If Keyword Research is So Important Why Aren’t You Doing It?
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I’ll be the first to admit it. In the past I haven’t always done proper keyword research for my blog and Internet marketing projects. I’m guilty of assuming that just because I think something is a good idea and I search for it then other people will as well. Heck, I’ve built entire websites and done launches based on “hunches” or “instinct” only to find out later, when doing my keyword research, that very few people are searching for the phrases I optimized for.
Now, before you start laughing too loud and labeling me a complete dumb a%# ask yourself this, “How much do you know about the keywords in your niche?”
Do you know exactly what it’s going to take to rank well in your niche market?
- What are the top ranking sites in your market?
- How many incoming links per month do they have?
- How many total incoming links do they have?
- Do they use the keywords in their page/post titles and domain name?
- How old is their domain?
- What are the demographics of the people who view the top sites in your niche?
Are you targeting keywords that are way too competitive?
- Could just a few tweaks to your targeted keywords yield more traffic with less competition?
- Do you know alternate combinations of your keywords that people are searching for that may be easier to rank for?
What about the historical data of your keywords?
- Do you know that there are certain times of the year, month, week and day that your keywords are more heavily searched for?
- What if you could anticipate those times with accurate historical data and be ready to strike, when the iron is hot, with fresh blog posts, articles and Web 2.0 site submissions?
If you don’t know these things about your niche market then you’re just shooting in the dark hoping to get lucky. That’s not a good way to run a business. Believe me I know from experience.
Knowledge truly is power. And in this case it’s the power to make money online with your blog in your chosen niche. And, for those of us marketing on the Internet to not attain this knowledge when it’s so easy to come by is inexcusable. So, if we fail we’ve only ourselves to blame.
“Easy to come by?” you ask.
What’s the main reason most of us don’t do proper keyword research? Well, I’ll tell you the reason I haven’t in the past. I didn’t really know how. There it is. I said it. The cat’s, MEOWWW, out of the bag!
So what are the tools I use to help me do proper keyword research?
Well, there are the free ones that you’ve probably already heard of like Overture, Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Google Trends, etc… While these tools are useful they are far from comprehensive.
Then of course, there’s WordTracker. These guys are probably the original, premium keyword research providers. They’ve been around a long time and there data is solid.
My new favorite is a service called WordZE . I really have never seen anything like this before. I can answer almost all my keyword questions in one place. Frankly, it provides answers to questions that I didn’t even realize I should have been asking.
Here’s the type of keyword research you can easily do with WordZE:
- Keyword Research
Start your keyword research by finding more keywords with our keyword research tools. More… - Get Historical Keyword Data
Learn how members can get historical keyword data, and see how a keyword performs on any given day, week, or month. More… - Dig Into the Competition
Dig into the top 10,000 websites for any given keyword to snatch their on page keywords and meta tag keywords. More… - Get the Inside Scoop
Don’t just use KEI and a hand full of site analytic software to judge how difficult a market will be, when you can use our patent pending technology to get the inside scoop on a keyword or industry. More… - Expand the Dig Results
Turn your competitors keyword results into a mega keyword list by expanding the results with our keyword database. More… - Import Keywords
Import keywords and inspect their search count, as well as, dig deeper to find more keywords. More… - Download Top Searches
Download weekly, or monthly top keywords from our search history database. More… - Manage Projects
Download and manage saved results from your keyword research or search engine digs. More…
I just started using WordZE but so far I’m very impressed. I’d love to know what you think about it or the subject of keyword research in general. Please comment below.
[...] post by How to Monetize and Market Your Blog | WordPress Training and Tips and software by Elliott Back This entry is filed under Internet blog. You can follow any [...]
Hi Barry-O!
Thanks for interesting wordze tip.
Must admit I’m normally far too stressed and busy to dig deep. Have some desktop tools which cost a lot but for some reason my computer won’t enable to function any longer.
Normally I look at my AWSTATS of cpanel to the site, at google analytics etc.
Another tip is to look at scribd.com….
But sure, important to do proper kw research.
One of the key topics that is overlooked many times. I like you have been guilty of this way too often.
Doing a bit of research before you stsrt saves time and tweaking. Amazing how much faster I get traffic if I do the research first versus starting the blog then as I get frustrtaed going and doing what should have been done before the first post was written.
The problem I have found is in trying to get accurate data. The number of times I have spend months trying to rank for a certain phrase that shows good search numbers, then when I finally reach the top its almost worthless. Or then I find out that one of the words should (or shouldn’t have) have had an s on the end. It can get a bit painful.
I now try to test all the phrases I go for with adwords before I spend time and money ranking for them. (exact phrase option).
The other thing I find is that most marketers say that free Serps traffic converts heaps better than paid (PPC traffic), but I have found the exact opposite, any one else find this?
Ad Words is a great way to research keywords. The only problem is that it doesn’t show you exact numbers for search volume, advertisers, etc…
So, I use WordZe, http://1cat.biz/wordze, to determine the exact keywords I want to use based on real numbers. Then I use AdWords to do market and competition research.
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[...] couple of months ago I did a post on keyword research and in it I introduced a new keyword tool called [...]
Yes, this is where I am definitely slipping. I just take pot luck. I write for hubpages, and have a couple of blogs. the blogs dont get traffic. So will have to pull my finger out. Thanks for a really good helpful article.
Eileens last blog post..How to shop smart – Customers right of return
[...] of your pages can and should be optimized for a different keyword / phrase. You can read more on choosing the right keywords here and [...]
I have been using Google´s keyword tool, gone through old blog posts and finding better keywords for them.Before, I didn´t do any keyword research (boring job) which was stupid and I tried to rank for the same short keywords as everyone else, no wonder I didn´t get any traffic.Now I have made keyword research for 40 of my articles, let´s see how that goes when Google re-indexes my articles.
I’d be interested to know the results. Let us know how it works for you.
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