Probably the most important aspect in succeeding with an online business is the research that you do up front. More specifically, your keyword research in determining whether or not the “action” keywords in your niche are going to be possible to gain a top 3 ranking. If you put up a website and find that you will have to work 8 hours a day for the next 10 years to get your website on top, it may just not be worth your while. Here are a few things to consider when doing your keyword research.
Many people shell out hundreds and even thousands of dollars to buy tools that will tell them exactly what keywords to go after. In my experience these tools are only helpful in giving you ideas in long tail keywords to put on second tier pages. This is great over time in coming up with new content ideas that will land you more traffic, but it is not necessary. There are free tools and a method you can use that is just as effective.
Google AdWords: Free Keyword Tool
At one point (only a few weeks ago) this tool was about as accurate as a random lottery number. You really never knew what would come up and the numbers NEVER represented true search volumes. Today however is a different story. For some reason, they decided to update the tool and it now gives a pretty accurate representation of just how many people are searching for certain key phrases during the course of the year.
This is great for those who are doing their keyword research now and in the future but is frustrating to those who relied on these inaccurate numbers in the past. Moving forward though, this tool will work to figure out if the amount of searches per month for your keywords are going to be enough to make your work worth your time.
Once you figure out if the search volume is high enough, your next step is to figure out the strength of competition you will be going up against. Strength of competition is far more important than the number of competitors, so don’t be scared or worry too much about just how many people are competing in your niche.
When determining strength of competition the first thing you need to do is evaluate the top 5 or top 3 positions for these keywords. This is what you are going after and never settle for less than the number 3 spot. It just won’t do you any good to be lower than that.
Look to see first if these websites are optimized for their keywords. Next, look at their PageRank, number of back links, age of the domain, and where the back links are coming from. All of this will tell you just how easy or how tough it will be for you to out rank them.
There is only a fraction of science and math involved in keyword research but nothing set in stone. You need to get some practice in order to get a feel for which keywords are going to be easy or not. This will come with experience and plenty of practice. Remember that you can rank for ANY keyword you want with enough work and time. Only you want to make it as easy as possible on yourself. All you are learning to determine is just how much work it will take to take the position you are aiming for.
