The Right Way To Do Keyword Research
Posted by Dexter Nelson: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 (6:56 PM)
The Right Way To Do Keyword Research
First, thank you all for the amazing comments on part one of this series. I have opened up the post so you can leave comments and I will leave them open. All of you are awesome. Thank you.
The reason why I waited so long to post this is because I often get a few emails with questions after most posts. I did receive a few that caught my attention and they fell right in line with this next post in the series.
The right way to do keyword research. Not too long ago I saw an internet marketer do a short video on how to do this but it was just a small part of it. He did what I do, except he left out a lot of details. I'm going to give you a quick overview of the process, then give you another step by step guide to get you started and on your way.
As I help more and more people, I run into some crazy misunderstandings, so for the sake of clarity...
What is keyword research?
In layman's terms, it's trying to find out what terms people enter in search engines when they are looking for something, then applying the relevant information to your business.
How you do that varies with your business, and the ways of doing keyword research vary from person to person. Some are ok, and others are as crazy as some of the misconceptions and advice out there, which is, in part, why I created the Live Minder Trend Analysis project, (http://www.mindyourowndata.com).
There are a lot of wannabe Internet Marketers out there, and they will lead you down the road of disaster very quickly. I'm sure we're all aware of the phrase, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls..." well, you get the idea.
Just because you look good, you have a nice video, rehash someone else's hard work, and use high tech lingo doesn't mean you're an Internet Marketer. There is no cookie cutter, one size fits all solution for business.
There are, however, systems and methods that you can use to increase your business and your success. All good business starts with research.
You need it in planning your business, planning your product BEFORE you create them, planning your marketing, planning your next sales event...
The right way to do keyword research.
The first thing you need is a basis to make decisions on. If you have your own website, (or content you can convert to web-based content like word docs, PDF's, etc.), you can start right away. If you don't have a website yet, then the best place to start is by looking at your competition.
Note: This guide is making the assumption that you already have at least content that you are trying to promote. I will go back and cover product and service creation in the next segment.
For those that don't have a website, but have content, convert it to web format. It doesn't take a lot and you don't need to spend a lot of money.
If you have Microsoft Office, create a new Word document, copy and paste your content to it, then click "File," select "Save As" and in the "Save as type:" drop down menu, select Web Page and save it has a .htm or .html file.
If you're the type that would rather spend money on a software product that you can use over and over, then I would recommend the Page Crusher Software, (http://software.techdex.net/PageCrusher/) - (forgive the cheap plug).
Keyword Analysis in a nutshell.
First, let's talk about what NOT to do. A lot of people will make the mistake of going to a search engine, searching for what they think their product is about, or what they want their product to be, then trying to target those keywords. That is the dead wrong way of doing it.
There are two types of keyword analyses. You have direct analysis where you analyse your content. Then you have competitor-based analysis where you research a competitor's. We will be covering direct analysis, because it's the best way to know what people are searching for in your market, based on your own content.
Understand that no two businesses are exactly alike. Even if you are close competitors, your businesses from A to Z will be different. You can't learn everything you need to know just by examining your competitors.
Once you do have content you can analyse, just upload the files to the web. If you don't have a host I wouldn't recommend any free ones because they all tend to add their own advertising to your page and it can throw off the results.
Note: I offer ad free server space and temp hosting for my members and customers, (http://www.mindyourowndata.com/business/).
Now that you have your content, let's look to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, and the Google Keyword Tool, (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). If you have a Google account, go ahead and sign in, then create your Adwords account, if not, then the external keyword tool will work all the same.
When you go to the site you can find keywords based on a word or phrase, a website, or both. I leave all settings as default when I do my search. Mine is defaulted to Location: United States and Languages: English. Feel free to add and change settings.
Enter the URL of your web content and click search. The keyword tool will scan that page and bring up a list of keywords and phrases. The two columns that you want to pay attention to are Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches.
Global Monthly Searches is the approximate 12-month average of user queries for the keyword on Google search. This data is specific to your Keyword Match Type selection.
Local Monthly Searches, (if you specified a country or language for your search), the approximate 12-month average number of user queries for the keyword for those countries and languages and it's specific to your Keyword Match Type selection, meaning this changes depending on what your options were.
Both columns vary, however you are trying to target local markets, you should use the local monthly searches, as it returns results specific to your area, otherwise sort by global monthly searches. You do this by clicking on the name.
Some people say that you should show 100 results, (by selecting the Show rows: option at the bottom of the page), but Google will show the highest numbers regardless.
In that list, just because there are a lot of results, doesn't mean that you should start targeting every one. We need to make sure that the keywords you choose are valid choices. You do this by comparing the keywords that are relevant to your site against search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.
In layman's terms, making sure that the keywords that are relevant to your site are actually being searched for. For that we need another Google tool called Insights for Search, (http://www.google.com/insights/search/), which does exactly that. This is what you do.
On the page with the Keyword Tool results, write down ten keywords that are most relevant to your site, product, or service. If you don't have ten results, (which isn't uncommon), then ask yourself why someone would buy your product or use your service.
Most often times, the problems you solve will be the keywords that are searched for and it's a great place to start.
Insights for Search only allows you to search five at a time, so start by entering the first five of them, but before you click Search, make sure that you select the country you want to target from the filter on the right. I like to make sure that both tools are the same country. Leave everything the same.
After you click search, you will notice that the information gives you very useful data about usage, including interest over time, regional interest, search terms, and rising searches.
Rising searches are searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period. In it you will find "Breakout" searches as well, or searches that are now starting to rise.
Search Terms are related to the filter that you selected, (time, location, etc).
What you want to pay attention to is the regional interest, which shows a search term's popularity. The graph and bars next to the regions show the Search volume index. In short, the more popular a search term is, the higher the index, and it shows in percentages from 1 to 100. The keywords you choose should have the highest indexes.
You should play around with these two tools, testing different demographics and looking at the different results. You can break down the information as detailed as by city or make it as broad as world wide.
Also, don't be afraid to try variances in the keywords. A little change can reap a high index reward. For example market analysis and marketing analysis have completely different scores. One has an index of 48 and the other has an index of 17.
Often times, just by tweaking a word here or there will give you extremely different results.
In the next series, as promised earlier, we'll go over product and sales creation.
These posts are part of the Live Mind Trend Analysis Business Network mastermind groups and training. And they are just an overview of the content that is covered. If you will allow me one more plug, I would highly recommend that anyone who's serious about their business, become a part of the network.
The mastermind groups are just one of the benefits.
For more information, please visit http://www.mindyourowndata.com/business/. There is a 7-day, $1.00 trial. Please take advantage of it while it's available. There are already several businesses that are part of the network, and it's a good opportunity.
Until the next issue in the series,
Thank you all for stopping by. I hope you've learned something new that you can walk away with and apply.
Dexter Nelson
TechDex Development & Solutions
http://www.techdex.net
http://business.techdex.net (our software)
