Wordtracker, an Essential Keyword Tracking Tool
There are a number of tools available to help you research and track potential keywords phrases to focus on. One of the first tools continues to be one of the most popular with online marketers; the Wordtracker keyword research tool (www.wordtracker.com).
While the full-featured paid version of Wordtracker is extremely powerful, there is also a very useful free online version that you can use (freekeywords.wordtracker.com).
When you use the free keyword suggestion tool on the phrase “weight loss”, you’ll see the top 100 keyword phrases related to the weight loss market.
The Wordtracker results are meant to mirror Google search traffic, so according to this search, there are approximately 31,000 Google searches performed each day with the term “weight loss”. (Some industry experts believe that this data underestimates the volume of Google traffic, and that the actual volume may be several times the amount shown in Wordtracker.)
Not surprisingly, the most obvious terms are searched most often. In the example above, the term “weight loss” is itself searched about 9,500 times each day. With almost 100 million web pages relating to weight loss, there is a significant amount of competition for each of those 9,500 searches.
Your goal is to find keyword terms where you have a chance to get a top 10 search ranking for keyword terms and phrases is a relatively small number of competing websites. If you can find a keyword phrase that returns less than 10,000 web pages for the exact phrase (i.e., where the search is done with the entire phrase inside quotation marks), then you’ve found a great phrase.
If you find a relevant phrase that generates more than 10,000, but less than 30,000 competing pages, you still have a good opportunity to get your own website into the top 10 ranking. Even if you find a phrase that generates less than 100,000 competing pages, it can still make good sense to develop a website page around that keyword phrase.
Take a look at the Wordtracker results page. Review the list of terms and try to find a “well-grouped” collection of keyword phrases. For example, visit freekeywords.wordtracker.com enter “la weight loss” and take a look at this portion of the results list, which has a common thread of “la weight loss”.
With 754,000 on Google, the direct competition for the exact phrase “la weight loss” is likely too great to reasonably address.
In general, the longer a keyword phrase is, the less competition there will be. Take a look at the following two examples:
“Does la weight loss really work” shows 3170 results in Google
“Does la weight loss work” shows 4680 results in Google
Also, check how the results for these keyword phrases fare in Google PageRank (which is Google’s proprietary technique for ranking relevant pages within search results). Go to (http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/) and enter your keyword phrase. Look for keyword phrases where the top results (click the initial results page to sort by “Relevance”) have a PageRank of 4 or less. This means that with the proper effort you’ll have a good chance to land a natural search results ranking in the top ten.
Using Wordtracker in combination with Google and a few other keyword research to build a list of potential keyword phrases. Wordtracker is a great tool for a reason. Use it to build your business, to target niche keywords and traffic, and to optimize your website for maximum results.
Thursday, 22 January 2015
What Are Keywords?
What Are Keywords?
Once you’ve decided to start your own online business, you’ll first want to get a firm grasp on how your potential customers use the Internet. In particular, you’ll need to learn what exactly they use the Internet for.
It would certainly be great for your company if every person who logged on was doing so because they had their credit cards in hand, and were looking to buy precisely the kinds of products and services you offer services. But of course this isn’t the case.
Rather, most people use the Internet to get information. That search for information often takes the form of trying to answer questions that these individuals have been unable to find answers for elsewhere.
So how do people tend to go about finding answers to their questions? As you might guess, these days most Internet users tend to rely upon search engines like Google, Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine) and Yahoo. While most Internet users will have heard of (and probably used) at least one of these three search engines, there are also hundreds of other search engines available. However, those other search engines generate far less traffic than the big three (Google alone garners over 2/3 of the Internet search traffic), so we’ll focus our attention on the big ones.
As you probably know, a person uses a search engine like Google by typing a word or phrase into the search box. This specific word or phrase is the key to your business success, because the word or phrase indicates exactly what that person is looking for.
Let’s say, for example, that the individual is interested in losing weight. If they type the phrase “weight loss” into Google, the search results page will provide two things, paid and organic search results. Go ahead and Google “weight loss.”
Notice the yellow box at the top of the page, and the narrow column that runs down the right side of the page. These are paid search results – companies have paid Google to have their text (and links to their company websites) displayed whenever someone searches on the term “weight loss”. Not surprisingly, you can see that these companies appear to be selling weight loss and diet products and services.
The majority of the page displays the so-called “organic” or search results. This means that the Google search engine determined these web pages to be most naturally (or “organically”) related to the phrase “weight loss”. The phrase “weight loss” is what we refer to as a “keyword term”. You can see the importance of the keyword term by the fact that the phrase “weight loss” is highlighted throughout both the organic search results and the paid search results.
In order to maximize your business opportunities, you’ll need to research and identify the terms and phrases that potential customers will use when they look for the kinds of products and services you’re selling.
After identifying those keywords, you could certainly launch a paid advertising campaign like the ones in the screenshot above. This would be an easy way of driving lots of relevant traffic to your website, right? Unfortunately, because of the level of competition for the attention of prospective customers, it’s very easy for beginning advertisers (and even some advertisers with more experience) to end up spending a lot of money but have very little to show for it.
New web business owners will probably want to wait to do paid advertising until they are more firmly established, and instead focus on getting the best organic search results placement for their website. You can do this by using keyword research skills and optimizing your website accordingly.
Once you’ve decided to start your own online business, you’ll first want to get a firm grasp on how your potential customers use the Internet. In particular, you’ll need to learn what exactly they use the Internet for.
It would certainly be great for your company if every person who logged on was doing so because they had their credit cards in hand, and were looking to buy precisely the kinds of products and services you offer services. But of course this isn’t the case.
Rather, most people use the Internet to get information. That search for information often takes the form of trying to answer questions that these individuals have been unable to find answers for elsewhere.
So how do people tend to go about finding answers to their questions? As you might guess, these days most Internet users tend to rely upon search engines like Google, Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine) and Yahoo. While most Internet users will have heard of (and probably used) at least one of these three search engines, there are also hundreds of other search engines available. However, those other search engines generate far less traffic than the big three (Google alone garners over 2/3 of the Internet search traffic), so we’ll focus our attention on the big ones.
As you probably know, a person uses a search engine like Google by typing a word or phrase into the search box. This specific word or phrase is the key to your business success, because the word or phrase indicates exactly what that person is looking for.
Let’s say, for example, that the individual is interested in losing weight. If they type the phrase “weight loss” into Google, the search results page will provide two things, paid and organic search results. Go ahead and Google “weight loss.”
Notice the yellow box at the top of the page, and the narrow column that runs down the right side of the page. These are paid search results – companies have paid Google to have their text (and links to their company websites) displayed whenever someone searches on the term “weight loss”. Not surprisingly, you can see that these companies appear to be selling weight loss and diet products and services.
The majority of the page displays the so-called “organic” or search results. This means that the Google search engine determined these web pages to be most naturally (or “organically”) related to the phrase “weight loss”. The phrase “weight loss” is what we refer to as a “keyword term”. You can see the importance of the keyword term by the fact that the phrase “weight loss” is highlighted throughout both the organic search results and the paid search results.
In order to maximize your business opportunities, you’ll need to research and identify the terms and phrases that potential customers will use when they look for the kinds of products and services you’re selling.
After identifying those keywords, you could certainly launch a paid advertising campaign like the ones in the screenshot above. This would be an easy way of driving lots of relevant traffic to your website, right? Unfortunately, because of the level of competition for the attention of prospective customers, it’s very easy for beginning advertisers (and even some advertisers with more experience) to end up spending a lot of money but have very little to show for it.
New web business owners will probably want to wait to do paid advertising until they are more firmly established, and instead focus on getting the best organic search results placement for their website. You can do this by using keyword research skills and optimizing your website accordingly.
Using Keywords to Find Your Niche
Using Keywords to Find Your Niche
If you’ve been researching keyword phrases and popular keywords you’ve likely found that many popular potential markets are quite broad. When you brainstorm and research to come up with ideas for your new web business, it’s likely that the first ideas you identify are likely to be broad markets.
It’s generally better to try to identify market niches (or submarkets of the broader market) on which to build our business. Trying to compete with other business at a broad market level would likely require a substantial amount of time and effort, and probably financial resources as well.
Instead, you can increase our chances of success by identifying a market niche. Using a weight loss market example, you might focus on keyword terms such as “fat burning foods” or “low carb diets”? By targeting a market niche, there would likely be much less competition from other businesses, so you’ll have a greater chance of bringing targeted visitors to your site. And this, of course, is the first step in making money from your website.
If you don’t already have a niche market in mind, one of the best ways to find one is to consider the things you’re already interested in – your own hobbies and activities. Think about the hobbies and interests of your friends and family, too – are there any niche markets on which you can build a web-based business?
By identifying market niches in this way, you can cut down on the amount of time that it takes you to learn about the market itself. If you already know a lot (or at least more than the average person), then you’ll be able to get your business up and running much more quickly than if you had to start from scratch and take the time to get up to speed on the subject.
If nothing comes to mind right away, there are a couple of brainstorming tools that you can use to help. First, you can try the ever-popular Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to help you generate ideas, based either on words and phrases, or by the content of existing web pages.
Another great way to get ideas is to see what shoppers are actually searching for when they’re already on a shopping website. If you go to the Search Compare page (http://www.mysimon.com/compare-top-searches) and click one of the categories listed.
You’ll then be taken to a page that lists the terms that people have searched for within the category you clicked. This can be a great way to see the plethora of different concepts that exist (and that people are searching for) within a particular product category.
Don’t be afraid to surf around the web exploring different possible market niches. This kind of exploration can help confirm that people are actually looking for these types of products (and are willing to spend money on them). This is a critical consideration when you’re determining in which market niche to launch your business.
If you’ve been researching keyword phrases and popular keywords you’ve likely found that many popular potential markets are quite broad. When you brainstorm and research to come up with ideas for your new web business, it’s likely that the first ideas you identify are likely to be broad markets.
It’s generally better to try to identify market niches (or submarkets of the broader market) on which to build our business. Trying to compete with other business at a broad market level would likely require a substantial amount of time and effort, and probably financial resources as well.
Instead, you can increase our chances of success by identifying a market niche. Using a weight loss market example, you might focus on keyword terms such as “fat burning foods” or “low carb diets”? By targeting a market niche, there would likely be much less competition from other businesses, so you’ll have a greater chance of bringing targeted visitors to your site. And this, of course, is the first step in making money from your website.
If you don’t already have a niche market in mind, one of the best ways to find one is to consider the things you’re already interested in – your own hobbies and activities. Think about the hobbies and interests of your friends and family, too – are there any niche markets on which you can build a web-based business?
By identifying market niches in this way, you can cut down on the amount of time that it takes you to learn about the market itself. If you already know a lot (or at least more than the average person), then you’ll be able to get your business up and running much more quickly than if you had to start from scratch and take the time to get up to speed on the subject.
If nothing comes to mind right away, there are a couple of brainstorming tools that you can use to help. First, you can try the ever-popular Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to help you generate ideas, based either on words and phrases, or by the content of existing web pages.
Another great way to get ideas is to see what shoppers are actually searching for when they’re already on a shopping website. If you go to the Search Compare page (http://www.mysimon.com/compare-top-searches) and click one of the categories listed.
You’ll then be taken to a page that lists the terms that people have searched for within the category you clicked. This can be a great way to see the plethora of different concepts that exist (and that people are searching for) within a particular product category.
Don’t be afraid to surf around the web exploring different possible market niches. This kind of exploration can help confirm that people are actually looking for these types of products (and are willing to spend money on them). This is a critical consideration when you’re determining in which market niche to launch your business.
Using Keyword Research to Gauge Your Competition
Using Keyword Research to Gauge Your Competition
Keyword research is an essential tool to find a profitable niche market to build your business around. For example, if you type the phrase “weight loss” into Google’s search engine, you’ll have roughly 100 million links returned to you. Even if you search the longer phrase “how to lose weight”, you’ll still come up with well over 20 million web links.
On one level, this is great news; you’ve begun your research and planning by selecting an area plenty of people are writing about. We can infer that there are a lot of people interested in this particular topic.
Yet on another level, with so many other web pages out there competing for attention, you’re going to have a difficult time getting a prospective customer to visit your page.
What you’ll need to do is identify those keyword terms and phrases, which are still related to your website, but for which there is much less competition. This is a bit of a balancing act, of course, because these keyword terms and phrases still need to be terms and phrases people actually use when they are searching for relevant information.
If your website gets lost amongst all the competing websites, then your well-prepared website and articles aren’t going to get much of an audience. For your first web business concept (and any future businesses, too) you’ll need to get in the habit of always asking yourself “what’s my competition?” A decent business idea with marginal competition is almost always better than a great idea with an overwhelming amount of competition.
Your initial way of researching competition individual keywords is the search engines themselves. Simply type the keyword phrase you’re interested in into Google or Bing or Yahoo and see how many pages come up. Keep track of the numbers each search engine returns, and work to refine your keyword phrases toward those which have much less competition.
Keyword research also provides you as a business owner the foundation for a strategy. You can focus on optimizing your website for the relevant keywords with less competition, fewer competing websites optimizing for the same word. As your business and website grow and you climb the pages towards number one, you can begin to optimize your website for those more competitive keywords.
Keyword research is a powerful tool, use it to build your business, to attract prospects and customers, and to position yourself above your competition, now and ten years from now when your business is still thriving and growing strong.
Keyword research is an essential tool to find a profitable niche market to build your business around. For example, if you type the phrase “weight loss” into Google’s search engine, you’ll have roughly 100 million links returned to you. Even if you search the longer phrase “how to lose weight”, you’ll still come up with well over 20 million web links.
On one level, this is great news; you’ve begun your research and planning by selecting an area plenty of people are writing about. We can infer that there are a lot of people interested in this particular topic.
Yet on another level, with so many other web pages out there competing for attention, you’re going to have a difficult time getting a prospective customer to visit your page.
What you’ll need to do is identify those keyword terms and phrases, which are still related to your website, but for which there is much less competition. This is a bit of a balancing act, of course, because these keyword terms and phrases still need to be terms and phrases people actually use when they are searching for relevant information.
If your website gets lost amongst all the competing websites, then your well-prepared website and articles aren’t going to get much of an audience. For your first web business concept (and any future businesses, too) you’ll need to get in the habit of always asking yourself “what’s my competition?” A decent business idea with marginal competition is almost always better than a great idea with an overwhelming amount of competition.
Your initial way of researching competition individual keywords is the search engines themselves. Simply type the keyword phrase you’re interested in into Google or Bing or Yahoo and see how many pages come up. Keep track of the numbers each search engine returns, and work to refine your keyword phrases toward those which have much less competition.
Keyword research also provides you as a business owner the foundation for a strategy. You can focus on optimizing your website for the relevant keywords with less competition, fewer competing websites optimizing for the same word. As your business and website grow and you climb the pages towards number one, you can begin to optimize your website for those more competitive keywords.
Keyword research is a powerful tool, use it to build your business, to attract prospects and customers, and to position yourself above your competition, now and ten years from now when your business is still thriving and growing strong.
Understanding How Search Engines Work
Understanding How Search Engines Work
One of the biggest mistakes that new online business owners make is thinking once their websites are up and running on the Internet, they just need to sit back and watch the customer inquiries and orders roll in.
This is a mistake because if no one knows your website exists, or can’t find the website when they’re searching for the type of product or service you sell, then you’re never going to make any money. Even if you have a top-notch web store, if potential customers can’t find it then they can’t buy from you, and your business is likely to fail.
To avoid this unfortunate situation, it’s vital that once your website is live (or, even better, that you take these issues into account as part of the process of building your website), the Internet search engines know about your site.
If Google, Bing (Microsoft’s current search engine) and Yahoo don’t know that your website exists, or what type of business you conduct, then they can’t include links to your website as part of a search results page. To make sure the search engines consider your website in the way you want, there are a couple of steps you need to take.
First, you should identify the keyword phrases that are most appropriate to your products and services. Think of them as being the words and phrases potential customers would type into a search engine if they’re looking for your products or services.
Second, you’ll need to build each of the website content pages around those phrases, and make sure the search engines will be able to “find” the pages you’ve made. Search engines use computer programs called “spiders” or “robots” to review millions of web pages every day, in order to determine what type of information is contained on those websites. (You might also hear this process referred to as “crawling”.) This information is reported back to the central database of that search engine, where it is then categorized.
Each search engine uses a different technique to determine which individual web pages are most relevant to any particular keyword phrase. The exact algorithms are secret, and it is thought they change over time. Since search engines are businesses themselves, they’re always trying to provide the best service to their users.
If you take the necessary steps to optimize your website, these search engines are able to drive large numbers of targeted visitors to your website, especially if a page of your website appears near the top of the natural search results.
Not only that, but search engines provide results in order; meaning the web pages which are considered to be most relevant and helpful to the key phrase will appear near the top of the results list. Since most of us tend to consider and click the links near the top of the list first, it’s important to not only get your web pages properly indexed to desirable keywords, but also to get your web pages near the top of the results page. Accomplish this and your business is destined for long-term success and profitability.
One of the biggest mistakes that new online business owners make is thinking once their websites are up and running on the Internet, they just need to sit back and watch the customer inquiries and orders roll in.
This is a mistake because if no one knows your website exists, or can’t find the website when they’re searching for the type of product or service you sell, then you’re never going to make any money. Even if you have a top-notch web store, if potential customers can’t find it then they can’t buy from you, and your business is likely to fail.
To avoid this unfortunate situation, it’s vital that once your website is live (or, even better, that you take these issues into account as part of the process of building your website), the Internet search engines know about your site.
If Google, Bing (Microsoft’s current search engine) and Yahoo don’t know that your website exists, or what type of business you conduct, then they can’t include links to your website as part of a search results page. To make sure the search engines consider your website in the way you want, there are a couple of steps you need to take.
First, you should identify the keyword phrases that are most appropriate to your products and services. Think of them as being the words and phrases potential customers would type into a search engine if they’re looking for your products or services.
Second, you’ll need to build each of the website content pages around those phrases, and make sure the search engines will be able to “find” the pages you’ve made. Search engines use computer programs called “spiders” or “robots” to review millions of web pages every day, in order to determine what type of information is contained on those websites. (You might also hear this process referred to as “crawling”.) This information is reported back to the central database of that search engine, where it is then categorized.
Each search engine uses a different technique to determine which individual web pages are most relevant to any particular keyword phrase. The exact algorithms are secret, and it is thought they change over time. Since search engines are businesses themselves, they’re always trying to provide the best service to their users.
If you take the necessary steps to optimize your website, these search engines are able to drive large numbers of targeted visitors to your website, especially if a page of your website appears near the top of the natural search results.
Not only that, but search engines provide results in order; meaning the web pages which are considered to be most relevant and helpful to the key phrase will appear near the top of the results list. Since most of us tend to consider and click the links near the top of the list first, it’s important to not only get your web pages properly indexed to desirable keywords, but also to get your web pages near the top of the results page. Accomplish this and your business is destined for long-term success and profitability.
Six Additional Free Keyword Research Resources
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Promoting Your Business With Keywords
Promoting Your Business With Keywords
You already know once you identify the best keywords and keyword phrases relating to your business, it's important to use them in your promotional and marketing activities as well as on your website itself. There are a number of relatively simple ways to do this.
First, you can write articles about topics relating to your business (making sure to include the appropriate keyword phrases within the article text), and submit them to publication directories like Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com) and GoArticles (www.goarticles.com). This can be a great way to get additional exposure for your website, because these kinds of websites get very large amounts of traffic every day.
Be careful, though. If you’ve already published an article on your own website, you shouldn’t spend any time submitting the same article to a publication directory. Internet search engines ignore “duplicate content” from or linked to a particular website. You can always rewrite, modify or update your previously-published articles, of course, and as long as they are sufficiently different from the original, they will help your search engine ranking.
One key part of the submission process is that you can upload a short biography of yourself to go along with the article itself. In this biography, you can include a couple of links directly to your website. One of your links will likely point directly to the webpage that you want the reader to go to immediately after they read your article.
Make sure that when you first create your user profile on the article directory site, you add a professional-looking picture of yourself if that option is available. Having this picture included in your biography at the end of the article can go a long way to creating a more personal relationship between you and your prospective customers. A picture also draws attention to the biography, which makes it more likely that a prospect will click on one of your links (which is ultimately the entire purpose of submitting the article to the directory).
Another great way to use your keyword phrases is by associating them with online videos. Online video is rapidly becoming one of the most effective ways of business promotion. Take a little time to create a simple video that somehow relates to your business, or to your market niche. One popular format is the “how to” video – depending on how much time you’re able to spend, you could also do a series of “how to” videos to keep drawing in potential customers.
Your goal is to upload these videos onto popular sites like YouTube (www.youtube.com) and MetaCafe (www.metacafe.com), and as part of this process, you’ll need to come up with a title, description, and list of tags for each video. Not surprisingly, the title, description and tags will all be based upon (or contain) the keyword terms and phrases that you’re targeting. You can also use free tools like TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com), which is a bulk video uploader, to make sure you’re getting the widest distribution and viewership as possible.
Once you get into the habit of preparing and distributing promotional articles and videos that use your target keywords, you’ll find it much easier to do so on a regular basis. This will lead to an increase in the targeted traffic that comes to your site, which in turn will boost your website’s bottom line.
You already know once you identify the best keywords and keyword phrases relating to your business, it's important to use them in your promotional and marketing activities as well as on your website itself. There are a number of relatively simple ways to do this.
First, you can write articles about topics relating to your business (making sure to include the appropriate keyword phrases within the article text), and submit them to publication directories like Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com) and GoArticles (www.goarticles.com). This can be a great way to get additional exposure for your website, because these kinds of websites get very large amounts of traffic every day.
Be careful, though. If you’ve already published an article on your own website, you shouldn’t spend any time submitting the same article to a publication directory. Internet search engines ignore “duplicate content” from or linked to a particular website. You can always rewrite, modify or update your previously-published articles, of course, and as long as they are sufficiently different from the original, they will help your search engine ranking.
One key part of the submission process is that you can upload a short biography of yourself to go along with the article itself. In this biography, you can include a couple of links directly to your website. One of your links will likely point directly to the webpage that you want the reader to go to immediately after they read your article.
Make sure that when you first create your user profile on the article directory site, you add a professional-looking picture of yourself if that option is available. Having this picture included in your biography at the end of the article can go a long way to creating a more personal relationship between you and your prospective customers. A picture also draws attention to the biography, which makes it more likely that a prospect will click on one of your links (which is ultimately the entire purpose of submitting the article to the directory).
Another great way to use your keyword phrases is by associating them with online videos. Online video is rapidly becoming one of the most effective ways of business promotion. Take a little time to create a simple video that somehow relates to your business, or to your market niche. One popular format is the “how to” video – depending on how much time you’re able to spend, you could also do a series of “how to” videos to keep drawing in potential customers.
Your goal is to upload these videos onto popular sites like YouTube (www.youtube.com) and MetaCafe (www.metacafe.com), and as part of this process, you’ll need to come up with a title, description, and list of tags for each video. Not surprisingly, the title, description and tags will all be based upon (or contain) the keyword terms and phrases that you’re targeting. You can also use free tools like TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com), which is a bulk video uploader, to make sure you’re getting the widest distribution and viewership as possible.
Once you get into the habit of preparing and distributing promotional articles and videos that use your target keywords, you’ll find it much easier to do so on a regular basis. This will lead to an increase in the targeted traffic that comes to your site, which in turn will boost your website’s bottom line.
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