As you’ve know, I joined Pat Flynn’s Niche Site Duel project (NSD) and today, I want to talk to you about keywords.
When creating a new site be it a niche or an authority site, choosing the right topic is always the most vital part of the process. Your site’s name, the appearance, what you writes, etc. are all determined by the name or topic you chose.
Specifically, when building a niche site, the keyword you chose to target can ultimately mean the difference between your success and failure.
However, it is very much possible to compete with any keyword out there depending on the amount of time and money you have to outrank the existing competition.
A very higher volume search combined with high volume of competition means that you will have to spend a lot of money on your ads campaign before you can see any meaningful result because, there will be some bigger brands that are already competing with each other on that same keyword.
Recommended Reading: NSP Update 1: Finding the Best Keyword to Target
So, it is very much better to for those of us with limited budget and less time to try and dominate a niche with lesser competition.
All we have to do is, niche down, targets a market in a sub-market and, you’re going to rank higher in the search engines. Like Pat Flynn said, I’ll rather be in the first page for a keyword that gets 3000 exact local searches than be on the 5th page for a keyword with 300,000 exact searches.
For the rest of this article, I will be sharing with you the criteria that I’m going to use while conducting keyword research for my website based on my experience on this project, you can also follow along with these same criteria.
The tool I will be using to do my keyword research and the same tool that has been doing lots of wonders to other niche site marketers out there is LONG TAIL PRO.
Long Tail Pro is the best and most simple keyword research tool out there. It’s not free but, it’s worth whatever they are selling it. You can also use the free Google keyword research tool but, Long Tail Pro will certainly make your keyword research process a breeze, very simple and accurate. It’s a tool that will give you all you need to know about any keyword within a twinkle of an eye. I will write more about it later.
Click Here to Purchase Long Tail Pro now (Aff Link), you can also download and try it for 10 days free of charge :).
My Keyword Research Criteria
1. Helping People
I will make sure that whatever topic, whatever keyword I’m going to target and build my website around, that it will be a topic I’m sure that I will be able to help people through my skill or knowledge of that topic. It’s not going to be about the money alone but, I must be able to help people too.
2. Search Volume [Exact]: Min of 3,000 Local Monthly Searches
Search volume is the number of times a particular keyword is searched for in Google, and it’s usually reported in per monthly basis. It’s an indication of how many potential visitors you expect to be getting per month if you land in the number one position in Google for that particular keyword.
Recommended Reading: NSP Update 1: Finding the Best Keyword to Target
NOTE: Always perform your keyword research using Exact Match. Most keyword research tools always default on Broad Match but, it’s advisable to always set it to Exact Match as this will give you a true data of how many times a particular keyword alone is searched for in Google.
3. SEO Competition: Is there room in the top 10 of Google?
This is another thing that is of utmost important after we found our keyword using the criteria above. You need to know what existing competition for that keyword is in Google. This is to find out how difficult it will be to get to the first page.
In my own case, I will be looking at the following factors….
*Is the keyword used in the URL of the pages listed in the top 10 of Google for that keyword?
*Is the keyword used in the Title of the page
*Is the keyword used in the description of the page?
*The number of incoming links to those pages, and the quality of those links.
*Anchor text distribution
*Content on the competing pages
Using Spencer Haw’s tool….. Long Tail Pro (Aff Link) can really make all these easy for you, you can easily use it to find all the data’s above without doing it manually.
3. Is there money to be made on this Niche?
By now, you must have found a keyword with a decent search volume and has lower competition, the next thing now is to ask yourself the question……. Can I make money on this niche?
Researching your monetization before choosing any niche is just as essential as performing key word research. You don’t want to waste all these time only to realize later that there is no earning potential for the keyword you selected so; it’s of utmost important that you research your monetization strategy before deciding on any keyword.
In this case, some of the things I will be looking at include:
*The average cost per click (CPC) in Google adwords
*The advertisements that shows up when I perform a search on Google using that keyword
*If I also perform a search on Amazon.com, are there books or products that show up?
*What products are other sites promoting related to the keyword?
There are many other factors to look at, you just need to know what you want as, i may not be looking for the same thing as you and, getting a keyword that passes the above criteria will not guarantee your earning on that niche, it also depends on your efforts and the performance of your site.
4. The Grandma Test
I learnt this one from Pat Flynn :). It goes like this……
When I’ve selected a keyword based on all the criteria above, I will then ask myself the following question:
If I created a website in this niche and it became incredibly successful, would I be comfortable sharing my success with my grandma?
If the answer is no, then I may have to think twice about getting into this particular niche, isn’t that fun :)?
This is it for now.
Now, follow up on my next post about how to brainstorm and select the perfect keyword for your niche sites. Join my email list or, subscribe to my feed so that you won’t miss any of the posts.
Feel free to comment and ask me any question based on this post and, I will be here to answer you.
And please, remember to tweet and share the post with your friends. Please use the buffer button to tweet for now because, the twitter button is not pulling the post URL until, I resolve the issue.
Cheers and happy new month.
Photo Credit: Page rank
FERNANDO says
Great quick tips Theodore. Thanks for the share about the Pat Flynn’s course and reminding us joining it. Also the Long tila pro something I’ve thinking about buying. Will consider soon about that as well.
Theodore Nwangene says
You welcome Fernando,
I’m happy you enjoyed the article. If you have the money, go purchase Long Tail Pro, I’m sure you will not regret it. Thanks for coming.
Jan Koch says
HI Theodore,
I agree with most of your criteria for selecting a good keyword.
My only question is regarding the monthly search volume. Will your site focus on one keyword or will you build it focussing on several long-tail keywords in the same topic?
As you know I’m also creating a niche site right now and what I noticed is, that you can find perfect matching long-tail keywords in some topics. So you wouldn’t need one keyword with 3,000 monthly searches, but have 4 or 5 keywords with each around 2,000 searches or less and then get a high monthly search volume combined from several keywords.
Best regards,
Jan
Theodore Nwangene says
Interesting question Jan,
As you know, when it comes to SEO, sometimes, the keywords that normally brings majority of the traffic is not your main keyword but, those other Long Tail Keywords you targets while writing.
So, i will definitely be targeting more Long Tail Keywords. I plan to have some pages whereby i will also target some Long Tail Keywords as categories.
Thanks a lot for asking such an important question man and, happy new month.
Harleena Singh says
Hi Theodore,
I was looking forward to reading your post as you did mention you’d be writing more about keywords next time 🙂
Oh yes….the exact searches are what work better than the broad ones, but this is something I learnt rather later. I guess it must have been while visiting other fellow bloggers like you who share such informative posts. I’ve read a lot about Long Tail Pro too, though never really gone ahead with such tools so far – good old Google Keyword works well, though you need to know the exact ways of making it all work, which is rather tricky even there. I’m still on the learning phase and keep trying ways to see what really works, and when some keywords DO work, or they rank – they are usually the ones you never used or targeted….how does that happen I wonder 🙂
It’s nice that you are sharing all that you are going through and learning with all of us to help us get better too, which again not everyone does. And I agree with Pat’s Grandma’s test there – when you share, you only get better and your learning also gets stronger, and you really don’t lose anything, instead, gain much.
Thanks for sharing this with us. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
Happy new month Harleena,
And, thanks a lot for all the kind words :). Yes, Long tail pro is the best. The Google keyword tool is also nice but, i find it so tedious and, if you want to get serious with SEO then, you’ll certainly need LTP :).
Yea, i understand what you meant by that, there are those keywords that normally rank naturally even with we optimizing for them but, i think its some normal 🙂 It shows we’re doing it right :).
I also agree with Pat’s grandma test, we need to create something we will be proud of anytime right :)?
Thanks a lot for your awesome contribution Leena, really proud of you 🙂
Do have a blessed week.
Deepanshu Mittal says
Great information thanks for sharing.
Is there any tool for extracting efficient keywords from the post .
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for the visit Deepanshu,
I’m glad you like the post
Jason says
Wow! Theodore this article is very informative and helpful too. thanks for sharing dude.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Jason,
I’m indeed glad you like it. Do have a great weekend. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Chadrack says
Hi Theodore,
It’s great to know that you are steadily moving on with your niche site. I must agree with you that your chosen niche is crucial to the level of success you can achieve. Like I mentioned in my post on the subject, what you should attract more to the niche is the present of hungry and desperate buyers! Truth is if you are to do this, success is sure even if the traffic is low.
Btw. thanks for the link to my post. Truly appreciate!
Theodore Nwangene says
You’re right Chadrack,
And, i agree with all you have to say. I’ve also learnt a lot from you man and, i wish us success on this project :). Have a great weekend.
Pawan says
Hi Theodore,
So much to learn from this article buddy. I’ve never tried building niche blog yet but I’ve been doing small amount keyword research over the past few months. It’s definitely good to go ahead with proper research and analysis and you’re exactly doing that. I would love to listen to what will happen next. Keep sharing your experience about building niche site and good luck! 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
You welcome Pawan,
I really appreciate your contribution and, i promoise to disclose everything I’m doing here. Thanks for coming and, have a fabulous weekend. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Lisa says
Theordore, great post! I had recently signed up for the free trial for LongTail Keyword Pro. It’s been awesome. It is important to know if there is room for you to be in the top 10. So many ways to check things, Google webmaster and analytics and various others I’ve used. I love your grandma test, that is precious!
Theodore Nwangene says
Great Lisa,
I’m happy you’re already trying LTP, Its such a very amazing tool and I’m sure you will like. Thanks for coming and do have a great weekend. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Prabal Chowdhury says
Finding the best keyword is the main task for the betterment of a website. And for keyword research I strongly recommend colibritool as my favorite one. Do you know how easy you can speed up the process of finding new keywords and trends together with keyword position tracking in search engines and the traffic and conversions you get by at least 50%?
colibri provides all needed insight from Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google Keyword Tool and Google Trends in one place.We can do the hardwork so you can concentrate on other activities. You can find it here (http://colibritool.com)
Theodore Nwangene says
Hello Prabal,
I’m really enjoying Long Tail Pro although, i haven’t heard of colibritool before but, i will also check it out. Thanks for coming.
Aman Bansal says
Hello Theodore Nwangene,
You are just fantastic with your stuff as always. Before getting into this article I was reading your article where you mentioned that how you got adsense disable for your 9 year old blog. Yet another post from you in which you mention how to choose a perfect niche site to do a good business over internet. In terms of both traffic and money.
I am totally agree with you that we must choose a best keyword niche site. We should work on the things where we are capable to do our best. If you aren’t interested to write about home designs, health than don’t make your site for this niche because here you won’t be able to give your best. High CPC paying keywords should not be our target, our aim has to produce a fabulous blog that everyone enjoys to read each and every article by posting comments.
Have a nice day. I hope Ill get more next time about this. 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks and welcome to my blog Aman,
From your comment, i can see that you really understood all i said and I’m very glad for that. Niche sites marketing can be a very profitable way to make money online but, you must conduct your keyword research very well if you must succeed.
And yes, we should always target long tail keywords with lower competition because, thats where the game is :). Thanks for all those kind words of yours Aman, i really appreciate them a great deal and of cause, you will certainly learn more from me, just keep visiting :).
Have a great weekend and, I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Aman Bansal says
Hey bro,
If I don’t read your thoughts then how it will be possible for me to make a comment on it. We are always looking to get something from other our blogger buddies. Not just go for commenting to just creating backlinks. I hope you have got from I am saying.
Keyword researching is very important for us to choose for our blog because it gives the boost easily and high CPC paying keyword is always a demand from blogger, isn’t it?
Theodore Nwangene says
Yea Aman,
I’m aware of that and you rock :). Most people don’t really have the time to read the posts till the end. They just want to get links via commenting and, thats why they always leave meaningless comments :).
Thanks for coming again.
Aman Bansal says
Yeah bro,
I rock but you rock double then me… 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
Haha Aman,
Thanks for the compliment Though. It means that we both rock 🙂
Webdev1 says
I am just currently learning about SEO. And honestly I am new to it as in I am a beginner. So now I know that those numbers of traffic brought depends upon the chosen keyword. So keyword chosen must be correct. I know about Google Adwords but I am trying to fully understand about the Long Tail keyword.
Webdev1 says
I am just currently learning about SEO. And honestly I am new to it as in I am a beginner. So now I know that those numbers of traffic brought depends upon the chosen keyword. So keyword chosen must be correct. I know about Google Adwords but I am trying to fully understand about the Long Tail keyword. Thanks for posting an article like this Theodore.
Theodore Nwangene says
SEO is not something you can learn quickly neither is it a rocket science,
But, i believe that if you put your mind on it, you will definitely become so good at it. Yea, Long Tail Pro is really the best and the easiest keyword research tool I’ve seen and, if you really want to become good at Keyword research then, you must invest in it.
Thanks for the visit man and please, do come again. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Tim Bonner says
Hi Theodore
I scrapped a niche site I had been working on quite recently.
I had I interest in the subject and for me that was fatal.
I know you don’t need to have an interest in something to create a niche site but in my experience it helps a little!
I still use the Adwords keyword tool at the moment. If the new niche website I’ve set up takes off though then I may consider Long Tail Pro.
Theodore Nwangene says
Hey Tim,
I’m happy you’re also doing some niche stuff and I’m sure you will scale through. Yea, google adword tool is really useful but, LTP is easier and saves a lot of time on keyword research. Thanks for stopping by.
I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Martin says
Some great helpful advice here for anybody seeking to build a profitable niche for business. I have chosen the paranormal and horror genres, as they have always been my main interest and have good knowledge of both topics. I have now published a number of ghost and horror books on Amazon Kindle, and have also set up my own website, Wirral Writer, to showcase my work. I am, however, always interested in new tips and advice in increasing traffic to my site, finding more suitable niches etc.
Theodore Nwangene says
Great to hear that Martin,
You’re really achieved a lot and I’m happy for that because, i know its never easy. Thanks for coming and, more strength to your elbows. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
Okto says
Love the “Grandma Test”! Lol. Going to watch your progress in this NSD Theodore!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Okto,
I love it too and, I’m happy we will both learn a lot from the duel :). I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
yogesh pant says
Hi Theodore,
exactly, for a niche site, first thing that is mandatory is the skill and knowledge in that field.
You have to interact with your readers.
For answering the queries related to your article, you must have the level of knowledge so that you can provide satisfactory answers to your readers.
-Yogesh
Theodore Nwangene says
Great point Yogesh,
And i agree with all you said, thanks a lot for your awesome contribution. I’m sorry for my late reply though, have been battling with my internet connection.
frank joseph says
I have spent more than 10 minutes reading through your plan and i can tell you, you are getting it right, although,, since this is your first niche site, you might make some mistakes, but then, we learn from our mistakes,
I would have loved to join Pat’s niche duel, but i learnt about it too late. anyways, a blogger who saw my interest in pat comment, contacted me and said we should go on about it ourselves,
and why not? it is almost the same thing. He gave the keyword and we went ahead to purchase PEMD. (partial exact match domain). we are expected to rank the keyword in 60 days and earn $500/month. wish me well 😀
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks a lot Frank,
I’m very happy to hear that you’re also on the niche site marketing route. And yes, we’re bound to make some mistakes as we’re starting but, we will also learn from them.
Now, lets rock and roll it :). Wishing us success man.
Thanks for the visit.
Rakesh says
Wow sir , very very thanks for your informative tips for keyword reasearch tool
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks for the compliment Rakesh, really appreciate