How Do You Search For Keywords and Competition Levels

I use google analytics for searching keywords and to find out if the competion is low, medium or high
I use this tool because it is free and it works
Yes it has helped me get on google's page one and it helped bring in sales

I think you will find different answers to this question from everyone. Keyword research is kind of like different flavors, everyone has their own taste. Some work great, others fail miserably... But I believe most are enough to generate some traffic.

I personally use multiple methods based on my niche. The constants are the Google Keyword tool and Market Samurai. I use the free Google keyword tool for the initial search to get a broad reach, then refine it as I need by tweaking the filters. Once I've got the results I'm looking for, I import them into Market Samurai to evaluate relevance and competition. Market Samurai is great for researching SEO competition. These are my two favorites.

Others I would recommend are Stealth Keyword Competition Analyzer and Keyword Optimizer Pro. I've found both can be useful at times.

A word of caution, keyword research is an art. You need to develop an eye for it and a knowledge of why people are searching for the terms you are researching. Try not to rely on results from a piece of software, try to dig a little deeper and find your target market needs. This will help you better understand the keywords and phrases your particular market is searching with and why.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Market samurai is pretty good. I recommend watching their training videos.

I use googles keyword tool initially also to get a feel for the number of searches and amount of keywords available in a particular group.

I then stick the keywords into google search with seo quake, get a general look at the PR of the top ten sites.

If all is still looking good, i'll stick the keywords in market samurai and analyze in "SEO Competition"

Before I decide to go ahead with a site, I'll have a look at the backlinks for the top 10 sites, see where there coming from, if they have high PR etc.

Brought me some decent enough success, im still a newbie but managed to get a couple of sites ranking well in the SERPS and just starting to see a little bit of money coming in, which is always nice!

All you need to use is the free Google keyword tool. You just need to make sure you find keywords at the end of the buying cycle like product name + review and such. With all the changes that are constantly made to the search engines, I don't worry about competition. I just focus on putting out relevant, quality material that offers value to the end user. That's the end goal of a search engine after all.

Good luck,
Joey

A very simple process.

I use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and then Market Samurai to check the competition.

Ignore the competition on Google Adwords, this is only the competition of the amount of people paying Google for the phrase in their Adwords campaign. Always check competition with a program like Market Samurai to determine what the other sites have going for them.

Hi there!

I use Google Adwords and SEO Quake to search to find competition levels and hot keywords that I can use. It's very effective and what's even great about it is that these tools are free. And yes, in my case, it has helped me bring in some money for my business.

Here are steps in using the two tools:

Step 1: Research keyword competitiveness.
(This step will help you establish if the keyword is easy or hard to compete against)

In this phase, you will need to work out the PR (pagerank)of a website so you might need to download SEO Quake (an add-on that will show you the PR (pagerank) when you do a google search).

-Find the average PR of the top 3 searched terms in your niche market. To find the top 3 searched terms, you need to go to Google Adwords Keyword External Tool (it's free).
-Make a "broad" search of the keyword that people will most likely use to find your site.
-Google will return the most popular relevant and related keyword searched based on that search term and list them in order of search volume - basically google will show you the top search terms for that product/niche.
-Get the top 3 searched terms based on the columns global and local monthly searches. Similar keywords should be eliminated due to the reason that keywords need to be unique.
-Open a firefox browser and turn on SEO plugin. SEO Quake works best with Firefox. This will help you get the PR of the website.
-Search the top three keywords you found. You'll get the results and underneath each link, you'll see an SEO Quake portion with a lot of numbers. Look for the PR section. PR's are ranked from 10-0, sometimes even n/a. 10 as highest and 0 as the lowest.
-Get the average of PR's of the top 10 sites. (i.e[1+10+4+5+2+1+7+6+3+2]/10 = 4.1 average PR) This is the average PR for the keyword you searched. I'll explain the significance of this in the next step.
-Search the next two keywords and do the same procedure.


Step 2: Find hot keywords

Again, as mentioned above, the right keywords can help increase traffic. That is why we're undergoing all these steps just to get the right keywords for your site. To find hot keywords there are two factors that you need to consider: Average PR and Monthly Searches.

Monthly search of 0-499 with an average PR of 0-1.9 = fair
Monthly search of 500-999 with an average PR of 2.0-2.5 = fair
Monthly search of 500-999 with an average PR of 0-1.9 = good
Monthly search of 1000-4999 with an average PR of 2.6-2.9 = fair
Monthly search of 1000-4999 with an average PR of 2.0-2.5 = good
Monthly search of 1000-4999 with an average PR of 0-1.9 = excellent
Monthly search of >5000 with an average PR of 3.0-3.5 = fair
Monthly search of >5000 with an average PR of 2.6-2.9 = good
Monthly search of >5000 with an average PR of 2.0-2.5 = excellent
Monthly search of >5000 with an average PR of 0-1.9 = JACKPOT

-To do this step, make sure you have the average PR of the top 3 keywords which was done above.
-Then go back to the Adwords keyword tool where you can find the number of monthly searches for a particular keyword.
-Use the data above to get the jackpot keyword.

As much as possible, go for the JACKPOT! These Jackpot keywords will make it easier to rank highly on google and therefore give you the traffic you need to make a sale. With good research you may event get the top spot on google! To put it simply, the lower the average page rank and the higher the monthly search then the better.

I do hope this will help you with your keyword research.

Best,
Nick

I use market samurai to access the first page of google for my keyword. I look if they are well optimized, ie. have the keyword in title, description etc, and if they have high quality backlinks.

Basically if I think I can build a better site, I will go for it.

I use several different tools and compare the results since they all have different criteria for assessing the competition.

If one tool says the keyword is easy and another says difficult i try to understand why.

Obviously if the keyword shows up as easy for all of the tools then it most likely is.

Google Keyword External Tool is good for you to check keyword competition and number of monthly searches. But for the paid ones, I would recommend Keyword Winner (for WP users), Market Samurai and SEO Spyglass.

With SEOmoz Pro you get a tool called 'Keyword Analyser' it brilliant! It returns you the top 10 websites along with their link metrics, On-Page SEO grade, what anchor text they are using and a LOT more!

It also gives an overall score of how difficult the keyword is to rank for.

I suggest giving it a try, at the moment they are offering a 30 Day free trial.

Ricky

Micro Niche Finder is great tool for low competition keywords.

I use SECockpit - Keyword Research and SEO Management Software. It is not cheap but it works very well for me. I also like Market Samurai but it takes a little longer how to figure out how to interpret their data.

My best IM tool is "Market Samurai"

Hi,

I use Micro Niche Finder to find good keywords, that have large monthly searches, with low competition.I then drill down these Keywords to find even better keywords, for me to use and pick .com domains!.The program also uses a strength of competition indicator (green-yellow and red) to show which short and long tail keywords are easy for you to rank for!.

Best regards

Phil

I use Google Analytic to find the relevant keyword for my site.I use it because its From Google And its Free.Everyone is using Google mostly to search for anything so i stick to this tool and find it pretty much effective in finding the competition on the keywords.

Check out Keyword Sniper Pro 2.0 from Jack Duncan - it'll show you tons of awesome long tail keywords you can target that the GAKT may not show. Definitely worth the investment.

Yes, Keyword sniper pro I am using. It takes a time some times but works well for searching long trail keywords.