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Strategy for keywords

by angelah
22 replies
What do you do if you really want to create a website about a certain topic/niche, but you're not finding any low competing keywords?

Is there any strategies you have for finding the long tail keywords in a highly competetive niche?

Thanks!
Angela
#keywords #strategy
  • Profile picture of the author printrobin
    Use google's keyword analyzer and you can c what is the best keyword. Then select your niche.
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    • Profile picture of the author DeePower
      Weddings is a very competitive niche, but I was able to get my site on the first page of google first place through using the phrase *weddings on a shoestring budget* and first page for *weddings on a budget.* These are not low competition phrases. the url doesn't even have wedding in it its insidesecretstoventurecapital.com Weddings On A Shoestring Budget

      The trick is not just finding low competition keyword phrases but how you use the phrase. I use it in the meta tag description and title, In the first heading on the page and a couple of time through out the page.

      I also wrote about 10 articles linking to the site using weddings on a shoestring budget as the text link.

      Then set up a series of social profiling sites such as squidoo, xanga, weebly, etc, using the weddings on a shoestring budget as the text link.

      Socially bookmarked the homepage and several of the inner pages.

      There you have it.

      Dee
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      • Profile picture of the author angelah
        Originally Posted by DeePower View Post

        Weddings is a very competitive niche, but I was able to get my site on the first page of google first place through using the phrase *weddings on a shoestring budget* and first page for *weddings on a budget.* These are not low competition phrases. the url doesn't even have wedding in it its insidesecretstoventurecapital.com Weddings On A Shoestring Budget

        Wonderful information -Thank you!!

        I'm still in the learning process so I had an additional question for you regarding this strategy. How many number of searches do you look for with each of these phrases you use? For example, when you decided to use the phrase "weddings on a shoestring budget", how many searches per month did that phrase have?
        There are some possible phrases for the niche I'm interested in, but there doesn't seem to be many searches for the phrases so I'm wondering how successful/profitable it would be to use them? What should be the number of searches I look for to determine if I should target the phrase?
        Thanks!
        Angela
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  • Profile picture of the author thegoddessofeleven
    Use the Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

    Look for at least 100 searches a day (3000 a month).

    To analyze a keyword phrase, take the number of monthly searches the keyphrase has, divide it by the number of competing websites, and then multiply the result by the number of monthly searches again. If the result is greater than 100, you have a winner.

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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
      Originally Posted by thegoddessofeleven View Post

      Use the Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

      Look for at least 100 searches a day (3000 a month).

      To analyze a keyword phrase, take the number of monthly searches the keyphrase has, divide it by the number of competing websites, and then multiply the result by the number of monthly searches again. If the result is greater than 100, you have a winner.
      Huh? What does the number of competing Web sites have to do with anything? I don't follow this line of thinking at all.
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      • Profile picture of the author Bondtana
        To analyze a keyword phrase, take the number of monthly searches the keyphrase has, divide it by the number of competing websites, and then multiply the result by the number of monthly searches again. If the result is greater than 100, you have a winner.
        How can you find out the # of competing websites?
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        • Profile picture of the author thegoddessofeleven
          Originally Posted by Bondtana View Post

          How can you find out the # of competing websites?
          Go to Google and type in the keyphrase in quotes. If your keyphrase is:

          easy ways to teach your dog tricks

          Go to Google and search for:

          "easy ways to teach your dog tricks"

          The number of websites returned is listed on the right hand side of the screen.

          i.e.
          Results 1 - 8 of 8 for "easy ways to teach your dog tricks". (0.73 seconds)

          This is a count of all the sites Google found that are using your exact keyphrase, and is the number of websites you're competing with. In this case, you'd be competing with 8 sites.
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      • Profile picture of the author thegoddessofeleven
        Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

        Huh? What does the number of competing Web sites have to do with anything? I don't follow this line of thinking at all.
        It plays into the ratio. If you have 3000 searches a month for a particular keyphrase and 120 websites competing for that keyphrase, you've struck gold. If you have 3000 searches a month and 100,000 competing websites, you might want to try a different keyphrase.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
          Originally Posted by thegoddessofeleven View Post

          It plays into the ratio. If you have 3000 searches a month for a particular keyphrase and 120 websites competing for that keyphrase, you've struck gold. If you have 3000 searches a month and 100,000 competing websites, you might want to try a different keyphrase.
          Ratio? Why would anyone care about a ratio? It doesn't make any sense, I'm afraid. Not in the real world, anyhow. That ratio is completely meaningless, for a number of very big reasons.

          First, it doesn't consider page strength for page one organic results. You can't declare ANY keyword phrase a winner until you know every single site on page one of Google. The "ratio" in itself cannot identify winner.

          Second, the greatest possible number of pages you have to worry about is 1,000 at the very most. I don't care if there are 10,000 or 10,000,000 pages. One thousand is the limit. Therefore, you would always be dividing by 1,000 to get this "ratio" based on actual Google organic results.

          Third, you'll be trying to outrank pages, not sites.

          Fourth, Google page one is the actual competition. That's where the traffic is, that's what you need to be targeting, so in reality only about 10 pages really matter when evaluating a keyword.

          Fifth, on their own the search volumes produced by the Google KW Tool aren't accurate AT ALL for organic search results.

          I'm sorry and with all due respect, I cannot agree that such a ratio is at all truly useful. In fact, it's as useless as searching for your keyword phrase in quotes to "find out how many competitors you have". Again, that count is meaningless.
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          • Profile picture of the author thegoddessofeleven
            Excellent points. This flies in the face of the way every system I've ever bought has taught me to do keyword research, but it makes perfect sense.


            Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

            Ratio? Why would anyone care about a ratio? It doesn't make any sense, I'm afraid. Not in the real world, anyhow. That ratio is completely meaningless, for a number of very big reasons.

            First, it doesn't consider page strength for page one organic results. You can't declare ANY keyword phrase a winner until you know every single site on page one of Google. The "ratio" in itself cannot identify winner.

            Second, the greatest possible number of pages you have to worry about is 1,000 at the very most. I don't care if there are 10,000 or 10,000,000 pages. One thousand is the limit. Therefore, you would always be dividing by 1,000 to get this "ratio" based on actual Google organic results.

            Third, you'll be trying to outrank pages, not sites.

            Fourth, Google page one is the actual competition. That's where the traffic is, that's what you need to be targeting, so in reality only about 10 pages really matter when evaluating a keyword.

            Fifth, on their own the search volumes produced by the Google KW Tool aren't accurate AT ALL for organic search results.

            I'm sorry and with all due respect, I cannot agree that such a ratio is at all truly useful. In fact, it's as useless as searching for your keyword phrase in quotes to "find out how many competitors you have". Again, that count is meaningless.
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            • Profile picture of the author halfpoint
              I have to agree with Steven.

              Personally, I filter keywords with more than 6000 results when using the "allintitle" command and then look at the top 5 results manually and see how well optimized they are. If I think I can out optimize them, then I go for it.

              Even still, by filtering out all keywords with more than 6000 competing pages with the "allintitle" command I probably am missing out on some good keywords, however, this has proven to be the most efficient method for me at the moment.
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              • Profile picture of the author angelah
                Originally Posted by Pat Jackson View Post

                I have to agree with Steven.

                Personally, I filter keywords with more than 6000 results when using the "allintitle" command and then look at the top 5 results manually and see how well optimized they are. If I think I can out optimize them, then I go for it.

                Even still, by filtering out all keywords with more than 6000 competing pages with the "allintitle" command I probably am missing out on some good keywords, however, this has proven to be the most efficient method for me at the moment.
                Hi Pat,

                Since I'm new to this strategy, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
                So when you use the "allintitle" command on your potential keywords, you focus on the keywords that have less than 6,000 competing pages (with "allintitle" command). And any keywords with more than 6,000 competing pages you discard - is this correct?

                Thanks
                Angela
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                • Profile picture of the author halfpoint
                  Yep, you got it. I use Market Samurai to do this automatically.

                  As I said, I probably still am missing out on some good keywords by doing this, but I find that if I cut it off at 6000 most of the keywords that are left have websites ranking that can be out optimized.
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            • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
              Originally Posted by thegoddessofeleven View Post

              Excellent points. This flies in the face of the way every system I've ever bought has taught me to do keyword research, but it makes perfect sense.
              You've got a lot of people "selling" recycled and ineffective advice, just to make a buck. What I say makes sense, because it's proven, accurate, tested, and effective.
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  • Profile picture of the author Suzanne Morrison
    Steven,

    I do agree with you that you are only really need to worry about beating these web pages on the first page of results... BUT if you are doing a LOT of keyword research, the total number of competing pages gives you a very rough indication of the sort of competition that you will face.

    Of course, it is not as accurate and thorough as individually analysing the page one competition and looking at how well they are optimized and what sort of backlinks they have, but if you need to make a decision based on a list of keywords, looking at the total number of competing pages is a good way to narrow it down and I have found that this has worked really well for me over the years.

    An example of a keyword research tool that uses this very method to help you choose your keywords is Wordtracker (with its KEI).

    Cheers,
    Suzanne
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
      Before I reply, let me say that no disrespect is intended, but my experience over the past 15 years tells me that this whole thought process is completely off the mark.

      Originally Posted by Suzanne Morrison View Post

      I do agree with you that you are only really need to worry about beating these web pages on the first page of results... BUT if you are doing a LOT of keyword research, the total number of competing pages gives you a very rough indication of the sort of competition that you will face.
      I understand the idea behind it, but I'm sorry, Suzanne -- that information is essentially useless for serious keyword research. It doesn't actually identify my competition. All it identifies is a bunch of Web pages that come up for a certain keyword search. That IS NOT competition.

      A better thing to look for would be a search using the allintitle operator. At least that would give you an idea of pages that are at least possibly optimizing for a keyword phrase. Still, that's also of very little use.

      Originally Posted by Suzanne Morrison View Post

      Of course, it is not as accurate and thorough as individually analysing the page one competition and looking at how well they are optimized and what sort of backlinks they have, but if you need to make a decision based on a list of keywords, looking at the total number of competing pages is a good way to narrow it down and I have found that this has worked really well for me over the years.
      I cannot agree that this is a good way to narrow it down. Let's say you have two keyword phrase possibilities.

      - For phrase one there are 11,800 pages "competing" for a keyword phrase, and on the first ten results at Google are two entries for the manufacturer's pages, then two for Amazon, then Google shopping, then the rest are PR7 sites.

      - For phrase two there are 2,946,000 pages out there "competing" for a keyword and every one of the pages on the front of Google are PR2, PR1, or PR0 with no Amazon or Google in sight.

      Which are you going to want to go after? In that case, how does the "ratio" help "narrow down" your winning keyword phrase? All it does is narrow you RIGHT OUT of a potential profitable keyword phrase because you rejected it solely on the basis of having 3 million "competitors" -- which aren't really your competitors at all.

      Originally Posted by Suzanne Morrison View Post

      An example of a keyword research tool that uses this very method to help you choose your keywords is Wordtracker (with its KEI).
      Years ago I subscribed to Wordtracker but I dumped it. Their numbers just aren't that useful, or accurate.
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      • Profile picture of the author kurt naulaerts
        Exactly, you don't need any paid kw tool. Just use the Google external kw tool to find the keywords you would like to rank for, look for competition by analyzing top 10/top20 sites on Google for your keywords by making use of SeoQuake for Firefox addon, and you know immediately what to do.

        One more thing you can do is check commercial intent on adlab.microsoft.com




        Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post


        I cannot agree that this is a good way to narrow it down. Let's say you have two keyword phrase possibilities.

        - For phrase one there are 11,800 pages "competing" for a keyword phrase, and on the first ten results at Google are two entries for the manufacturer's pages, then two for Amazon, then Google shopping, then the rest are PR7 sites.

        - For phrase two there are 2,946,000 pages out there "competing" for a keyword and every one of the pages on the front of Google are PR2, PR1, or PR0 with no Amazon or Google in sight.

        Which are you going to want to go after? In that case, how does the "ratio" help "narrow down" your winning keyword phrase? All it does is narrow you RIGHT OUT of a potential profitable keyword phrase because you rejected it solely on the basis of having 3 million "competitors" -- which aren't really your competitors at all.



        Years ago I subscribed to Wordtracker but I dumped it. Their numbers just aren't that useful, or accurate.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
          Originally Posted by kurt naulaerts View Post

          Exactly, you don't need any paid kw tool. Just use the Google external kw tool to find the keywords you would like to rank for, look for competition by analyzing top 10/top20 sites on Google for your keywords by making use of SeoQuake for Firefox addon, and you know immediately what to do.

          One more thing you can do is check commercial intent on adlab.microsoft.com
          Yep, solid process. That's all you need to do. The only commercial tool I use regularly is MNF. "Competing" site ratios don't paint a useful picture at all, though I know many people have taught that old line. It's just like the old "quotes or no quotes" nonsense.

          Glad you mentioned the adlab tool, I use it regularly on its own and through MNF.
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      • Profile picture of the author angelah
        Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

        - For phrase one there are 11,800 pages "competing" for a keyword phrase, and on the first ten results at Google are two entries for the manufacturer's pages, then two for Amazon, then Google shopping, then the rest are PR7 sites.

        - For phrase two there are 2,946,000 pages out there "competing" for a keyword and every one of the pages on the front of Google are PR2, PR1, or PR0 with no Amazon or Google in sight.

        Which are you going to want to go after? In that case, how does the "ratio" help "narrow down" your winning keyword phrase? All it does is narrow you RIGHT OUT of a potential profitable keyword phrase because you rejected it solely on the basis of having 3 million "competitors" -- which aren't really your competitors at all.
        This is very useful. Thank you. This is a new strategy for me. I've only been looking at the competing pages vs. the searches.
        I never really thought to analyze the content of each website on the first page of Google.
        Thanks.
        Angela
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  • Profile picture of the author mike52683
    Once I identify the keywords I think might be winners (using the process thegoddessofeleven mentions) then I use this free keyword tool:

    Keyword Difficulty Check Tool - SEO Logs

    Any keyword that has a difficulty score under 40 seems to work for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
    Hey Angela!

    I recently posted about doing keyword research a little differently than the norm. Check it out and I think you'll find it to be eye-opening on how easy it can really be....But it takes a little creativity. Here's the link:

    Keyword Research 2.0
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetMarketingIQ
    You develop a marketing plan that does not rely on Organic Search. And you need to consider that as big as Google is in Search there is still plenty of money to be made without them. It's just a nice bonus when you rank in Google. I have sites that do very well in Google and sites that don't do so well. I have a site that has 2,000 plus keyword phrases ranked in Google (It's been around a very long time) and is not in the top 3 for any of them... but it does get a lot of traffic from the top 5-50. People searching long tail tend to do a lot of digging. But you really have to decide if it is worth all your effort to compete so hard for Organic Search in competitive niches.
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