Keyword Research Question

[Nightengale]

Hi Warriors,

Ok, I've been polishing my keyword research skills and have been reading related threads here.

But I'm having trouble with my keyword research for a particular project and I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or these really are the results.

This is for an offline project and one of the niches I'm researching is nutrition coaches.

First, I go to Google's External Keyword Tool and get these results:

1. Nutrition coach -- 2900 monthly searches
2. Nutrition coaching -- not enough data

and everything else is not enough data either.

If you just go to Google and start typing in "nutrition coach" you'll see some suggestions that others have obviously been searching and are popular searches:

1. nutrition coaches
2. nutrition network
3. nutrition jobs
4. nutrition certification

...etc.

Google's External Keyword Tool says 'Not enough data" for the term "nutrition coach marketing" and returns phrases like "nutrition centers" and "nutrition jobs" or "personal fitness trainers", keywords people are obviously typing in but not the coaches themselves. and obviously, putting something like "marketing" next to the target market isn't working since no one is searching that specific term. More specific terms like "Florida nutrition coach" say "not enough data."

Ok, the next obvious step is to find groups or associations which nutrition coaches belong to. There IS a "Nutrition Coach Network" which is perfect. Other combinations of "nutrition coach association" or "nutrition coach network" returns unrelated results or results for individual nutrition coaches.

I'm just not getting the results I'd like. It looks like the nutrition coaching market isn't as well organized as say, the fitness training or personal training markets. It's easier to find groups and associations for them.

Am I missing anything here? I think I've done my homework here, but I just want to double-check with you all.

Obviously, this would be for me if I were targeting nutrition coaches.

If I had a nutrition coach as a client, that would be a bit different.

"Nutrition coach" is search 2900 times a month Other related results say "Not enough data." Grrr!

However, other terms are searched more frequently:

1. "Nutrition" -- 13,600,000 (obviously too broad)
2. "Health coach' -- 27,100 (seems like a better term than "nutrition coach")
3. "Nutrition advice" -- 3,600
4. "Nutrition professional" -- 4,400

This is just an example, but for those Warriors doing projects or research for clients in specific niches with results like this, I thought I'd bring it up.

Is this research sufficient? Am I missing something?

If I had a nutrition coach as a client, I'm not sure I'd know how to proceed. It doesn't seem like there are many searched terms which would be appropriate. "Nutrition" is too broad -- we're looking for people who specifically want help and a want a nutrition coach. "Health coach" seems like a better term. And if I do a geo-specific term, like "Florida health coach" or "West Palm Beach health coach", forget it.

Obviously, there are tons of ways to drive traffic and get business from a Web site, not just SEO. But keyword research is still vital and with a niche like this, I'm not sure how to proceed.

And there are lots of different niches which would be similar. If you have a client in a niche like this with this type of keyword research results, what would you do? Am I missing something? Do I need to do something else?

I have Keyword Elite, but haven't used it much. Other than giving me more results from all of the major search engines, I don't see how it would do much more.

Thanks,
Michelle

[printrobin]

You can try WebCEO... its the version 8 thats out now... and Its completely free...

[TinkerAndPo]

Maybe because a nutrition coach is a nutritionist? Try nutritionist and see if that gives you more results.

[VoodooMethods]

Definitely check out the typo's on those keywords, I'm sure lots of people don't know how to spell them

Either way, go for long tail keywords. Like where to find a nutrition coach and try to get as many as possible. 800 Clicks a month is enough if your #1.. on 30 keywords!

Another way you could get more clicks would be to find a keyword thats answer would be a nutrition coach.


ORR!!

Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo

Maybe because a nutrition coach is a nutritionist? Try nutritionist and see if that gives you more results.

What she said

[TheGodfather]

it might just be the case that the search volume is just so low that google doesn't feel it's relevant to take note of... do an EXACT search on the phrase, see the number of results and try doing the allintitle type of search for that phrase... check out the results and based on it you'll see if the other phrases have any interest, also you can try using Wordtacker keyword suggestion tool... the free vesrion... it might shed some light on things... also i've been hearning some good things about SEOBook give them a shot they havea free service anyway..

good luck on your campaign...

[TinkerAndPo]

Definitely check out the typo's on those keywords

I have to disagree with this. If I happened upon a site that that had mis-spellings in the titles of the posts, I'd click away. That ruins any integrity you have as a well-written site.

[RentItNow]

I would focus more on WHY people need a nutrition coaches: Lose Weight, Diabetes (a huge reason).

I would also search the top 3 sites for each term you said and find more keywords they are using.

Lastly I would just put something up there and run Google Analytics to see what people are searching. I was completely surprised how most people came to my site. Would have never used it as keyword but it accounts for 75% of visitors and they are visitors that convert most.

[__internet__]

I got "nutrition coach" only getting 329 per month with Keyword Elite, so I don't know how you got 2900. You should look into using "nutrition facts" (32,676 searches per month) and "nutrition tips" (3171 searches per month) because it still is somewhat related.

[Cerberus]

Nutrition coaching - daily searches = 29 - seo comp= 306,000

[TinkerAndPo]

I would focus more on WHY people need a nutrition coaches: Lose Weight, Diabetes (a huge reason)

Good call on that...heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity...

[TinkerAndPo]

Also, healthy diet, healthy food, and all their variations.

[Nightengale]

Thanks for all of your help, guys! I so appreciate the suggestions.

Again, this is more or less just an example. I have some other niches which are similar.

Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo

Maybe because a nutrition coach is a nutritionist? Try nutritionist and see if that gives you more results.

BINGO!

1. Nutritionist -- 301,000 searches
2. Nutritionists -- 74,000 searches
3. Online nutritionist -- 4,400

MUCH better! Thanks for the suggestion! Maybe I'll have better luck finding them now (for ME).

Originally Posted by printrobin

You can try WebCEO... its the version 8 thats out now... and Its completely free...

Thanks, but I have Keyword Elite. I'm not looking for a tool per se. I'm trying to hone my keyword research skills and get a better understanding of keyword research.

Originally Posted by TheGodfather

... do an EXACT search on the phrase, see the number of results and try doing the allintitle type of search for that phrase... check out the results and based on it you'll see if the other phrases have any interest

Ok, will do an exact phrase search, but what's an allintitle search and how do I do it?

Originally Posted by RentItNow

I would focus more on WHY people need a nutrition coaches: Lose Weight, Diabetes (a huge reason).

Absolutely. I already knew this and have no problems with it. If I had a nutritionist who specialized in serving people with diabetes, I'd definitely target diabetes-related terms (or any other specific nutrition sub-market). No problems there. I've just been having a problem with the other parts of it that I've mentioned. Good point, though.

Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo

Good call on that...heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity...

Yep, yep, yep.

Great responses, everyone. That was very helpful. Thanks!

Michelle

[TheGodfather]

when you type in google:
allintitle: "your keyword phrase here"

then you get all the pages that are SEO'ed to that keyword phrase and have it in their title. That will show you how much ACTUAL competition you have... the ones that are taking steps to get higher rankings for that keyword phrase...

by the amount of competition you can see how "prosperous" a phrase is...

unless but then again... it all comes down to this: KNOW YOUR MARKET

[Matt M]

Check out Quintra Search. Look at the tag cloud showing related terms. Might give you some ideas.

Quintura - visual search engine

[Shaka]

How about separating your search term into two categories and searching for synonyms.

For example for nutrition you might search:
Dietitian
Health food
Healthy diet
Healthy eating, etc.

For coach how about searching:
Mentor
Advisor
Teacher
Trainer, etc.

Hope this helps

[rtrotter]

Michelle,

If you search in Google for nutrition coach and then click "Show Options" then on the left nav menu that comes up click Wonder Wheel, it shows these related terms:

body composition
registered dietitian
blood sugar levels

then if you click registered dietitian it returns

nutritionist training
nutritionist income
registered dietitian salary
...
...

and you can just keep drilling down. It's a good way to find core terms that can be expanded.

Also in that left nav menu is a link name Forums and that will return forums. And you can get a lot more ideas by clicking "related searches" in that menu.

Rodney

[xc-mikey]

You may want to check out the meta tags that your competitors are using when you google nutrition coach.

Meta tags are found by by going to view and look for source or page source. It will open a text file. A few lines down you'll the word 'keywords'. If you scroll across that line, you'll see all the keywords that website is using. Not every website will have this, but most do.

[Nightengale]

Again, thanks for all of the comments. They've been enormously helpful!

Michelle