Keyword research is the first step in a number of integral online marketing processes. A simple keyword tool will help you find the right niche for your business, show you which terms are ideal for your PayPerClick campaign, and improve your chances of landing at the top of the search results. Running a brief keyword research session is one of the first things you should do when you’re heading into a new venture.

Many new or intermediate entrepreneurs find this aspect of doing business a bit confusing, and perhaps even boring. This seems to be due, in part, to the wide range of complicated products being showcased as the “must have” tool for success with keyword selection. The reality is that, unless you’re entering multiple niches simultaneously or you’re attacking a highly competitive niche, you don’t need to shell out a bunch of money for a top-of-the-line software application. Nor should you have to invest hours of your time learning an intricate procedure for finding good search terms to apply to your venture. Keyword research can be very straightforward and, if you follow the step-by-step instructions below, it should always be a productive undertaking.

The Google Keyword Tool is free to access and you don’t need to be a master of charts and graphs to understand the data generated by your inquiries. You can use this resource to plan your sponsored search campaigns, find an angle for your SEO strategy, or simply to find out if an active market exists for a new product idea. In this article we’ll take a look at the most basic functions and benefits of the Google tool, which you’ll find at:

http://tinyurl.com/GoogleKeywordTool

To put the activity of studying keywords into perspective, let’s assume we’re considering going into the silver coin business. Before investing in an e-commerce site and sourcing our products we want to gauge the activity level of the prospective online marketplace. The way to do this using Google is twofold; first we’ll use the keyword tool to investigate the amount of searcher interest, and then we’ll use the search bar to get an idea of how competitive this field is. When approaching any keyword tool with your initial premise, you need to try and think like one of your potential customers. In our example we’ll enter one or more keyword phrases we think people with an interest in silver coins might use to find a merchant.

Step One: Enter a few simple key phrases.

In this example, we’re starting with silver coins, pure silver coins, and silver bullion coins (note that Google requires a security code for the first query to prevent robots from using their system).

Step Two: Click the Get keyword ideas button.

The results table is easy to read. In the far left column we of course find the keywords. Next we can find a bar graph providing a rough indication of the level of advertiser competition or, to put it another way, a general idea of how saturated the Adwords listings will be for each keyword. The third column indicates the number of Google searches performed last month for each keyword. This data is compiled from the researcher’s country (there is an option to edit this immediately above the keyword input box), so in this example we’re seeing numbers from U.S. searches performed in August. As you can clearly see many of the keywords related to silver coins are being queried thousands of times by Google users.

A high volume of monthly searches is potentially good news because it means a genuine interest exists among Internet users. A fourth column displays the 12-month average figures. This line can be compared to the more recent numbers in the third column to determine whether a market has been consistent over time.

Once you’re confident that a group of keywords is popular enough to pursue, the next step is to get a preliminary idea of how much competition is currently catering to these specific searches.

Step 3: Check the Google search engine

Examine the Google listings relevant to each keyword phrase that fits your prospective venture. There are three primary considerations when using Google to assess the state of a market:

1. The total number of sites in the Google inventory will give you some idea of how busy the marketplace is.
2. The number of optimized sites will shed some light on how difficult it might be for you to break onto the first page of the rankings.
3. The number and nature of Websites that are selling products similar to those that you would be offering if you entered the niche, reveals the level of head-on competition you are likely to face.

If we enter the phrase silver bullion coins into Google.com we find there are 472,000 Websites listed under these keywords. This isn’t a particularly high index, as many searches turn up hundreds of millions of listings. From an SEO perspective anything under half a million is only moderately competitive, with the really ideal range being less than 50,000.

At this point we’ve only confirmed the total number of indexed sites for our keyword, when the more pertinent factor is the number of sites that are specifically optimized to appear high in the results. We can check up on the search marketing savvy Webmasters by entering our keyword phrase into Google using quotation marks, i.e. “silver bullion coins”. This reveals the number of web pages using all three words in this exact order. In this instance the result is a good one. Only 44,200 listings are returned, suggesting that relatively few Website owners are using effective SEO tactics to get Google’s attention.

So far, so good, but what really matters is what we find on the actual Websites listed in the top 10-20 positions of our search. In the case of silver bullion coins virtually every site is either selling coins themselves or recommending another site that retails the coins. Essentially this keyword may not be that tough to crack in terms of strong ranking, but we’ll definitely be up against a number of established competitors. Information of this nature is critical when planning a new venture.

In this sample session we find similar data for most of the keywords provided by our original inquiry. For instance, Silver Eagle Coins was searched on nearly 15,000 times last month. There are close to 700,000 sites indexed for this phrase within Google but less than 34,000 are optimized. Every single page listed in the top ten positions is actively selling Silver Eagles at varying price points. An experienced online merchant may very well decide to move forward with a business in this field, while new and intermediate marketers should probably look for an easier mark.

Striking Gold Silver
The general idea behind keyword research is to identify the path of least resistance. The best case scenario is to find search terms that are searched a high number of times, but that are not being addressed by an excessive number of commercial Websites. This typically requires a good deal of investigation, or “drilling down” as expert niche marketers say. By moving from the more general keyword phrases into the more specific terms we can establish one or more tightly focused niche ideas. We might be able to hit on a particular product name or a “how to” type search that indicates a common problem within the market. Ideally, fewer sites will be ranked well for exact product names or we’ll find a gap in the marketplace where people are looking for a solution that’s not being offered by existing sites.

The most obvious way to handle this is to simply go down the list of keywords that the Google Keyword Tool returned, select the most focused terms, and initiate a new query. In this case, silver coins investment opens the door to a whole new angle of looking into the business of selling silver coins. When we go back to Step 1 & 2 and enter this phrase into the Google Keyword Tool, things start to get interesting. The key phrase, investing in silver was searched on 4,400 times last month, and how to invest in silver was looked up over 700 times.

Upon checking Google.com to evaluate the competitiveness of these two keyword phrases, we are thrilled to find that investing in silver returns only around 24,000 optimized Websites. The search how to invest in silver yields 88,000 optimized listings. The results pages for both entries are mixed between article & video tutorials, and merchants actually selling silver. This analysis suggests that a good number of people are looking for info on how to invest in silver but only a small number of savvy Webmasters are seeking search engine rankings for related terms. Perhaps more importantly, the top Google listings are not entirely dominated by commercial sites. This could be our way into the silver coin market.

In addition to the primary 103 keywords generated in Step 2 the Google Keyword Tool also suggested 97 other search terms based on different vocabulary but carrying the same intent. In other words, this software will help you think of supplementary ways to approach your market by recommending relevant keywords outside of your precise parameters. For example silver rounds and silver bars were listed in the Additional keywords to consider table. Rounds and bars are standard units of bullion measure that most coin consumers would know about and be likely to search for, so this is a fine example of how the Google tool helps you expand your criteria. You can see from the snapshot below that these and other additionally recommended terms are very popular:

A wise researcher would take the time to explore these additional suggestions by checking the Google inventory and initiating new keyword data queries with the most promising terms. By now you should have an elementary grasp of this process.

This article has only scratched the surface of what the Google Keyword Tool can do, and we’ve really just given a nod in the direction of what comprehensive market research is all about. The good news is that comparatively few online marketers put forth any effort at all in this regard, so just practicing the steps given in this article will place you miles ahead of your competition.

Already Invested?

If you’ve already spent considerable time working your way into a niche, this doesn’t mean it’s too late to perform keyword research. Following the steps in this article will help you find additional, and potentially profitable, key phrases that you’ve yet to target.

The Google Keyword Tool also provides the option of generating keyword based on the content of a website. Try performing this search on your own website and also those of your competitors. Compare the results and you’ll be able to see which key phrases your competitors are optimizing that you might also want to consider attacking.

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This article was originally featured in Mike Filsaime’s print newsletter, “MDC Monthly.” You can get a free trial copy shipped to your door by clicking here.

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