Keyword Research , Could I Be Wrong ?

There's a more compelling reason that many teachers of keyword research hand out these rules...

Their students demand them.

If you try to explain that there are several different ways to tell if something is "too competitive", they get that deer in the headlights look and you are driving the oncoming van.

But if you say something like "put the keyword in quotes and do a search - if the number of results is below X, go for it and if it's higher, skip it" they're happy.

If they have an ounce of brains and ambition, they'll keep at it until it starts to sink in that there may be exceptions to the rules.

Here's how I did it - by talking about performing ferrets.
http://TheInternetBloke.com/Keywords.pdf
(No signup, obstacle course, or pint of blood needed)

Perhaps it may give you some ideas.

cheers,
Eric G.

That is why I have pretty much went to search terms my research shows I can compete for with no less than 1000 estimated searches a day .

Think about getting a paid link from Yahoo. Google loves it . Might be what puts you over the top.

Just remember , going with Matt's numbers is giving around 6 visitors a day .

Thats why I go for 1000 min. Although for my sites . Number one spot for 1000 estimated a day usually pans out to around 330 a day .

Eric I hear you but you and I know that most of the people here at the forum are selling products between $17 and $47.

Then they are told to go for 3000 searches a month so it comes out to 100 a day.

But most people here are NOT told about user search data.

Not everyone who types in a search term (keyword) and hits the "Search" button go on to click on any of the site links that come up.

There is a percentage of people that realize that they made a mistake, or the phone rings, or any number of other reasons to stop them from continuing with that search.

So the "Monthly Search Volume" will show you a number but there is around 4% - 8% that never continue their search. So you need to subtract those from the monthly totals.

Just to be safe, I deduct 10%.

Then out of the 90% that actually click on a link at the search results page almost another 12% turn to the second page of the results.

Of the 78% that click on the front page, 70% of the clicks go to the top three listings and the rest trickle down the remaining 7 spots out of the 10 on the front page.

That is around 8% that 7 people are competing for. If your site description was like a "killer headline" and got half of those people, you are still only talking about 4%. It is safer to think of 2%.

Now you can see that it is ridiculous to expect to get 100 hits a day from a term that gets around 3000 searches a month.

Try to think of your site getting 2% of the search numbers when you do your keyword research and you will not be disappointed and surprised when your visitors start showing up.

These numbers are rough estimates based on information found on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) sites throughout the web. Overall search numbers are constantly changing and if you want to learn more about this you can do a search for Search Data, User Search Data, and similar searches.

But remember that no matter how much the data changes from month to month, you will never get 100% of the searches.

So 2% of 3000 is 60 a month. Not all 60 are going to buy because the industry average for sales page conversions is around 2%. But most of the crappy Clickbank products barely convert at 1%.

So around a sale a month would be good for some of these people.

This is why everyone is coming in here and crying that they are not making any sales.

Everyone has this fantasy that all 3000 people are going straight to their site and all 3000 are supposed to buy so we keep hearing the newbie cry "dude, where's my money"?