adwords keyword tool is great but not enough, you should use one of the following- microniche finder, market samurai or keywordblaze (the last is a pretty new one and i like working with it)

D o a very good keyword research in Market Samurai,
there is a free version for keyword research with them, so you dont need to buy anything,
it will help if the keyword itself is in Domain name though its not necessary.

Sometimes, the most profitable keywords are the long tails. Think yourself, if you were in the same position as your prospects, what keywords had you search?

Use the Adwords Keyword Tool and log into it with your GMail ID. Once you log in you can activate additional columns which includes approximate Cost Per Click(CPC). Type in a few keywords related to your niche and use advanced search to set the minimum searches to 1000, competition to low and CPC to $1(or more).

The result that you get from the tool will have profitable keywords with low competition and a good amount of searches.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a good starting point, but keep in mind that the traffic numbers are just estimates calculated from traffic data from the last 12 months.

You can use some other tools such as Keyword Optimizer Pro or similar to get more keyword suggestions and then get traffic data on those keywords using something like Market Samurai or Micro Niche Finder.

The first step is to gather the keywords, then you have to get the traffic and competition data and weed out the bad ones.

If you are in a particular niche I recommend searching for keywords with low competition, you can search for good keywords in Google AdWords keyword tool is the perfect one to use, I always use it. But also try microniche finder, or marketsumuria those might also benefit you when doing an advance keyword research.

Kindest,

Adan

Does the keyword in the domain help you rank? YES ABSOLUTELY

I use a program called market samurai to do keyword research. There's 4 main things you want to look at when researching keywords.

1. Traffic - you want to pick keywords with traffic (sounds obvious, but it's often overlooked)

2. Relevance - just because you can get ranked for a keyword doesn't mean you want to. You don't just want traffic, you wanted TARGETED TRAFFIC. This is where it's important to understand who your site is for and what their problems, concerns, desires, & interests are...

3. SEO VALUE = Cost Per Click * Daily Traffic...
The SEO VALUE is what it is worth to be ranked number one in Google. If you know how much people are spending to get their google ppc ads to number one, and you know how much traffic you would get if you were ranked number 1.... then you know the daily value of what it's worth to be ranked for that keyword phrase.

Generally speaking - if no one is spending money on a keyword in Google PPC then it's may not be worth getting ranked for that keyword.

If people can make money on a keyword, then the odds are they are already doing it with google ppc. If a keyword has no perceived value, then it may not be worth ranking for it.

4. COMPETITION

You want to know if you can actually get ranked for a keyword or if the competition is too difficult. You're looking for an ACCEPTABLE amount of competition.

This is the one thing that you can't really get from using Google adwords free service. Sure - you can see the amount of competing sites, but you can't see how optimized those sites are.

The best tool that I'm aware of for checking all these things is Market Samurai. It will help you identify potential keywords, determine their value, and asses the strength of the competition all in a few clicks.

Contact me through my blog if you want to ask me any more questions at familybusinesstips dot com

Have a great one - hope this helps.

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The very first indicator is its "search volume". The optimal combination is
High Search Volume, Low Competition but this is not the case most of the time.
Check the number of competing websites so you'll get the idea of how many big gorillas you're competing with.