Keyword Research - *Secrets Revealed*

Threads occasionally come up with people asking how to do keyword research, the difference between broad, phrase, and exact, etc. I have come today to share with you my strategy to finding some worthwhile domains. When I say "worthwhile" I meant that these domains and keywords should get sales very quickly (within a week or two) and require very little work. The following is a step by step plan of my strategy. It's far from the only strategy you can use to find great keywords and domains. This strategy focuses mainly on finding keywords for making physical product affiliate websites. They can also be used for Adsense, if you are lucky enough to find a high CPC.

Step 1 - Finding Some Keywords

Head over to Google.com. And, instead of searching for something, click on the "Shopping" tab at the top.

After getting there, you will be presented with a list of keywords THAT PEOPLE ARE LOOKING TO BUY. EXCELLENT!



Step 2 - Picking Products

This is where common sense is going to start to come into play (difficult, I know). You have to try and pick products that are small and likely to be bought online. Here are a few guidelines I try to follow:

NO Brand Names
NO "Big" Products (Refrigerator, Washer and Dryer, etc.)
NO "Worthless" Items (Staples, pens, hair band, things that cost under $20)

From the above screenshot, I would pick the following keywords:
Flashlight, heater, bath pillow, bird cage, windbrella, ninja costume

Step 3 - Google Keyword Tool

Search for "Google Keyword Tool" on Google and click on the first link. After that, sign in with your Adwords account to make sure that you get the maximum number of keywords (800).

Now, you want to enter all of the keywords that you just found onto separate lines. I usually enter no more than 5 at a time.

On the left hand side of the screen, you will see the terms Broad, Phrase, and Exact. Uncheck Broad and then select Exact. (This will be explained further down). Then, sort the keywords by "Local Monthly Searches" so that the most searched keyword is at the top.

After that, click on Download and then open the CSV with Excel.

Step 4 - Bulk Domain Checker

Open up a bulk domain searcher, I use GoDaddy's - Special Bulk Pricing on low cost domain names. (NOTE: I have heard about GoDaddy "stealing" people's domains but I have never had a problem with it). After you open your list of keywords in Excel, copy all the keywords greater than 1000 Local Monthly Searches. You can use whatever cut off you want, but I have chosen 1000 as my point. Now, you just have to paste all of those keywords in the domain searcher (Yes, you can keep the brackets). Select whatever domain extensions you would like and then click search (Personally I use .com, .net, .org). After a minute or so, you will be left with a list of available domains (hopefully).


Step 5 - Checking Competition

Now that you have a list of good keywords, you need to check them for the competition. I usually use Market Samurai to check the information about the 10 ten sites in Google for each keyword. The only thing that I look for is number of backlinks and PR. I know I should have most of the domains already beat because of my exact domain match. I look for sites with under 200 backlinks and a PR of 3. After that, I purchase all of the domains

FAQ

What is the difference between broad, phrase, and exact?
We will use the keyword "yellow shoes" as the example.

Broad is anything that includes both the words "yellow" and "shoes". This would include someone searching for "shoes that are yellow"

Phrase is anything that includes "yellow shoes" consecutively. An example would be "yellow shoes for parties"

Exact means only when someone searches "yellow shoes" and nothing else.

What is the difference between Global Monthly and Local Monthly?

Global Monthly = The amount of searches for that keyword in all languages and locations of the world.

Local Monthly = People only in your country searching in your language.

Does domain extension matter?
Personally, I think it has an effect on SEO. But, there are numerous sources that claim that it does not matter. I am not here to argue, just stating my opinion.