Most web designers and coaches that do their own websites use Google's free keyword tool. There's nothing wrong with that, but you are only getting a small part of the picture of what people are looking for on the web. Google's free keyword tool uses adwords as its metric to show which keywords are getting traffic. This means that it is not showing the organic searches, only the paid adwords results. On a best case scenario, if your site is at the top of adwords, you can expect 47% of the traffic that it shows. If you are not in the top spot, the drop in percentages is exponential.
There are plenty of organic searches done. When I say organic, I mean search engine listings based on content on the web. If you write an article for an article directory, and back link it to your site, this creates a search engine listing for your site.
Before you go writing an article, please read the entirety of this post. One article will not rank you on the first page of Google. It might not even rank you on the 100th page of Google in a keyword search. It takes lots of articles, which creates backlinks to start showing up. How many? That's an excellent question.
Each keyword, whether "long tail" or "short tail" has a set of results that Google has indexed for it. The indexes are fluid, in that they change when new content is produced. Google loves fresh, original content and rewards the producers of it with higher search engine rankings.
But, content and backlinks are not the only piece of this puzzle. There are other factors, like domain age (how long a website has been up), directory listings (DMOZ and Yahoo), authority backlinks ( sites with .edu or .gov that link back to a site) all factor into search engine results.
Don't let your head explode yet. Take a breath. Instead of doing all of these search metrics by hand, which takes a lot of time, and constantly changes, you can do it all in one place.
I found a remarkable tool that allows you to do all of this with out having to use multiple tools to accomplish this. Market Samurai has an excellent tool that does all of the computations for you, and then lets you download it into a csv (spreadsheet) file.
I first discovered Market Samurai about 2 months ago, and I was hooked! All of the tools I had used before that now seem obsolete. I have used it to determine which keywords are the best value keywords, and which are the easiest to get.Market Samurai lets you set the phrase to broad ratio, and then generates a list of keywords from your root keyword. Then, it will analyze this for you in real time and have the results in minutes. They factor in adwords and organic traffic. After this, it will organize them in order or the most valuable or least valuable, according to your preference.
Just because you think a keyword is good, or perfectly relates to your website, if it's not getting any traffic, it's a worthless endeavor. For instance, the keyword "online life coaching" sounds like an excellent keyword to try for. There's a decent price on the cost per click adwords. But, if you research further, you will see that on a broad match, there are only 75 searches on the best day. And an exact match keyword search has less than 10 searches globally per day! There is even stiff competition for this less than favorable keyword.
Don't be fooled by high priced Google Adword pay per click prices. This only means that websites are bidding higher to get this keyword without knowing how much someone will buy on a click through.
Another mistake people make in selecting keywords is creating a keyword they think will do well. For instance, the keyword "life coaching audios" may sound good, but it does not even index or rank in search engine traffic ratings.
Basically, to give a synopsis of what I just said: Do not try to pick a keyword you think will do well, and expect everyone to come to you.
You must find out where the traffic already is, what they are looking for, and make sure you are there and easy to find.
If you go fishing, you don't just go to water standing on the side of the road and expect to catch fish, or any fish for that matter. You must go where the fish already are. This is true with websites. Go where people are already searching.
If you do not select keywords, Google will do it for you, and you will not be happy with their choices. They will not index you for the best keywords. They will index you for the most common keywords showing up on your page.
The best feature of Market Samurai, in my opinion, is the SEO Competiton feature. Once you have keywords selected, you can then search and see who the top 10 are for each keyword in the global searches. They create a spreadsheet of this showing the domain name, domain age, pages on site, backlinks, and several other metrics used in determining these results. Best of all, they show you which of your competitors will be easier to outrank.
You do not have to have the best site on the web, but you do need a site that is better than your competitors. If you find out that a new site has a number 1 ranking and only has 15 backlinks, you can outrank them by getting 16 backlinks. There are several variables to this equation, but I hope you see where I am going. Market Samurai can show you which keywords that you can rank for, that are profitable, and you can see results for.
I consider this my favorite tool in my seo marketing and website building endeavors. They have tutorial videos that are free which show you how to use their product proficiently. Best of all they have a free 12 day trial for new users. You don't even have to use a credit card for the free trial. You can also use this for as many sites or keywords as you like. My advice is give it a try. You will be surprised at the results. I know I was.
As always, if you have any questions about the products I profile here, email me at info@100coachingtips.com
And, I have made some changes. We now have an optin box here on our blog. Look at the upper right corner. Sign up and you can start downloading over $1700 in free coaching resources. Or, you can go to our main site at www.100coachingtips.com
Wishing you More Clients, More Money, and More Life!
Respectfully yours,
Steve Davis
