are trying to beat. Overall backlinks to a site will have some effect on the site's rank, but relevant backlinks to the pages you are trying to beat is most important.

By relevant I mean with your key phrase as the anchor text and preferably for the backlink to be on a page that is in some way related to your key phrase (this second point helps, but is not essential).

For example, if you are trying to rank for the term 'mens clothes' a link in an article about suits with the words 'mens clothes' as a link to your site will help you rank for that key word more than if for some reason an article about cheese (or something else unrelated to mens clothes) had a link with the words 'mens clothes' to your site. A link with no anchor text, an image or just the URL for example, on a page with no real content or unrelated content will help the least.

Hope that's explained more clearly now. Let me know if you have any other questions. SEO can be quite a lot to learn!

[Jack Chase]

It's quite late in England (where I live), so I'll have to reply more in the morning, but I'm still happy to help . You're welcome to PM me if you like.

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

To me that looks very competitive - but if you only want to get onto the first page and not necessarily the top, it is possible.

You will probably need to build about 5,000+ relevant backlinks (that Google finds) to get a good position on the page. This will take quite a lot of work and some time.

About broad match vs. exact match. I only meant use exact match for estimating the number of searches in Google's keyword tool, this is so that you can see how many people will actually search for that phrase rather than how many people type in one or more of the keywords used in any order. Here is a good explanation, but let le know if you need more advice on this: Broad Match vs Phrase Match vs Exact Match

Also, the reason I asked for backlinks to that page was because it's those competing pages that you are trying to beat. Overall backlinks to a site will have some effect on the site's rank, but relevant backlinks to the pages you are trying to beat is most important.

By relevant I mean with your key phrase as the anchor text and preferably for the backlink to be on a page that is in some way related to your key phrase (this second point helps, but is not essential).

For example, if you are trying to rank for the term 'mens clothes' a link in an article about suits with the words 'mens clothes' as a link to your site will help you rank for that key word more than if for some reason an article about cheese (or something else unrelated to mens clothes) had a link with the words 'mens clothes' to your site. A link with no anchor text, an image or just the URL for example, on a page with no real content or unrelated content will help the least.

Hope that's explained more clearly now. Let me know if you have any other questions. SEO can be quite a lot to learn!

thanks Jack.
I'm wondering how you came up with the 5000 number of links.
How did you get to that number?

I think I've got the rest, though I'm still a bit fuzzy on what numbers to shoot for to compete with.

I mean other than TT's difficulty ratings. ("relatively easy" vs. "medium difficulty" vs. "relatively difficult") how do I gague what's doable and what's not?

thanks so much!

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

It's quite late in England (where I live), so I'll have to reply more in the morning, but I'm still happy to help . You're welcome to PM me if you like.

thanks Jack.
I can't send PMs as a new member but if you could answer here that would be great. I appreciate your help!
thanks again.
Have a great night.

[ND]

I haven't heard back from Jack.

Anyone have opinions on what numbers to look for?

other than TT's difficulty ratings. ("relatively easy" vs. "medium difficulty" vs. "relatively difficult") how do I gague what's doable and what's not?

thanks

[Jack Chase]

Sorry for the delay getting back - have been a bit busy today.

The number 5,000 was just an estimate of how many backlinks (of the same quality as the other sites have) you would need to get half way up the page. I got there because that's about the number current 5th page has - and you need more backlinks and/or better backlinks to beat them. I know you said that you don't need to be at number 1, but as you go down the page the CTR falls drastically. Just something to think about.

As for what's doable, it's somewhat up to experience. I know that building 5,000 backlinks would feel hard for me as I usually have several website projects to work on at any one time and am used to going after many long tail keywords which require much less.

Going after a keyword like the one you appear to be interested in is likely to be doable, but it will take months of consistent work building links. Also you must make sure that the page you want to rank has good on-page SEO.

But if you don't mind working on it, then it shouldn't be a problem.

If I were doing this I would look for several long tail keywords that are similar to this one. Let me give you an example - suppose you get to #5 on the first page for the keyword with 90,000 searches per month. In this position you will get about 5,400 clicks - 6% of 90,000, which is approximately what you should expect if you are in position #5.

You could get about the same number of clicks if you find 5/6 keywords with volumes of 3,000 searches a month and get to #1 for each of these (where you will get 30-40% CTR). It's likely that this will be easier too in terms of off-page SEO. You may need to build more pages though.

This is just an idea - if you don't mind waiting for months and doing lots of backlinking consistently then just go for the competitive term. If you are new to SEO though, it may be more rewarding to test out your skills on a few easier keywords first - this is what I did and it was a great motivator when I first started to see my site rise up fast rather than work for moths for relatively slow gains.

About Traffic Travis - if you want to find long tail easier keywords, these will usually be ones with 3, 4 and 5 stars.

Hope this helps and sorry again for the delay - let me know if you need any more help!

[Zelthcon]

I would recommend you trying using google trends and google fight to see what people are searching for the most aswell and then compare that with your competetion.

[ND]

thanks Jack I appreciate the feedback.
In my case, of wanting first page rankings, I know when I shop online, I will search through the top 5-10 pages, but I assume even someone lazy would at least shop the whole first page when buying something. That's my rationale.

My main question is what's a minimum # of searches per month on a keyword that you would consider worthwhile optimizing for? Is there a formula to figure that out? Same with competition. How much is too much?

Any specific numbers to say "too much competition/too low a search volume?"

Thanks again!

[ND]

Originally Posted by Zelthcon

I would recommend you trying using google trends and google fight to see what people are searching for the most aswell and then compare that with your competetion.

Can you elaborate on this process?
thanks

[eWebCats]

using the google keyword tool is useless. your keywords should be linked with what people type into the search box when they google about your product. First, what would you type into a google search box for the product you're selling? I know I would not just type in widgets, I'd probably type in blue widgets, or different colored widgets, etc. if you type in just widget, you get some two word phrases on the drop down, if you type in widgets you get three word phrases from the drop down box. Go ahead and try it just for widget and widgets. You won't see that on google keyword tool. If you like this and thank me in your reply (so I get those stats up), I'll tell you all an even better secret way of key wording, that rockets my sites fast. You'll be thinking "That's so easy, why didn't I think of that"

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by ND

thanks Jack I appreciate the feedback.
In my case, of wanting first page rankings, I know when I shop online, I will search through the top 5-10 pages, but I assume even someone lazy would at least shop the whole first page when buying something. That's my rationale.

Unfortunately most people don't get past the first link - look at these click through rates for the first page: http://www.rojish.com/wp-content/upl...google_CTR.png

Originally Posted by ND

My main question is what's a minimum # of searches per month on a keyword that you would consider worthwhile optimizing for? Is there a formula to figure that out? Same with competition. How much is too much?

Any specific numbers to say "too much competition/too low a search volume?"

I would usually not bother with anything with fewer than 3,000 searches, unless it's a product name keyword. For example, someone searching for "Panasonic Lumix TZ10" is very, very likely to be about to purchase that camera and so even with <1000 searches a month you could make money with a keyword like this.

This is exact match searches by the way.

As for competition, if the top 5 results all have more than 1,000 backlinks to their pages I would look elsewhere, unless I was willing to put a lot of work into that keyword and wait for several months to get to the top. Here is a good article about this topic: The affiliate's guide to dominating big niches with SEO | Econsultancy

This depends on the volume too somewhat - if it was a non-product name keyword with 3,000 searches and I was going to target several of these I would avoid ones where the top 5 results ALL had 200+ links. But this is because I'm a bit lazy .

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by ND

Can you elaborate on this process?
thanks

Google Trends (Google Trends) is a site that shows you what are popular searches at the moment. It's good if you are looking to build a site about a new niche from scratch, but since you have an 8 year old established site and are probably targeting a keyword with some longevity rather than some thing popular at the moment, I think this may just add more complexity to your research.

If you want, try just going to Google Trends and typing in some keywords that relate to your site - it may give you some ideas for keywords, but personally I think you will be better off thinking of them yourself and looking on the Google Keyword tool for searches related to your original keywords.

[EmmaPowell]

Hey!

When determining what keyword to go after it is def a a combo act ... onpage & off

You used Traffic Travis to check competition, that's great! Thats what I use too!

PR and backlinks to the page are vitally important, and also an exact match domain name

Is your key word in your domain name and is it an exact match .com? If it is then go for it! Have a backlinking strategy in place and build those quality, relevant backlinks and you will do GREAT!

LUCK!!

Emma

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

Unfortunately most people don't get past the first link - look at these click through rates for the first page: http://www.rojish.com/wp-content/upl...google_CTR.png



I would usually not bother with anything with fewer than 3,000 searches, unless it's a product name keyword. For example, someone searching for "Panasonic Lumix TZ10" is very, very likely to be about to purchase that camera and so even with <1000 searches a month you could make money with a keyword like this.

This is exact match searches by the way.

As for competition, if the top 5 results all have more than 1,000 backlinks to their pages I would look elsewhere, unless I was willing to put a lot of work into that keyword and wait for several months to get to the top. Here is a good article about this topic: The affiliate's guide to dominating big niches with SEO | Econsultancy

This depends on the volume too somewhat - if it was a non-product name keyword with 3,000 searches and I was going to target several of these I would avoid ones where the top 5 results ALL had 200+ links. But this is because I'm a bit lazy .

thanks Jack, 3000 and 1000, got it.

how about the allintitle search? what numbers would you be looking at there for maximum?

BTW, I just saw a thread that says that TT and MS are both inaccurate for totals.
If so, what's the best way to do research???
thanks

[ND]

Originally Posted by Rande

Hey!

When determining what keyword to go after it is def a a combo act ... onpage & off

You used Traffic Travis to check competition, that's great! Thats what I use too!

PR and backlinks to the page are vitally important, and also an exact match domain name

Is your key word in your domain name and is it an exact match .com? If it is then go for it! Have a backlinking strategy in place and build those quality, relevant backlinks and you will do GREAT!

LUCK!!

Emma

thanks Emma but no the keyword is not in the url.

[mammoth]

You need to increasing a websites traffic so you are working for social book marking or press release .

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by ND

how about the allintitle search? what numbers would you be looking at there for maximum?

I tend not to look at this - I mainly just look at how good the on page SEO is and the number of backlinks for the top 20 - mainly just the top 5. Think about it this way - the allintitile search tells you how many sites have these keywords in the title - which is likely to be thousands - if you want to get a #1 position, you are really just competing with the current #1. When I'm doing this I just aim to beat the one in the position I'm going for by making my page more relevant and getting more and better backlinks. does this make sense?

Originally Posted by ND

BTW, I just saw a thread that says that TT and MS are both inaccurate for totals.
If so, what's the best way to do research???
thanks

No tool is 100% accurate in terms of finding how many backlinks a page or site has. Even Google will not find all of the backlinks you make. TT is a good tool to estimate with though. If you are interested in verifying your results you could try a few other tools and the results should all be almost the same - here are some other ways of checking backlinks: Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch, Link Assist, Market Samurai. All are either free or have free trials.

While we are on the topic, a good way to get Google to find all the backlinks you build is to use a tool like BacklinkBooster.com or Linklicious.me

[ND]

Originally Posted by Jack Chase

I tend not to look at this - I mainly just look at how good the on page SEO is and the number of backlinks for the top 20 - mainly just the top 5. Think about it this way - the allintitile search tells you how many sites have these keywords in the title - which is likely to be thousands - if you want to get a #1 position, you are really just competing with the current #1. When I'm doing this I just aim to beat the one in the position I'm going for by making my page more relevant and getting more and better backlinks. does this make sense?

No tool is 100% accurate in terms of finding how many backlinks a page or site has. Even Google will not find all of the backlinks you make. TT is a good tool to estimate with though. If you are interested in verifying your results you could try a few other tools and the results should all be almost the same - here are some other ways of checking backlinks: Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch, Link Assist, Market Samurai. All are either free or have free trials.

While we are on the topic, a good way to get Google to find all the backlinks you build is to use a tool like BacklinkBooster.com or Linklicious.me

great stuff jack.
Can you please PM me your email address in case I have any questions?
thanks again.

[eWebCats]

I use Traffic Travis too, but wasn't aware that it was inaccurate for totals. What is better?

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by Scott Tibbs

I use Traffic Travis too, but wasn't aware that it was inaccurate for totals. What is better?

It's not inaccurate, it's just that there is no tool (including Google's crawlers that search the Internet) that will find every backlink you create. Traffic Travis, like almost all other tools, will find most of a site's backlinks, but whatever tool you use there will be some that don't get found.

There are other tools like BacklinkWatch.com, Majestic SEO and Market Samurai which will have similar results to TT which you can use to confirm their results.

[Jack Chase]

Originally Posted by ND

great stuff jack.
Can you please PM me your email address in case I have any questions?
thanks again.

Just sent you a PM