Can we talk about keyword research? Or am I doing this right?

[Deanna Taber]

Hi all,

I'm posting this because I want to make sure I am doing keyword research the correct way.

Here is how I do keyword research.

Starting from already having the niche.

I use Google adwords keyword tool. Type in my keyword. The list of keywords come's back.

Using match type "broad.

Then I find a keyword that has relatively low numbers under "Local Search Volume."

Open tabbed browser and type that term into Google with quotes.

See if there are 50,000 or below websites with that exact match.

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Anyway that is how I have been doing keyword research. Now I have questions.

1) Is that a correct way to do keyword research for both articles and websites?

I create auto-blogs occasionally using Wordpress. Because content is obtained via an rss feed, I find it difficult to do keyword research in a way.

I mean you could break the blog up into categories or pages and name each one (one of your long-tail keywords) and add certain beneficial keywords to your seo plug-in (platinum seo). But when you pull in content with none of the keywords in the titles of articles- would this hurt your ranking? Or would it even matter?


I would appreciate anyone chiming in here, as I almost feel like keyword research may be "the be end and end all to IM"

[tommygunn]

Well, I don't think there is a "correct way". It takes a little intuition and trial and error.

If your looking to know for sure which keywords have traffic, the only way I know, to tell for sure, is setting up the keyword on adwords -content network -search partners. Check the impressions after the ad ran for a day.

As far as competition, there can be 1,000,000,000 sites with that exact keyword, and none of them are really targeting that keyword. So my suggestion is to look at the top 10 in the results, see how many back links, keyword in title/body. ect.

It sounds like your pulling content from RSS feeds, making it duplicate content? I wouldn't anticipate doing to well in SE's, as duplicate content is ranked lower.

My opinion is keyword research IS the only way to dominate SE's, not necessarily I.M..

[netkid]

Hey Taberdude,

You almost got it right. What many niche ebooks state is that you look for roughly 50,000 of "references" to the niche keyword or keyword phrase. When you do a search in Google search box, it gives you all the references to that word or phrase, not the number of websites.

To get the number of websites, reinsert the keyword/phrase in quotation marks. (for Google only) That would give you the approximate number of competing websites for that word or phrase. You want a fairly low number of those sites, like maybe under 1,000. That would give you a very good shot at getting on page one of Google if you decide to put up a competing website with that keyword or phrase.

Hope that helps,

Bruce

[JamesRad]

Another way of looking to see what websites are using the keyword phrase is to use the intitle: search for instance:-

intitles3 downloadable games

this will return searches with the keyword phrase in the title of the webpage.

or more accurate:-

intitle:"ps3 downloadable games"

the quotes will only show the sites with the exact software.

This can take alot of your time up and I would suggest purchasing some good quality software that returns all these searches for you.

Not sure how you will rank for your site if its auto content but you could try setting the Blog Title and if possible post titles to your Keyword Phrase.

James

[artwebster]

All you need to remember is that key word research is like being a fortune teller - you are trying to predict what people will be searching for and the words they will use to search with.
There is no proper way of being a fortune teller - it's all intuitive.