How to Conduct Keyword Research and Pick the Right Words for Your Site

Today we take a look at the actual process of finding keywords to use for your website. I’ll be focusing on Google’s own tool for this tutorial, simply because that’s how I learned. However, Google isn’t the be all and end all for keyword research tools, there are others available, both free and paid for that are just as effective.

If you haven’t done so already, please read the previous article on Keyword Research to gain a basic understanding of keywords and some of the accompanying terminology. Otherwise let’s begin.

Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool

First of all open a new tab or window and point it to Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool

You should be presented with the following:

This is the default screen that you’re presented with when you access the tool. The part that we’re interested in has been circled red in the screenshot.

1. Click inside the box labelled “Website” to clear it. Leave it blank.
2. Inside the next box enter a keyword.

For the purpose of this tutorial I’ve opted for the keyword “fly fishing”. You should enter whatever keyword is relevant to your site.

Even though the box allows for multiple keywords (one per line or comma separated), just use the one for now so that you’re not overwhelmed by the results.

Finally click the button “Find keywords”

Deciphering the Results

You will then be taken to the results screen. Scroll down to the bottom to see what Google has come up with:

(N.B. There is a page indicator/selector in the top right, I missed this first time round)

Longtail keywords, exact number of monthly searches and an indication of the competition; altogether now:

Sweet!

No? Let me explain some of the columns.

1. Keyword: A bit obvious really. The important thing to note is that these are all long tail keywords that people have actually typed into Google in the last month.
2. Monthly searches: The number of times Google has performed a search for that keyword phrase in the last month. N.B By default, this is set to your current location; English, United Kingdom in my case. You can edit these settings manually if you want to target a different locale.
3. Competition: This is actually advertiser based, as in Adwords competition not number of competing webpages, which we’ll come back to later. It’s actually a good indicator regardless; a higher competition indicates that there is money to be made from this keyword. That’s not to say there is no money to be made in the low competition keywords, but again that’s something we’ll come back to later.
4. Ignore the other columns and now declare at the top of your voice, “Sweet!”

OK, so now what? What do you do with these keywords?

The Golden Trinity of Keyword Research or Where to Crack Open Your Market

If you’re already in the fly fishing market, selling flies and rods for example, then you don’t have much choice, you’re going to have to compete with everyone else on the terms “fly fishing rods” and “fly fishing flies”.

This can be disheartening but there is another way in.

What I’m about to describe is also applicable to those who would like to enter a market (fly fishing in this case) for the first time.

Clearly some keywords are better than others, but how do you know which are the truly golden ones and which are merely fool’s gold? Well, there are 3 rules that need to be adhered to. They are:

1. Significant search volume. It has to be something that people type into Google. Put another way; you can rank number one in Google for the keyword “fancy blue widgets”, but if no-one ever types in “fancy blue widgets” into Google, then you’re not going to benefit from that number one spot.
2. Commercial value. The kinds of phrases people type into Google give an indication of how likely they are to part with their money. The most obvious modifier is the word “free” but, depending on your market, there may be others such as, “quotes”, “tips” and “guides”.
3. Competition. The level of competition is an indicator of how difficult it will be to break into that market.

Think of it like a triangle, where each side is represented by one of these rules. By themselves they mean nothing; “free inspirational quotes” may get a million searches a day but clearly it has zero commercial value.

You can’t make a triangle without three lines, so too with keyword research; you can’t make an informed decision without considering these 3 rules.

Let me illustrate just what I mean with an example.

Breaking Into the Fly Fishing Market

In my brief search I uncovered 19 longtail keywords (I haven’t bothered looking past the first page), but lets say I’m just starting out an e-commerce store selling fly fishing supplies, where should I start?

Obviously the best place is with low competition keywords. It’s just going to be easier to rank for on Google, hence I’m more likely to make money in a shorter amount of time.

The keyword with the least amount of competition on my list is “fly fishing knots”. Now I’m no expert at fly fishing (despite opening an e-commerce store), but it seems to me that this is something people would search for in the hopes of finding a tutorial, kind of like a blog post titled “How to tie fly fishing knots”…

In other words, this longtail keyword has a really low commercial value. I could put together a guide and sell it I suppose, but in this case it may be better to write the post and use the traffic volume to bring people to my site in the hopes of enticing them to buy something.

Speaking of which, the volume of traffic for this keyword was 440 for the last month, which is approximately 14 searches a day (440 divided by 30).

(Maybe fly fishing was a bad example LOL but hopefully you get the gist)

Other low-competition keywords include:

• fly fishing scotland
• fly fishing games
• fly fishing courses
• fly fishing for beginners

I know I’m operating an e-commerce store here, but I also know that a lot of my buyers will come from within 50miles of my current location – it’s just one of those trends. So for that reason Scotland is discarded. Besides it’s a little too generic even for a longtail.

Fly fishing games, I’m not sure what that could entail; board games? Games to play if you get bored?

That can go on the “maybe” list if anything.

Now look at the last two, “fly fishing courses” and “fly fishing for beginners”. These are some pretty good keywords to target, why?

They are highly related, you could have a fly fishing course titled Fly Fishing for Beginners, thus potentially bringing in the traffic for both phrases. Furthermore they have a good commercial value, people are likely to be very willing to pay for a fly fishing course.

If they did purchase your course they’ll also need to buy “fly fishing rods”, “fly fishing tackle”, “fly fishing flies” and/or any other number of “fly fishing equipment” and oh look, they just happen to be the high competition keywords on the list

Before you all rush off to set up a fly fishing e-commerce site there are some caveats. First of all there’s the search volume. “Fly fishing for beginners” and “fly fishing course” received 350 and 100 searches last month respectively. That’s only 11 and 3 daily searches and bear in mind 41% of those will go to the site ranked number 1. Fine for a “hobby” but nowhere near enough for a real business.

Secondly, fly fishing is a seasonal sport and as a consequence you’ll find the traffic volume will follow a seasonal trend. Luckily for us Google’s tool has these little icons next to the keywords which you can click on to view the search trends.

If your business has seasonal trends then be sure to check with the Google tool before you waste time and effort going after keywords during the decline of the trend.

Finally, as sweet as this tool is, there is something missing; the number of competing websites. Luckily that is easy to figure out.

Simply take the keyword you’re interested in and type it into Google, including the quotes; e.g. “fly fishing courses”. This is what’s called a phrase match search, which is simply a search for all the webpages that contain the words in that exact order.

Google always ranks you on the phrase match first. As you gain authority on those keywords you will also start to rank for broad match (words appearing on the page in any order).

What you’re looking for is in the top right hand corner where it says, “Results 1 to 10 of about XXXX for [your keywords here]”

The number represented by the XXXX is the number of competing webpages you are up against. For “fly fishing courses” it’s 5,410.

That’s 5,410 webpages on the Internet (that Google is aware of) that contains the words “fly”, “fishing” and “courses” in that exact order and with nothing in between.

Sounds like a lot, but I can tell you that 5,410 is ridiculously easy to compete against.

Why do we need to know this number?

The Competition indicator on the Google tool isn’t 100% reliable. You may find a keyword that has a high number of searches but really low competition. Is that because it’s a keyword that has no commercial value? Or is it something everyone has just simply overlooked?

Conducting a phrase match search will help you figure it out. A low number of competing webpages could indicate an overlooked keyword, whereas a higher number would be more indicative of a low commercial value keyword.

Conclusion

You now know how to conduct keyword research using Google’s search based tool. A tool that gives you suggestions for keywords based on what people have actually typed into Google.

Beyond that, you have learned how to analyse those keywords using three basic but incredibly important criteria so you know which keywords to go after and which to avoid.

That’s a lot of information to digest, I know. I also know from experience that not all of this will sink in. That’s OK. Bookmark this page and walk away. Come back at another time when you’ve given your mind a chance to absorb and process what it’s already picked up.

You probably have a lot of questions to ask. Again, that’s OK. Ask away in the comments, no question is too small or too trivial.

On Tuesday we will look at one of my favourite aspects of SEO; spying on the competition

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