Awesome thread! Keywords and keyword research really is the backbone of any online marketing campaign. And don't feel that keywords are only good for PPC or your website. Once you determine which keywords you would like to focus on and use, those should permeate everything that you do. Social network profiles (that's right, search engines crawl those), classified ads (well over half of the traffic on classified ads are done through keyword searches) and even videos (it's very easy to get on the first page just using videos).
But, the question is,
HOW do you do keyword research? How do you find those keywords that will
1) bring traffic and
2) that you could be on the first page easily.
It's quite easy, though a bit time consuming. First off, our goal is to find keywords with
little competition (50,000 or less competing websites is a good goal) that are
searched for frequently (1,000 global searches a month or more is about right).
(By the way, before we get into this thank you David for starting this thread and providing some keywords and thank you Darren for pointing out that often short keywords are often very competitive.)
The first thing you need to become familiar with is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You can find that by going to
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Be sure to use the new beta version. It contains more information and the ability to search for phrases. If you are on the old page in the upper left hand corner it will say something like "try beta version".
There are only 3 things we really want to pay attention to here (unless you are doing this for Pay Per Click).
1) Once you enter a keyword to search look in the bottom left hand menu. You will find a box for "Phrase". You want to uncheck broad and exact and use "Phrase". Why? Because we are looking for websites that have that exact "Phrase" in the website.
2) We will be copying the terms found in the "Keyword" collumn later to determine how many competing websites there are.
3) Global searches. Again, remember that you are looking for keywords that have around 1,000 global searches per month or more. A little less is fine but something that gets only 50 searches a month is really not worth too much of your time or effort. We want
BANG and not
fizzle...
Next, open up a new browser tab or window and head over to
http://Google.com. This is where we will be discovering how many competing websites there are. Remember, we are looking for around 50,000 competing websites or less. More is just fine, however 50,000 competing websites means you have a very easy time at being on the first page and even the first spot. Your experience will determine how high that number should be.
OK,
let's do some research! First, let's take a look at Darren's warning on a phrase like "
gdi". Head over to the Google Keyword Tool and just type in GDI and do a search. Remember to check the "
Phrase" box.
Doing this you will discover that "
gdi" is searched for 550,000 times each month!
Wow!!! Would 550,000 visitors to your website improve your business? You bet your GDI Butt it would!!! So, how many competing websites are there? Head over to Google and type in "
gdi". Don't forget to include the quotes. I like to just copy it from the keyword column and paste it in the search field (just makes it easier).
Ack!!! "
gdi" has around 6,910,000 competing websites! OK...while this is not impossible to get on the first page it's going to take some time and work. Actually, probably a lot of time and work. And unless you are very experienced this would be a definite challenge. It does not meet our criteria and therefore, not one we want to use.
Let's try another of Darren's keywords. "
Working from home" has 246,000 searches per month with around 4,240,000 competing websites. Again, a no go...
How about some of David's keywords. "
Free gdi account" only gets about 36 searches per month and 5,510 competing websites. You could VERY easily get on the first page of Google with this keyword. But only 36 searches a month? Hm...not worth too much effort and not something I would personally shoot for. However, that would be a potential 36 free visitors to your website a month. So, it's up to you. For this post it doesn't meet our criteria so let's look for another...
How about "
GDI Business"? It has 880 searches per month and only 193,000 competing websites. Again, it doesn't quite fit our criteria but that is a good keyword. Better than any we have discovered so far.
"
GDI Affiliate" get about 590 searches a month with only 98,700 competing websites. It's getting better each search. Again, this doesn't fit our criteria but this is a keyword phrase you might want to take a look at using. 590 free visitors, fairly easy to get on the first page. I'm not excited BUT in my opinion this would be worth your time. Again though, this is all a personal choice and it depends on how much experience you have with SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
"
GDI Website" returns 720 searches and only 61,400 competing websites. Wow, now this is looking nice. Doesn't QUITE fit our criteria but this is definitely very close and definitely worth your time (if people searching for GDI Website are people you want on YOUR website).
BINGO! "
GDI Marketing" gets around 1,000 searches per month and only has 41,100 competing websites.
Gold mine! This has enough searches to warrant your time AND has few competing websites so you could be on the top.
Now, you definitely want to consider, "
Who will be searching for these terms and are they people I would like to target?" So, who would be looking up "
GDI Marketing"? Would your website be useful to those people? Are those the people you would like to target? The answer might be yes, and it might be no. It completely depends on YOUR website, who you want to talk to and what kind of content you provide. But, you get the idea.
And hopefully all of the posts in this thread give you some great ideas. Keywords are the lifeblood of your online marketing. Because, having a powerful website is
GREAT...but not so great if nobody finds it.
Good luck you all and a special thanks to
David, David and Darren for giving us such great advice and ideas. It's people like
YOU that make being in
THIS business so exciting. You not only make it possible to be successful in GDI, you make it probable. Thanks!
To YOUR Success,
Vincent Parker
P.S. If this post did not make sense and you need more detailed instructions write me a PM and I'll direct you to my website that has a video (which is over an hour long) showing EXACTLY how to do it. I would include the video here but at the end it talks about a program that does all the work for you. I'm not an affiliate of the program but it does cost money and that just comes too close to spamming you all. I think we can all agree, spam is bad. Unless, of course, it's fried with some eggs. Yum!
