Keyword research is one of the most important things you can do as an Internet Marketer. Finding the “right” keywords is pretty critical as good keywords are the foundation to any website and pay per click campaign. Researching and locating the right keywords helps you identify market niches that you can dominate as well as help you get your website found by google. Unfortunately, I have seen far too many websites that choose poor keywords or keywords with high competition which they don’t have a hope of ranking for unless they are planning to spend the next few years trying to build back links to their site.
Fortunately there are tools available that make the process easier. Aside from using Google Keyword Tool, I have used both Micro Niche Finder and Market Samurai. Let me make this clear, both tools are pretty good. Micro Niche Finder is useful but sometimes I have trouble moving it between computers whereas I don’t have that problem with Market Samurai. Also I find that Micro Niche Finder takes me longer to do my keyword research. Data gets posted in a queue and I find that sometimes this takes time to come up.
Keyword research need not take longer than 10 minutes. Market Samurai makes the somewhat boring but essential task of keyword research quick and seamless. The software is also made by local Melbourne lads so I like being about to support the local economy. However, what I really love about Market Samurai is that not only does it help you find the right keywords, it also helps you check out your competition, analyze your page rank, find and publish content as well as find available domain names.
Whilst Micro Niche Finder does similar things I don’t find it as intuitive to use and I find it takes me longer to use the tool properly. If you don’t know what you are doing you can blow up your search results from Google so you get nonsensical data. Market Samurai has easy to use filters – you just need to tick a box. The training videos also explain everything you need to know in plain simple English. You can try it out for your yourself to see how powerful it is. It is also one of the tools that is used by Ed Dale from the 30 day challenge and used by James Schramko from Fast Web Formula.
Download your free Market Samurai evaluation version
Filed under Keyword Research, Market Research by on Jun 12th, 2010. Comment. 
At our last Melpies Meeting on Sunday 7th February, we covered of keyword research. Keyword research is one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle in achieving success online. In fact, research is the foundation of any marketing program. Do this wrong, and you will struggle to get the right traffic and traffic that converts.
Some tips covered at the meeting included:
- How many sponsored ads are displayed – are there buyers in the market? If so this is a good sign as it means your market is commercially viable.
- Consider the competition – if there are millions of search results it is going to take a very long time to rank very highly in google. Ideally you want less than 30,000 search results.
- Think laterally and use related keywords
- Use long-tail keywords that are 3 or more words long- these are more targeted
- Be relevant. Put yourself in the mindset of the buyer. Consider what would you type into Google if you were looking to buy something. For example, if you were looking for advice on how to save money to go on a holiday, you wouldn’t be searching for the term “cheap weekends away” – a buyer typing in this term is most likely going to be looking for locations where they can have a cheap weekend away.
- Use buying terms – words such as cure, stop, fix all suggest that the searcher is looking for a solution to a problem. You can bet if this is the case, they are more likely to be in a buying mind-state.
Keyword research is a simple process but it is amazing how many people get it wrong. We did a couple of case studies of some websites and found that many had some fundamental flaws. Some of the keywords used were too broad, the headings did not match the keywords. The PPC ad campaign for the website was also not specific to buyer needs and used different search terms to the rest of the website.
The process of finding the right keywords is relatively simple. It can be done manually by looking within various Google tools or it can be more automated by using a Micro Niche Software program. The good thing with software, is that you don’t have to go looking in various places to do your research. Your searches are automatically saved so you can refer back to them at a later time. If you would like to find out more about Finding Niche Keywords, then check out these free videos of the software in action by clicking on the above link.
Filed under Keyword Research, Market Research by on Feb 15th, 2010. 2 Comments.
