What factors should determine whether you should try to rank for a specific keyword?

6 replies
  • SEO
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I am going to go through the process of choosing a keyword to rank for. If I make a mistake or you think of something better please chime in.

Is it the number of searches that the exact keyword gets in google keyword tool?

Lets say I want to promote Clickbank's Satellite Direct product.

I should be looking for buyer keyworks right? like buy satellite direct or satellite direct review, right?

Then I would check on google keyword tool how many exact searches the phrase has such as buy satellite direct.

Then I would check for the number global monthly searches to see if there are enough searches of the exact keyword. What should be the minimum number of global searches that a keyword should have if you would like to rank for it?
#determine #factors #keyword #rank #specific
  • Profile picture of the author Jorge Vidaurre
    Does anyone have any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author Brendan Mace
    There are three main factors of a good keyword:

    1. number of searches
    2. commercial intent (are people willing to buy anything)
    3. competition strength of the websites on page 1 of google

    I disagree with having any real limits. For example, a keyword with 500 global searches can be more profitable than a keyword with 5000 global searches. The real money is in finding a good combination of the 3 main factors. Commercial intent is probably the most important of the three.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brendan Mace
    Also, I have a keyword research tutorial at this page
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  • Profile picture of the author UpzeeDotCom
    The first thing you should consider is what topic(s) can you actually offer value on. Do you know anything about Satellite Direct? Rather than pumping out a bunch of crappy websites on topics you think might be able to make you money, it's best to decide what can you offer the world? What do you know about? Pick a subject that you have something to offer on. Now let's assume you used to work for Satellite Direct or at least you're a customer of theirs who knows a lot about their product and therefor are qualified enough to make a website on the subject.

    The next step is to break down your ROI (Return on Investment). Your ROI on a new project shouldn't be some abstract numbers that you bounce around in your head. They should be what your business is based on. Let's look at what's going to effect your ROI:

    Negative:
    - Domain
    - Hosting
    - Backlinks
    - Time Invested
    - Design
    - Advertising

    Positive:
    - Avg Amount of Searches
    - CPC (even if you're not buying traffic or putting up adsense on the site, this gives you a good idea of how much the traffic is worth)
    - Profit margin
    - Conversion rate

    So now all you have to do is go through and give a rough sketch to everything you're going to do. Domain name is easy, hosting maybe you already have a box you can throw the site on, design you'll use a wordpress free template. So now it comes down to your time invested and advertising costs. You need to take a look at the serps and decide what it's going to take to beat them. If you don't know, figure it out. You need to look at their content, their site structure, their backlink profile, age, etc and decide how much time and money it's going to take to beat them.

    For avg amount of searches #1 usually takes about 40% of the traffic. So if there are 10,000 searches per month, you can expect to see 4,000 per month coming to your site. If the CPC is high and the Clickbank payout is high, let's say $15 per sale, and you think you can convert say 5% of that traffic, let's say you're going to make .05x4000x15= $3000 per month.

    In order to get to #1 it's going to take you 6-8 months of your (possibly part-) time and it's going to to cost $500. If you think you can continue making money off of this project for say at least one year, that's $36000 for your time + $500 or maybe $750. So what it really boils down to, is how much is your time worth?
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  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    I've never bought into the "exact" match methodology. You'll most likely be spreading yourself too thin and competing for the most competitive phrases in your niche from the get-go. By all means target those keywords, longer term, but build up to them with good content based around the longer tail keyword phrases. Those pages based on the long tails will eventually feed relevancy into those higher competition phrases - especially if you structure your sites in a particular way.

    It's a different way to build and relies on more (perhaps much more) content than your average niche site to get the traffic, at first. However, I've found that these sites can more easily become authority sites (market over niche, or niche over micro-niche) over the longer term and their traffic will be greater eventually than if you'd simply targetted the exact match higher searched terms. It's a longer term goal and for that reason, I don't limit myself by sticking to a narrow keyword just because it meets some arbitrary "threshold" number of searches.

    I'd agree with the commercial intent aspect above, also. First, is your end sale a good seller in an evergreen niche filled with hungry / desperate buyers? Think:"What exactly is my customer looking to buy here - what are they typing into search engines?". It might be "xxxxxx review" or it might be a simple long tail query: "where can I buy xxxxxx for my mother's birthday".

    Good luck.
    Signature
    I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build. - Ayn Rand
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      I wouldn't go for a site based on a tight niche, try to go for broad niches so you can keep building it out.
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