IMPORTANCE of keyword research

[Seofarmer]

I have read many guides and threads about how important keyword research and I totally agree.

So today, I plan to start a new campaign and was doing my keyword research. There are a few things I just couldn't figure out and hope you guys can provide some help with this.

I first headed to 'google keyword tool', checked my location and "Only show ideas closely related to my search terms", and obtained the 'local monthly search result". (for example: 1,000).

Now according to this Google "click distribution serp chart" and suppose i am on spot #3, i get 9.82% of the traffic. Does that mean I will most likely get 98.2 visitors per month ONLY?




If so, that seems to be quite disappointing!?
In that case, is that probably NOT the best keyword to optimize then?

Please advise.

[hashbury]

You have to take some of this stuff with a grain of salt.

While the numbers you have come up with may be an indication of the traffic you could get, it is not set in stone.

If I were you I would analyze the site that ranks 1st and see if I want to incvest the time that it takes to outrank them.

Another thing to take into consideration is other keywords that are closely related (LSI). If you are going after this keyword are there other keywords that are related that you could bennift from. You could target for your main keyword along with several lsi keywords.

[Seofarmer]

Thanks for the advise.
But yeah, so I believe my calculation is right after all.
If monthly search of 1,000 visitors, and I am on spot #3, i only get 98 visitors.

(Not to mention people usually take 25% - 50% off the traffic shown on Google keyword tool).

So I might only be getting 45 visitors from it afterall!

[jurojin]

When using google keyword research tool, which is the best tool for finding keywords nowadays (much better than wordtracker if you ask me), the most accurate report about how many searches a keyword will get monthly is when you use the "exact" option, not the "broad" one.

So basically let's assume you choose a keyword with 9000 monthly searches (exact) , and you rank #1 for it, you can expect to receive at least 300 visitors per day. This is not a presumption or gibberish talk, this is from my many tests that I've been doing for the past years specially with ETD's.. (exact match domains).

[hashbury]

Originally Posted by Seofarmer

Thanks for the advise.
But yeah, so I believe my calculation is right after all.
If monthly search of 1,000 visitors, and I am on spot #3, i only get 98 visitors.

(Not to mention people usually take 25% - 50% off the traffic shown on Google keyword tool).

So I might only be getting 45 visitors from it afterall!

Honestly you cant base your whole business around these calculations. While it should be used as a guide they are never going to be totally acurate.

There are many things to take into consideration when doing research like this.

98 visits a month would convert very highly if the keyword is a good buying keyword.

Is the keyword something that will get more popular in the future?

Is your product something that is only going to be sold in your country? If not, then you should be looking at the global count to get a more accurate count.

Why position number three? I always try to get my keywords ranked in the number one spot.

I have targeted keywords before that got as low as 200 exact searches in the google keyword tool. That keyword is now delivering close to 2000 searches a month and google still shows the low volume.

If I thought the keyword was good based on buying potential or future potential I would go for it after researching the top 2 sites. I just wouldnt go for position number 3 though.

[John Williamson]

Also keep in mind that that's for one single keyword. You will usually get traffic from other closely related keywords also.

[Seofarmer]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I simply picked #3 as an example.
I aim to get as high as possible, of course.

In regards to choose 'exact' search as opposed to 'broad' search.
Where is that option on keyword tools?
I thought I already selected it by clicking "show only relevant (exact) search results"?

[Seofarmer]

nevermind, i found that 'exact' option. Thanks

[shaneparksons]

I think being at position #3 doesn't really mean you get 98 out of 1K, or 45 at least. There are things you can do to still afford 50%, if not close to 100%, of the projected traffic. You probably have noticed that Google uses titles and descriptions to create the list of sites in the ranks. These elements can be used to take advantage over competition.

Let's take the hit map sample. The #10 spot gets more clicks than that in #9. What elements could possibly influence that? Yes, the title and description. So, get the keywords, do great on your on-page optimization and test meta details when you get the rankings. From there, check which gives more clicks and further optimize it.

[filippot51]

days ago i opened a thread and we discussed that and roughly you need to look at your keyword and exact if for example you have 9000 people with that keyword when the exact box is checked you will get ...supposedly 300 people a day but
if you are first page 1st spot 68% say roughly the 70 (NOT THE 100%)percent 210 people and then down if you are at the 10 spot of page one ,consider that you will get 8 percent of those supposed 300 visitors so say 24 visitors,this calculation is very conservative but is right,of course second page or 3 page position a lot less!!!! for this reason i useful also to check how may results there are for a "keyword" when you type it in google search if for example "healthydogfood" written like that in google search (while with exact was giving you 9000 globally searches) ,gives you 900 thousand results the chance that you wil go on the first page with that keyword are very little unless you spend thousand of bucks for a big campaign

[Seofarmer]

Originally Posted by shaneparksons

I think being at position #3 doesn't really mean you get 98 out of 1K, or 45 at least. There are things you can do to still afford 50%, if not close to 100%, of the projected traffic. You probably have noticed that Google uses titles and descriptions to create the list of sites in the ranks. These elements can be used to take advantage over competition.

Let's take the hit map sample. The #10 spot gets more clicks than that in #9. What elements could possibly influence that? Yes, the title and description. So, get the keywords, do great on your on-page optimization and test meta details when you get the rankings. From there, check which gives more clicks and further optimize it.

Thanks for the input.
Well, from my point of view, I was thinking #10 gets more than #9 because most of the time, people get impatient and scroll to the bottom of the page fast (or maybe they are heading to the next page) and catches the #10 spot somehow. Therefore #10 has more traffic than #9?

Just my opinion of course

[John Williamson]

Yea like Shane said, you can influence your potential visitors using your title tag and description tag which show up in the SERPs.

[admnaffii]

exactly, Your title and your Description also has equivalent importance to get visitors to your site.
So keep concentration all Four field if your want to get high pager rank in search engine.
these four are :
Your Title, Description, your Content(content is always king), Used Keywords.

[mdsurf]

where did you get that thing that shows the estimated click through rates based on your serp position for certain keywords?

[peterparker018]

Meta keywords are the main factors to make your site popular.

[Shirlyn]

Keywords are the most required thing for a webiste to create a reputed image online and one has to spend time to find niche related keywords to increase traffic at his website.

[shaneparksons]

Originally Posted by Seofarmer

Thanks for the input.
Well, from my point of view, I was thinking #10 gets more than #9 because most of the time, people get impatient and scroll to the bottom of the page fast (or maybe they are heading to the next page) and catches the #10 spot somehow. Therefore #10 has more traffic than #9?

Just my opinion of course

You are welcome.

Well, what could possible make people to scroll fast down? Oh wait, rubbish titles and descriptions of the top 5. Okay that's too much, who would put garbage to convert the precious top positions, right? Let's just say the top 5 shows incompetent or irrelevant metas, this could give a bonus to the 6-10th position.

And let's just say, yeah, sometimes people scroll down without reading the first few results, which means the least in the list is given more of the visibility when the surfer starts to scroll down, yet what makes people click the #10 over #9? By accident? No. People have read something that sounded good for them which made them click through. Who would click a link for no reason? They probably want something, which something might have been uniquely mentioned by any on the list.

Though ranking #1 will give a definite advantage, it doesn't mean you get all the traffic, rather it depends on how you handle the position. From my point of view, being listed in the first page, either #10 or #1, is like 3 feet from gold. If no one takes further steps, no one gets the full privilege of the gold. These steps were obviously given to any webmaster by Google as they allow webmasters to choose the page to rank for a keyword, title for a better click through and description for a greater conversion.

Originally Posted by John Williamson

Yea like Shane said, you can influence your potential visitors using your title tag and description tag which show up in the SERPs.

Thanks John.

[joan2009]

Do you think google keyword tool is enough for keyword research?

[hashbury]

Originally Posted by joan2009

Do you think google keyword tool is enough for keyword research?

You could get by just using the GKT, but most times it is handy to have another tool to help you get keywords that the GKT can not find.

If im looking for keywords related to adsense or even physical products I could probably get by on GKT, but anything really popular like some clickbank products I couldnt get by on GKT alone.