|
|
| |
> Get Articles > Search Engines and SEO > Dodge The Competitive Keyword Bullet
Dodge The Competitive Keyword Bullet
Download as PDF
Rob MacCurry
roberexmsn.com
SuperSystems!Says!
http://www.supersystem.i8.com
***********************************************************
Dodge The Competitive Keyword Bullet
By Rob MacCurry
Today you will learn how to avoid the pitfalls of expensive
and ineffective search engine optimization. You'll also
learn how to dodge what I like to call the the "pay per
click competitive keyword" bullet. Just exactly what is this
bullet?
It's a highly searched on keyword. Its the ammo that
depletes your pay per click budget, and keeps you from
getting the results you need. You can lose a lot of money if
you choose the wrong keywords. Likewise, ineffective search
engine optimization canmortally wound your online marketing
efforts.
***********************************************************
It's true. Online businesses have gone broke trying to
optimize for the search engines, directories and pay per
click services.
Selecting the right keywords is the first step in any
professional search engine optimization job. And in the
past, this has been a very expensive,complicated,
frustrating and nerve wracking experience.
And if you are just starting out, you'll be amazed to find
that many professional search engine optimization companies
charge thousands of dollars for this one function alone.
In my opinion, that's a rip off.
***********************************************************
What's the problem? You know what your visitors are
searching for. But the problem is, so do all your
competitors.
If you focus on a keyword or keyword phrase that is too
competitive, your chance of ranking in the top ten, well,
they stink.
That's right.
And at Overture, the cost becomes very prohibitive very
quickly if you try to target these highly competitive
keywords. Or you can go the other route. Select some
obscure keyword or keyword phrase.
Sure, you might rank highly for that specific term or
phrase.
But guess what?
It won't result in any significant increase in your web
site traffic.
What you need are highly targeted niche keywords and key
phrases.
***********************************************************
Your benefit:
Laser targeted non-competitive traffic.
How do you find these targeted niche keywords and key
phrases? And more important, how can you predict the # of
click throughs, the costs per click, much less the number
of sites competing for these niche keywords and key
phrases?
***********************************************************
You could go to Overture, and use their "Search Term
Suggestion Tool". You enter a general term related to your
business. The tool will list related keywords and key
phrases,and the # of times each term has been searched on
in the last 30 days.
***********************************************************
Unfortunately, you can only analyze therelative
competitiveness of these keywords and phrases by submitting
them for editorial review.
So you might find yourself with a long list of terms with a
lot of competition. Of course you can use Overture's bid
manager to remove them, but that's nota very productive
method generating lists of targeted low competitive
keywords.
***********************************************************
So I did a search on Google for "targeted keywords" and I
found an interesting service. They claimed to be able to
locate these targeted niche key phrases And since they
offered a free trial, I felt that I would at least get some
interesting key phrases for my web pages. As a bonus I might
learn something about positioning a pay per click keyword
campaign properly.
***********************************************************
So I logged on to my free trial and started to use the
tools they provide.
http://supersystem.i8.com/wttrial.html
I started with the Keyword Universe tool. Here's how it
works:
Step #1. You enter a phrase (two or three words) that
describes your business or service. Eg.'golfing
equipment','real estate' or 'search engine positioning'.
Step #2 Then I hit the "proceed" button. The service will
search its database and return a general list of phrases
related to your search term.
Then I selected one of the general terms and clicked on it.
This adds up to 300 related keywords to your "basket".
These are your targeted keywords.
Step #3 "Click Here For Step 3" arrow brings you to the
page where can email or export your keywords.
But I didn't mail them or export them yet.
Why? Because here was a very important link for successful
search engine optimization and pay per click campaign:
The competition search link.
***********************************************************
Here's how this works:
It reveals just how much traffic and how much competition
there is for a particular keyword in the directories and
search engines. And for Overture, it reveals the number of
searches and the bids for any keyword on your list.
It certainly seemed like a good way find keywords bid on
that are relevant and have little or no competition.
Step # 4 I then selected the keywords which I thought would
be productive for my site. Then I clicked the competition
search icon.
Step# 5 I then chose two search engines. You can only do
two at a time,otherwise your results get corrupted. I
chose Overture and AltaVista.
This is where I hoped to discover that some of these
keywords had very few competing web pages in many of
the major search engines.
These of course,would be targeted niche keywords. When I
pressed the proceed arrow, the system generated a report.
This includes the keywords, the count, the 24 hour
projection, and the KEI analysis number.
***********************************************************
The first figure to be aware of is the KEI Analysis -
The KEI compares the Count result (number of times a
keyword has appeared in WordTracker's data)
with the number of competing web pages to pinpoint exactly
which keywords are least competitive. (Remember in search
engine optimization, as well as ppc campaigns, less
competition means more targeted traffic for you.)
In a nutshell: The higher the KEI, the more popular your
keywords are with the people who search, and the less
competition they have. Which means you have a better
chance of getting to the top.
(Of course this figure is not relevant to Overture, there
you will be interested in the count and the actual bids).
***********************************************************
Count - This shows the number of times a particular keyword
has appeared in their database. This service states that
their database currently holds 361 million words.
A count
of 147 tells us that this particular word has appeared 147
times out of 361 million (this is over a one month period).
24hrs - This is the number of predicted traffic you would
expect to receive in 24 hrs if you were on page one of the
AltaVista search engine alone.
Competing- Each keyword has been submitted to the
AltaVista search engine and the number of competing web
pages given in response.
The lower the competition (particularly under 300) the
easier you will find it to reach the top of AltaVista
using this keyword.
***********************************************************
Here's an example of how this works:
I recently did a competition search and wound up with the
term "Best Affiliate Programs".
It had a KEI# of 23, a one month count of 102 searches,
and 436 other sites that were competing for that keyword
listing at AltaVista!
That's a total losing proposition!
On the other hand, keyword # 1 "internet affiliate
advertizing, has a KEI# 345,a one month count of 72 and
only 15 other sites were competing for that keyword
listing at AltaVista.
Even better: Keyword #22 "money making on the net
affiliates programs for webmasters" has a KEI# 300, a one
month count of 72. And only 2 other sites were competing
for that keyword listing at AltaVista.
That's an improvement.
Of course, you will want to be using keywords with much
higher counts than these, and small competition numbers.
I found quite a few and am using them on Overture today.
Rob MacCurry publishes SuperSystems!Says! an ezine with
exact step by step methods to leverage your internet
website promotion. Subscribe mailto:roberexsoftsend.com
Vist the SuperSystems Site
http://supersystem.i8.com/wttrial.html
How useful did you find this article?
This article can be downloaded freely from http://www.get-articles.com and used on your website or in your ezine so long as the author is credited and their resource box left intact. You should not change any links in the article, and where the article is used on a website it's links should be clickable. Please see our terms and conditions page for more information: http://www.get-articles.com/authors-publishers-terms.php
|
|

|
|