Keyword Research Tip

A common question I see around here is how to find good keywords. I'm going to share one of my methods. While this method doesn't identify exact keywords, you can use it to figure out the metrics you need to be looking at to determine if a keyword has good potential.

1. Go to Flippa.com. This is a website/domain auction web site.

2. Go to the Just Sold link and look through website that have recently sold. Look for exact match domain names that are advertised as earning Adsense income. Look for those sites that list revenue. Some listings hide the domain, but many don't. Make a list of keywords based off the domain name.

3. Search in Google for the keywords. Make a list of those sites that rank well (top 5) for their key phrase.

4. Go to the Adwords Keyword Tool and check out the volume for these key phrases.

5. Visit the sites. You'll see many (if not most) of them are niche sites earning through Adsense. You can see formating and ad placement, read the content, etc.

6. Go to siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com and check the backlinks for the domain

By dong the above you can reverse engineer EXACTELY how a niche Adsense/affiliate site is built. You know the keyword phrase, the search volume, how much the site sold for, how much revenue it claimed to make, what the content reads like, how the site is laid how, how it's SEOd, how many backlinks and from where... everything you need to know to go out and do the SAME THING YOURSELF.

Example:

• StrideriteCoupons.org
• Ranks #2 in Google for broad search on 'striderite coupons'
• 'striderite coupons' had Adwords Keyword Tool broad search local volume of 22,000 per month.
• The site only has 1 page of real content (the rest of the pages are contact, privacy, terms, etc).
  • Adsense at the top
  • ShoeBuy.com coupon links through CommissionJunction
  • About 400 words of content
  • Keyword bolded 1 time
  • Actual link to Striderite.com site
  • Link back to itself using "striderite coupons" as keyword link
• SiteExplorer show 28 inbound links
  • Blog comments
  • Forum profiles
  • Web 2.0 profiles

This site, established in November 2010 (so it's 4-5 months old) claimed $770 a month in revenue and sold for $11,250.

And now you know EXACTELY what the the owner did to build it.