I Was Teaching My 76 Year Old Dad About Keyword Reasearch & He Asked The Following Question...

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Right let me set the scene first.

I decided to jump in and test a new niche. I have noticed a few new products in this niche over the last 6 weeks and wanted to write a few articles and see what happened.

So i started some keyword research just using Google's Keyword Tool and noticed that a lot of the keywords had an average of about 60-70 searches a month (a bit crap!), however for April most of them had in excess of 2000 searches. So a huge rise in searches.

So my dad being the inquisitive soul that he is, asked what i was doing today! So i explained and said that i was fairly excited as i had found around 50 low competition keywords (less than 4000 competing sites for the majority) with a high search volume (between 2000 - 9900 for April, but much much less on average).

Then my dad asked the following question -

"Do you think it's possible that these keywords are not actually being searched for by potential customers or buyers. But they are infact just being searched for by 1000s of IMers who are completing research just like you?"

I couldn't actually answer him! (smart old git!!!)

But he got me thinking. I would think a large number of IMers would check the competition of certain keywords by simply go to google search and typing the phrase in(" ").

Do you think this is why we sometimes get some highly inflated search results for the previous month compared to the average number of searches?
#main internet marketing discussion forum #asked #dad #keyword #question #reasearch #teaching #year
  • thats probably a good assumption.

    with so many of us researching keywords, its a safe bet that the numbers have to be a bit inflated by us
  • I wouldn't think so. Though there are plenty of IMers out there, they are but a drop in the bucket compared to the average Joe Googler. The odds of that many internet marketers researching the same keywords as you are pretty slim. The exception, of course, would be keywords directly related to internet marketing/making money online etc.
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    • Yep, i see your point and that was always my way of thinking!

      It is a non-IM niche, however one of the "newest" products introduced in April was actually written by a very well known and respected warrior.

      This actually formed part of a WSO and from what i can see there have been around about 200 sales of that WSO!

      So for a keyword phrase to have an average monthly search of 60 then jump to 2000 in April, after a related WSO has sold at least 200 copies.

      Hmmm...Coincidence?

      Cheers
      Partha
    • I think Dad is pretty clever to pounce on this straight away. Have to dispute with you though as having just completed a course on getting traffic, whch must have had hundreds of IMers on board, we were all researching keywords during those months which must have pushed up the numbers. Of course the odds of doing the same keywords are a bit slim, spose it could happen.

      Give them a couple of mor months to see if they go back to normal

      Norma
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      • [2] replies
  • I think your dad may be on to something. I love this story because like you, I have a father that knows nothing about the internet, but very often helps me to think outside of my own box. My father has helped me to come up w/ several money making products.

    We often times overlook the wisdom of those around us, because we think that they're too old to know about the technology that we work with. However true wisdom works for all mediums. I hope that when I'm an old man that my son isn't too hip to come to me for advice. Great story!
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  • At least with articles and SEO it's pretty much free traffic. Watch out when you do PPC as this will also happen, waste of clicks.

    But I can tell you this, yes, a percentage of those searches are from people doing keyword research or simply looking at the competition.

    Nevertheless, the largest % of them are still potential buyers, especially outside the IM niche.
  • I never trusted Overture for your dad's reason but I do think that outside IM, I can use G's keyword tool with only a slight grain of salt.
  • interesting point, thanks for sharing!

    And yeah i mean the amount of IMers vs. an average joe is very slim. Amongs everyone I know personally, and that's a surprising amount of people when you really look at it - 3 of them other than myself are aimed at Internet stuff. One is all about SEO. Me and two others are more varied.

    So really - getting down to it, don't let that possibility stop you! If you've come across something that appears o have great potential, don't sit back and wait to see if that potential is real. GRAB IT AND GO!

    I appreciate your dads thoughts, but at the same time if it IS inflated because of others seeing the possibility of that potential then go out there and be the best amongst them.
  • I tend to agree with the crowd. Marketers wouldn't make that much of a difference. Are your keywords holiday related, event related...something else that could cause the rise?

    Sounds like you may have a winner...only one way to find out.

    Good Luck!
  • He is very correct! Great post and you have a very clever dad!
  • errrmmmm, hate to burst a few bubbles here, but searches on the Google external
    keyword tool don't show the true search volumes of keywords. They just show the
    traffic that's been purchased by Adwords users, organic traffic is likely to be higher.

    In addition to this, is it possible that it's a seasonal niche? The mention of the niche
    in a news story will often give a search spike, and Hot Niche hunters will exploit it for
    a few weeks.

    HTH

    Glenn
  • There is a piece of software, and i saw a screenshot of it here once, that not only showed you what keywords were being searched, but what keywords were being clicked. Anyone know what software i might be talking about?

    That would probably be the difference between im'ers searching and just organic searches. We're not clicking, just searching
  • I've often wondered how much of my traffic is coming from "the competition," especially since my CTR is basically zero.
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    • Many niches will have sharp spikes due to them being newsworthy and attracting a lot of publicity.

      For instance, if you have websites about Britney Spears or Paris Hilton and the media gets into a lather about their activities, you can be sure of a spike in traffic. However, those visitors are lookers, not buyers, and the increased traffic can be enormous.

      Other newsworthy topics - global warming, etc - also have sharp spikes when the media seizes on an issue.

      If you are using PPC, this surge can quickly drain your budget, with little recompense.

      Ivan
  • My wife does this kind of thing to me all the time. Knows nothing about IM but will get right to the heart of the matter in a way that I don't seem to notice.

    It makes me feel stupid but it's invaluable.
  • Heh, I ran across this topic a few months back, I think it was in the Stompernet guys STSE2 package, and one of the speakers was saying how we do need to be careful of the traffic numbers for lower volume words because of that very thing - IM'ers bumping up the totals while doing niche research.

    It's just a factor to keep in mind. When all is said and done, Testing Is King.
  • An excellent question, trust a non expert to spot it! I totally agree that these could be inaccurate results
  • I'm thinking that's where the free-to-use commercial intention tool would come in... Regardless of the volume of searches, the percentage of those searches that actually result in a purchase helps distinguish between who's buying and who's just looking.

    I recommend you filter your keywords by the search volume first, and then verify their commercial intent (pay attention- sometimes you will see "non-commercial intent" as well).
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