Finding The Right Keywords For Your Niche
Posted by admin on Apr 15, 2009Finding the right keywords for your niche.
All too often, I hear these lame-ass SEO wannabes brag about their “skills” and what sites they have ranking at the top. But then I look at the keywords they are targeting and see that the competition for them is virtually non-existent.
I’m talking about keywords that NOBODY is searching for. Now what good is it to have a #1 placement in the SERPs if you won’t be getting any traffic from it?
And how do you know what keywords are best for your niche?
Google has a tool called the “Google Adwords Keyword Tool”. You can find it right here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . This tool is awesome and I use it on a regular basis.
It is actually meant to help people determine the level of competition for different keywords in their AdWords campaigns. But I use it for the simple fact that is shows me the monthly search volume for any given keyword or phrase.
It’s as easy as entering in a few keywords or key phrases that you think are relevant to your market. And not only does it give you the data for the exact keywords you enter - it also gives you the data for synonyms that are relevant to your keywords.
After the resutls are displayed, you can look at the data to see what specific keywords have the highest average search volume. Common sense will tell you that you need to be targeting those keywords that have the highest volume and not the keywords that have a very small volume.
*Please note that you can ignore the column that says “Advertiser Competition”. This is only used for AdWords PPC purposes. The second column shows you the search data for the previous month. And the third column shows you the average monthly search volume. I pay the most attention to the third column. It’s better to go by the monthly average and not just the previous month.
Also, you should note that it will also give you very broad keywords. For example, if I type in “Branson real estate”, somehwere on the list of synonyms will appear “real estate”. And this will undoubtedly have a HUGE level of monthly search volume. But realistically, I would not target that keyword. Instead, I would stick with only those keywords that are the best for my niche. So please remember to keep it real and don’t get too lofty 
There it is. Go ahead and try it for yourself. And make sure you are targeting the keywords that will actually produce some results.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Hey, Cole.
The AdWords Keyword Tool doesn’t give you keywords that produce “results.” It shows you keywords and a guesstimate of average traffic numbers.
The only way to find keywords that are proven to produce conversions based on real metrics (not predicted data) is to target the keywords that have produced conversions from you own private, server logs.
Cheers,
Ken
April 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Hi, Ken.
Thanks for your comment!
While I agree about finding the keywords that give you results based on server logs, I must say that it’s still a good choice to go for the keywords with the highest volume of traffic.
If you were going to put up a billboard to advertise a product or service, would you place it on some dirt path, from from civilization? Or would you rather put it on downtown Main Street where there was a very dense flow of steady traffic?
By being on top for high traffic keywords, your chances of converting a visitor to a qualified lead grow exponentially…
April 16th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Cole,
You’re using two traffic extremes: main st or a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
My choice would be more of a side street, where even though I may get less traffic, it’s a road I KNOW my customers are traveling on.
I’m not necessarily interested in “more traffic.” I’m interested in more, “qualified traffic.” There’s a big difference.
Third party keyword tools reveal the “more,” not the “qualified.” Those numbers you can get ONLY from your own, private server logs.
Thanks,
Ken
April 16th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Hi, Ken.
I do appreciate your input. And I see your point. Really, I do. But I still think it’s best to go after the keywords that the majority of people are searching for - in your niche.
In a sense, I guess any niche market could be considered the side street you mentioned.
I guess it depends on your niche or what products / services you are trying to market…and what your website does with the trafic once it gets there. I’m pretty big on lead capture. Hence my concept of “bring the most traffic, get more leads, make the conversions..”.
But if it works for you then it works for you, right?
Do you use GA?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:01 am
[...] If you enjoyed this post by Cole here are few more you might enjoy The Power Of Backlinks and Finding The Right Keywords For Your Niche. [...]