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Am I performing keyword research correctly?

by TheChallenge
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi Guys,

I have already picked a market that I would like to work within that allows for branching out and I have found a sub niche that I want to begin with to build authority.

I have also found a 6 word long tail keyword for that first sub niche that:
Receives 1900 average monthly searches
CPC of $3.80

If I search exact terms ("") I get results that are all N/A PR, 0 backlinks and DA/PA between 20 and 60 except one that is 4 PR and <50 backlinks but low authority.

If I search without "" I get results that have PR3 and PR4, good DA/PA.


My question is am I approaching this in the correct way or am I misunderstanding some fundamentals around keyword research and should I assess the competition in google using "" or without?


Thanks in advance for reading.
#correctly #keyword #performing #research
  • Profile picture of the author dougp
    When you do a broad search then Google will return any result that has those keywords in it which is not always an accurate indicator. Keyword research should not be done in a couple of minutes, I would recommend observing the top 10 sites that appear for that keyword because that's who you will be competing with. Are they making low, middle, and high income? What is their link profile like in Google? Are they a small company (one-man army) or large one (10 full time employees). Observing your competition will help clear up a lot of the smog surrounding those keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheChallenge
      Originally Posted by dougp View Post

      When you do a broad search then Google will return any result that has those keywords in it which is not always an accurate indicator. Keyword research should not be done in a couple of minutes, I would recommend observing the top 10 sites that appear for that keyword because that's who you will be competing with. Are they making low, middle, and high income? What is their link profile like in Google? Are they a small company (one-man army) or large one (10 full time employees). Observing your competition will help clear up a lot of the smog surrounding those keywords.
      I don't think I could complete keyword research in a few minutes if I tried, takes me well over an hour to come up with a list of long tails to look deeper into! haha

      Most of that research I will be completing however it comes down to whether I should be assessing the competition using exact match ("") or not as I have different competitors dependent on which method is correct.

      But if I understood correctly, you are saying to use exact term rather than broad term? aka with quotes rather than without.

      Also how would I go about knowing my competitors income? that's not something I've seen mentioned before.
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      • Profile picture of the author dougp
        If you were spending money on PPC, would you target a broad keyword, or would you want exact matches?

        Once you answer that question apply the same philosophy to your organic SEM campaigns. As for figuring out your competitor's revenue, there's no surefire way or less you hack their accounts, LOL.

        However, if they offer advertising then read that page to get a general idea. Some companies release their revenue while others are stealth about it.

        I would not waste your time with those online income estimator because most of them are way out of the ballpark.
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        • Profile picture of the author TheChallenge
          Originally Posted by dougp View Post

          If you were spending money on PPC, would you target a broad keyword, or would you want exact matches?

          Once you answer that question apply the same philosophy to your organic SEM campaigns. As for figuring out your competitor's revenue, there's no surefire way or less you hack their accounts, LOL.

          However, if they offer advertising then read that page to get a general idea. Some companies release their revenue while others are stealth about it.

          I would not waste your time with those online income estimator because most of them are way out of the ballpark.
          Cool thanks, I knew I needed to use exact match in the tools I was using but I was unsure about google itself because if someone doesn't search exact match it will also offer them broad results which is why I thought the broad search results are the competition I needed to look into. Guess not
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          • Profile picture of the author dougp
            Keep in mind that your long tail keywords may show up in broad matches while broad matches won't show up for exact matches. I'm not a fan of broad matches because your keyword terms can appear in any order or combined with other terms which could result in untargeted traffic. I would recommend educating yourself about keyword research as much as possible. Here's some good information from Google.
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