Internet Marketing Research Tools

This Top Internet Marketing Research Tool to Find the Keywords That Can Make — or Break! — Your Business

In the past two issues you've seen sample Q&A's from our newly formed Internet Entrepreneur Club forum. It's THE place for our members to ask their most pressing questions — and get answers — about their online businesses and the hottest Internet marketing research tools and strategies available.

It's also a great place for us to learn what's on people's minds, so we can refine our products and services to better meet YOUR needs.

One thing that's become clear as we've monitored the forum is that many online entrepreneurs have questions about finding good keywords.

Questions like:

• How do I use keywords to find a viable niche market?
  
• What makes a good keyword?
  
• How can I be sure I've found viable keywords? Is there a quick and easy way to test them?
  
• Where's the best place to put my keywords?

In fact, we had to create a whole new section for all the threads on this subject! And it was well worth doing. Keyword research is a fundamental skill that can be used in EVERY aspect of building a wildly profitable online business.

If you're just starting out and you want to find a viable niche market online, you need keyword research. If you're already established, and you want to increase your traffic numbers, you need keyword research. If you're looking for complementary products to sell on the back end, you need keyword research.

You need it when you're planning a pay-per-click ad campaign and when you want to reach out to find new markets for your products. And if you're trying to rank higher in the search engines, you can't do without it.

It's no wonder there are so many questions on the subject! Let's take an in-depth look at how to identify smokin' hot keywords using the best Internet marketing research tool available to you: Wordtracker.

The whole process can be broken down into five easy steps:

1. Build a list of keywords you think people are using to search for products in your area of interest
   
2. Refine your keyword research in Wordtracker
   
3. Check out the competition
   
4. Test your keywords using pay-per-click ads
   
5. Spread your keywords throughout your website copy, opt-ins, and distributed content

Even though finding viable keywords to build your Internet business can be challenging, it's also a lot of FUN. So let's dive into the exciting worlds that keyword research can reveal to you!

Step 1. Build a list of words and phrases you THINK people are using to search for a topic in your area of interest

This may seem obvious, but the first thing you need to do is come up with a list of keywords and phrases to use as the basis for your Wordtracker research. Don't forget that a keyword can actually be a phrase. In fact, the best ones often are!

To come up with your keyword list, you need to "think like a potential customer." Put yourself in their shoes, and think of words you might use to search for something that you don't necessarily know a lot about.

Let's say you are passionate about wine, and you want to check out the market potential for selling fine wines online. Your specialized knowledge tells you that fine wines include "1990 Bordeaux," or "Willamette Valley Pinot Noir," so you put those on your list.

However, you can't assume that all of your potential customers know exactly what kinds of wine they're looking for. Many people might be searching for gifts for other wine lovers — but not know anything about wine themselves. They might search for "best wines," "expensive wines," or "gifts for wine lovers." So make sure you include those types of phrases as well.

Once you've generated a list of 100 to 200 keywords (yup — that's how many you should aim for), then you can use your list as a jumping-off point for your research in Wordtracker.

In general, your list should be made up of keywords that are:

• Specific. You may think that "golf clubs" is pretty specific, but think of all the different reasons people might type "golf clubs" into a search engine. They might want to buy, sell, make, design, or even read a history of golf clubs.
  
  So if you're interested in selling golf clubs, think of all the phrases that people wanting to buy golf clubs would use to search online (e.g., "buy golf clubs," "purchase set of golf clubs," or "cheap golf clubs").
  
  
• Related. Think of as many ways as you can to express the same idea. If you wanted to teach yourself how to improve your golf swing, what words would you use to search for a course online?
  
  You might try searching for "golf swing lesson," or "golf swing video," or "demo good golf swing." Start by thinking of as many ways you can to express the main idea "golf swing," and then move on to as many different ways to describe "lesson."
  
  
• Problem statements. Many people use problem statements to search for information online. Continuing with the golf swing theme, you might also search for "correct golf swing," or "how to improve golf swing," or "fix slice in golf." So make sure you include some of these kinds of statements.

The important thing is to keep your eyes and mind open to all possibilities. Think like your potential customers as you type keywords into the search engines, and try to come up with terms they're likely to be searching.

There are a couple of great free Internet marketing research tools that can help you round out your list:

• Yahoo Search Marketing keyword selector tool: Gives you a list of related terms for a keyword you enter, and also tells you how many times those keywords have been searched on over the last month.
  
  
• Wordtracker's free suggestion tool: Generates up to 100 related keywords for your starting keyword, and estimates their daily search volume.

Add any related terms that look promising to your list. Once you've generated this initial list of keywords, you're ready to dive into Wordtracker.

Step 2. Look for "clusters" of related keywords in Wordtracker

If you're not already familiar with Wordtracker, you're in for a treat! This keyword research tool is absolutely indispensable for the online marketer!

I wrote a 2-part blog post about Wordtracker that gives a great introduction, so if you're not already familiar with this Internet marketing research tool, I recommend you check it out. I also recommend that you take their free tutorial to get a sense of how it works before you start tackling your own list.

Basically, Wordtracker keeps a record of how many times a particular keyword or phrase was searched during the past 60 days on several of the largest search engines and metacrawlers on the Web.

It then allows you to search its database of over 330 million searches (or "queries") to see how many times the particular keywords appeared.

Finally, it organizes all of this detailed information into useful reports that you can use to estimate how much traffic your site could expect to get in a 24-hour period if you were ranked in a top position under those keywords.

The important columns to check in the report are the "KEI Analysis," "24 Hrs," and "Competing."

The KEI is a number that mystifies many of my customers, but basically it shows you supply versus demand. KEI stands for "Keyword Effectiveness Index." This gives you an idea of how many people are searching those keywords in relation to the number of sites that are competing under them.

In general, the higher the KEI, the better the keywords — PROVIDED that a decent number of people are searching for them! (You'll find that number in the "24 Hrs" column.) Eventually you want to create a list of keywords that covers a range of KEIs.

Take a look at the results for the keywords generated from the term "dog house plans" below:




Can you tell by looking at these results why a high KEI doesn't necessarily mean a great keyword?

"Free plans for a large dog house" is at the top of the list, because it has a predicted 10 searchers a day, but only has 6 competing sites. With so few competitors, it would be a cinch to appear in the top page of the listings for that term! However, you'd only be able to get your site seen by 10 people a day. (And those people are looking for something for free!)

In contrast, "dog house plans" has a predicted 129 searchers a day. Of course, it also happens to have 20,400 sites competing for it, which will make it much more difficult for you to get your site listed on the top pages of the results.

So how do you know how many searches are enough to provide the basis for a good market?

A good rule of thumb is to aim for keywords that have at least 100 searchers or more per day in the "24 Hrs" column. And because you want to attract as many visitors as possible, you should look for groups of related keywords that express the same thing in different ways. A general guideline is to find 10 to 15 related keywords.

The exact number you'll need will vary on the KEIs of the keyword groupings you find. Jennifer Boulet, one of our copywriting experts here at IMC, really summed up the key rules to live by when she answered this question by Internet Entrepreneur Club forum member Peter, who was using keyword research to find a niche market:

Hi - just for my benefit and for others on the forum I was wondering if you could detail what a good KEI result is.

Thanks,

Peter

***

Hi Peter,

Great question. I'm sure members will appreciate it...

Wordtracker says a KEI of over 100 is good. The higher the KEI, the better the keyword (because it gets more searches, and has less competition).

However, if you're looking for a business idea, you should be looking at CLUSTERS of keywords around a theme.

For example, a keyword cluster around the topic of feeding ferrets might be:

"what to feed my ferret"
"diet to lose weight ferrets"
"natural food for ferrets"
"food tips for ferrets"

... etc.

You shouldn't base an entire business on ONE keyword with a KEI of 100+. That's risky.

When I look for keyword clusters, I look for keywords with a KEI greater than 10.

How many keywords need to be in a cluster for it to be a viable business idea?

That depends...

If you find a cluster of keywords that all have KEIs over 100+, then you'll need FEWER keywords — because you've found a group of keywords that get LOTS of searches with not a lot of competition.

If all the keywords in your cluster have KEIs of 10 to 15 (for example), you'll ideally want MORE keywords in your cluster before deciding it's a viable business option — because you're either faced with fewer searches or more competition.

I hope this helps!

Jennifer

Another general guideline when you're interpreting your results in Wordtracker is to try to make sure that each of your keywords has fewer than 1,000 sites in the "competing" column.

So here are the numbers to remember:

KEI: 10+

24 Hrs: 100+

Competing: <>

But not all of the "competing" sites listed will be real competition, so in the next step I'll show you how to find out for sure...

Step 3. How to REALLY find out who your competition is

To really find out who you're up against, just take your refined keyword list into the search engines. You can actually jump to the search engine results directly from your Wordtracker results.

Start checking out the websites that appear on the first few results pages for your keywords. Take note of your first impressions:

• Are they selling an entirely different product that happens to use the same keywords? If so, they're not really competition. Going back to the golf example, "golf clubs" could refer to a club you join so you can play golf, rather than the actual golf club you use to hit the ball.
  
  
• Do the sites look professional? Do they have clear navigation and compelling salescopy? If the only competing sites look sloppy or dodgy, there may still be an opportunity for you to capture eyeballs with a better-designed site.
  
  
• Do they have opt-in forms? This is a sign of how well they're capitalizing on their market — as well as how many devoted customers they might already have in their corner!
  
  
• Are they offering the same product for free? If they're offering information for free that you want to charge for, it's going to be a tough sell! However, you might be able to create a free product based on your keywords and use it as an opt-in offer.
  
  
• Are they heavily trafficked sites? You can get a good idea of how much traffic they get by looking at them with the Alexa toolbar, another great Internet marketing research tool.
  
  
• Are the sites well optimized for your keywords? Check their sites to see whether they are maximizing the keywords, or just ranking for them by accident! If so, you might be able to beat them with some smart keyword placement on your site!

By now you should have a pretty good list of possible keywords. Now you want to pare it down to the best performing ones. Here's a little-known method for testing the waters to see which ones will work best for you (shhh!)...

Step 4. Test your keywords using pay-per-click ads

Testing your best keywords is another important step in your research. And the best way to do this is to buy pay-per-click (PPC) traffic. By testing the same ad with different keywords, you'll be able to:

• Get results fast. You'll see very quickly what kind of traffic numbers each keyword will generate.
  
  
• See which keywords convert best. Sometimes the most valuable keywords aren't the ones that bring in the most traffic. You can check your stats to see which keywords turn into sales most often.
  
  
• Refine your list to your top-performing keywords. Once you've figured out which keywords perform best, you can drop the bad ones, leaving you with the cream of the crop.

Now that you have a list of hot keywords, it's time to include them on your website and in your content.

Step 5. Use your top-performing keywords EVERYWHERE to capitalize on droves of targeted traffic

On your website, your keywords are what the search engine spiders will look for in your text and your HTML source code to categorize your web site and rank it appropriately.

By including the right keywords in a number of strategic "hot spots" on your site, you can give the search engines an accurate representation of what your site is all about. The best spots are:

• In your domain name, if possible. Search engines REALLY like URLs that are saturated with keywords! Take a look at your best-performing keywords and come up with a list of URLs containing them. Next, check if the domain name is available by entering it into MarketingTips.com/domains.
  
  
• In your website title tag. This is the text that appears in the bar at the top of a browser window. Your title tag looks like this: .
  
  This is the most important area of text in your website because search engines look at it FIRST when they spider your site.
  
  
• Your site's headlines and subheads. Using your keywords in your web page's headline and subheads helps your visitors see what your site is all about right away.
  
  
• Throughout your web page content. Include your top keywords in the first and last paragraphs of your content (two or three times if possible), and and a few more times throughout the rest of your copy.
  
  
• In your ongoing pay-per-click campaigns. If you build special "landing" pages for your top-performing keywords, you can write salescopy that laser-targets the people who search on those words.
  
  For example, for the keyword, "winemaking kits," your landing page can specifically target "brew-it-yourselfers." But on the landing page for the keyword "gifts for wine lovers," you can expand your copy to include other items like gift baskets and corkscrews.

You can also use your top-performing keywords in all your advertising and distributed content, such as articles and press releases — all of which add up to more and better targeted traffic.

One caution, however. Keyword popularity DOES change over time. So use the Internet marketing research tools we talked about on an ongoing basis to make sure that you're still bringing the most targeted traffic to your site.

6. Final thoughts

As you've seen, there are no shortcuts when it comes to finding viable keywords... but using Internet marketing research tools like Wordtracker, this critical aspect of building a successful online business is quite manageable — and FUN!

Just remember to:

1. Generate a list of 100 to 200 keywords, using as many different ways you can think of to describe the same thing!
   
   
2. Take your list into Wordtracker and look for 10 to 15 "keyword clusters." Each "word" should have a KEI of 10 or more, with roughly 100 searchers per day, and, ideally, fewer than 1,000 sites competing under those keywords.
   
   
3. Check out your competition! Is there already someone dominating a small niche leaving no room for anyone else? Or is information being offered for free that would make selling a product difficult? What sites are already ranking for those keywords, and can you beat them at their own game?
   
   
4. Test out your keywords using pay-per-click ads. This is the fastest way to find out just how well different keywords will perform.
   
   
5. Put your top-performing keywords in your website and in ALL your online content. Pay particular attention to your title tag, heads, and the first and last paragraph of copy on your website. And don't be afraid to include your keywords in as many types of marketing materials you can!

That should keep you busy for a while! But I guarantee that once you've worked your way through these five steps, you'll see a HUGE increase in your traffic.

Now that you've learned all about the exciting worlds of keyword research, you may find that you're hungry for more information on how to use it to build on your success.

If you used your research to identify a niche market, you'll probably want to know how to use keywords to create top-performing salescopy or get your website noticed by the search engines.

Or if you already have a website, you might want to learn the more advanced keyword strategies for driving even more qualified traffic to your site, or creating backend products and compelling opt-in offers to grow your email list.

Even if you're an Internet veteran, you'll want to learn about the hottest, most up-to the minute strategies for using your keyword research to generate better and BIGGER profits.

And when that time comes, you'll definitely want to check out the brand-new 2007 edition of our Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet course. This freshly updated and expanded version launches in just a couple of weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

The Internet marketing industry changes at warp speed, especially the areas of SEO and email marketing... and our latest version is chock full of the most up-to-the-minute techniques and strategies.

*** Inside the Internet Entrepreneur Club forum ***

Did you find the information in this newsletter useful? This is just a small sample of the kind of information that's being hashed out in the Internet Entrepreneur Club forums EVERY day! On a final note, I'd like to leave you with a response generated by the lively discussions in our IEC forum about keyword research...

Keyword research is the critical, first step on the road to finding a viable niche market, but it's not the final destination. As IMC expert copywriter Jennifer Boulet points out, there are some other things to consider...

"Here are some other factors that affect the viability of a business model:

1. Who is your competition in that market space? Sure maybe there are only 2 competitors. But you need to figure out whether or not these guys have already dominated the market space. I've seen plenty of examples of really tight niche markets, where there are lots of searches, but one or two websites have already won the loyalty and traffic of buyers... making it much more difficult for a little guy to step in. One example of that is kiteboarding. A couple of websites have already taken over this market space, gaining support of all the big kiteboarding brand names (who are paying them for advertising, and selling products off their websites)... You'd be hard pressed to step into that market space now. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's no longer an easy win.
   
   
2. What are you going to be able to realistically sell the product for? And, what's it going to cost to get set up to sell it via the Web? Obviously, with any new business you need to expect to price test. However, with enough research, you should be able to at least GUESS what range your price point will fall into. Once you've figured this out, you need to estimate your start up costs. Again, this takes research because every business model is different. Can you reduce costs by investing your own elbow grease?
   
   How do your start up costs compare to your potential profits? How many of these products do you need to sell before you're profitable? Look at how many searches are being done per month... And LOW BALL your traffic and sales conversions to start (assume 1/100 to 1/50 depending on how tight your niche is).
   
   Are these numbers you can live with?
   
   
3. Are your clients REALLY going to be willing to buy the product online? There are lots of products that people come online to RESEARCH but that they buy locally. Granite countertops, pianos, common household items and food products are all difficult to sell online. Maybe it's too difficult/expensive to ship. Maybe they can't wait to buy it (common foods). What's the benefit of buying this product online vs. just buying it locally?

... These are some of the key factors you need to consider.

They should help give you a ROUGH idea of what the income potential of a particular business is. But again, it will be very very rough.

For example, keep in mind that your estimates here don't consider traffic sources OUTSIDE of the search engines. Maybe with some hard work you can drive traffic by giving away free content to other sites (as I've seen many businesses do successfully)... Maybe once the website is up and running, you can secure a really great joint venture partner.

For more info on researching niches, I highly recommend reading previous threads in the Wordtracker section of the Sales Copy & Website design portion of this forum. You'll find lots of great info along these lines there, too..."

To get the hottest, most up-to-the-minute information on EVERY area of the fast-paced Internet marketing world, you can connect with our team of experts in our Internet Entrepreneur Club forum, too.

For everything you need to know to get started, just click here.

http://www.marketingtips.com/sr/t.x/917369

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