August 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Free Keyword Research Tools to Generate Fresh Article Ideas


Free Keyword Research Tools

If you write lots of content you sometimes run out of of article ideas. This can become frustrating because you want to provide content to your readers that relates to their needs, wants and desires. If you stray away from this focus they’ll lose interest and unsubscribe from your newsletter, stop leaving blog comments and stop purchasing your product recommendations. One of the best ways to prevent this from happening is researching new keywords using the free keyword research tools listed below.

How to Generate Fresh Article Ideas with Free Keyword Research Tools

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Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: ,
February 12, 2010 by 9 Comments

How to Do Keyword Research: 7 Steps for Generating Backlinks, Rankings & Traffic

Are you currently generating free traffic to your website?
Are people finding your website in the search engines?
Is your website search engine friendly?
How can you increase your current rankings?

These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself if you want to build a profitable business on the Internet. The best free traffic you can receive is from an organic listing in the search engines (websites listed on the left). Ideally your site should be listed on the first page for a specific keyword. If your website appears on the second page or beyond no one will see it. There’s no guarantee you’ll get a first page listing (because search engine formulas change and more competitors come online everyday) therefore you need to create a list of many keywords then integrate them into your web pages.

Step by step process on how to do keyword research:

1. Create a list of keywords

Use the free keyword research tools such as WordTracker or the Google Adwords suggestion tool to create a list of at least 100 keywords. For example here are the first 3 monthly results when you enter “keyword research” in Wordtracker..

keyword research…………….. 1,018
keyword research seo…………… 44
keyword research tool…………… 44
seo keyword research………………2

The longer your list the more keywords you can use in your website content. Your goal should be to dominate your niche by obtaining good rankings for all your keywords.

2. Select long tail keywords

Long tail keywords don’t have a high number of searches per month and have less competition than the popular keywords. Therefore it will be easier to attain high rankings for the them. In the above example you would use the second and third results instead of the first because there are less competing websites.

3. Create a list of competing websites

Enter each keyword into the Google search box with quotations around it to view the number of competing websites. The higher the number the more competitors you have.

Example

“keyword research”…………………11,500,000 (competing sites in Google)
“keyword research seo”……………41,910,000
keyword research tool………………1,410,000
“seo keyword research”……………….432,000

After doing a little more research you’ve discovered the first 3 searches have too many competitors but the fourth one has much less. You should now check the number of backlinks of the top 10 websites for this keyword. This will determine what you need to do to rank above a competing website.

4. Analyze the backlinks of competitors

These are links that point to a website. It’s one of the main factors Google uses to rank websites. The quality and quantity of backlinks will determine your rankings. If you can outnumber the backlinks of your competitors you will outrank them in the search engines.

Use Yahoo Site Explorer to check the number of backlinks for a web page or website. For example if the first website you check has 6000 backlinks you’ll need to get over 6000 to outrank them. That would take too long. If the second result only has 20 backlinks you could outrank them by building more than 20 to your own web page containing the same keyword.

5. Use the keywords in your content

Only use one or two keywords in the content of each web page. Include it in your meta tags, headings, sub headings, paragraphs and links. Don’t over do it otherwise the search engines will think you’re spamming them and lower your rankings.

6. Build backlinks to your website

Build backlinks to all your web pages using a combination of article marketing, video marketing, commenting on blogs, forums and social networking. Avoid getting backlinks from unrelated websites. Focus on sites that compliment or relate to your own.

7. Add unique content

As you add more content you increase the places visitors find your website. Instead of just finding your business through the home page they find it from other pages. Therefore make sure you optimize each web page plus build backlinks to it.

Related Article
How to Optimize Your Website for the Search Engines

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Generate free traffic to your website with:
Search Engine Optimization Packages

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Web Design, Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , ,
July 18, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Keyword Research – Benefits of Finding Profitable Keywords

One of the most difficult tasks of creating a profitable AdWords campaign is finding keywords that have few competing ads. If you can find alternative keywords to the ones your competitors are using to sell the same product you can run a profitable campaign.

Benefits of finding profitable keywords

1. Spend less money

If there are no or a only a few ads using these keywords you won’t have a high cost per click (CPC).

2. Find a different path to the sale

Instead of using the same keywords as your competitors you use alternative keywords to sell the same product.

3. Faster profits

If your keywords have a high search volume and your ad is the only one showing your profits will be faster than if you were competing with a full page of ads.

4. Avoid the double serving rule

If you write an ad that contains the same display URL as another ad that is already running on Google AdWords you’ll incur the “double serving rule”. This means your ad won’t get displayed until this is corrected.

A simple way to avoid the “double serving rule” is to research alternative keywords from your competitors. This enables you to create ads for the same product without worrying about the competition.

Read 7 ways to avoid the Google AdWords double serving rule

Since your way is not as common as the normal way keywords are discovered, chances are the words you find are not used by your competitors. Fewer competitors will you give you a better chance of creating a profitable campaign.

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Need help attracting visitors to your web site with Google AdWords?
Please visit my Search Engine Optimization Services

Filed Under: Google AdWords Tagged With: ,
March 16, 2009 by 7 Comments

Keyword Research – How to find profitable niches

So you’ve found a niche you’re passionate about but you don’t know if it will be a profitable one. You’ll waste a lot of time and money building a web site and writing lots of content for your niche only to find there’s no demand or interest for it.

This is why you need to do keyword research first before you write even one word. The number of searches will determine if it’s worthwhile pursuing the niche you’ve chosen. If it doesn’t receive many searches move on to another niche your passionate about. This is why you created a list in the beginning.

Camping is my passion

Let’s go through the exercise of doing keyword research for the keyword “camping” since it’s one of my passions.

1. Enter “camping” (with the quotes) in the search box of the free keyword research tool…wordtracker. It will list the first 100 keywords and show the number of times people have searched on that word in one month.

Tip: Your main keyword should get 500 to 1000 searches. If it’s less than that move on to another keyword (topic) you’re passionate about.

Here are the first 10 keywords:

1280 camping world
1119 camping
645 camping gear
466 camping tents
441 camping supplies
314 camping equipment
218 motorcycle camping trailers
178 camping rankings
164 camping costa brava
161 camping trailers
130 camping recipes

2. List the top 10 web sites in Google

This will give you a bird’s eye view of your competition. I chose “camping gear” as my main keyword because camping is too general and “camping gear” receives over 500 searches.

Here’s the top 10 web sites in Google (this may change anytime)

www.rei.com/
www.cabelas.com/
www.campmor.com/
www.summitcampinggear.com/
www.camping-gear-outlet.com/
www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=4128
www.coleman.com/
www.camping4less.com/
www.usoutdoorstore.com/
www.campingcomfortably.com/

3. Check the number of backlinks of competing web sites.

Backlinks are the links that point to your web site from another web site. The number and quality of backlinks determines the rankings of your web site. A great free tool to check backlinks is Yahoo Site Explorer

Enter the top web site…www.rei.com/ in the search box. In the inlinks drop down box at the top of the page select: “except from this domain” to “only this URL” It says this site has 114,510 backlinks. If you want to compete with this website you’ll need to get more than 114,510 links pointing to your own web site.

Do the same for the other top 9 web sites. Ideally you want to find web sites that have only a few 100 backlinks otherwise you will spending all your time finding backlinks to outdo your competition.

Do this same exercise for at least your top 10 keywords that were generated from wordtracker until you find one with few backlinks from the top 10 Google list.

Once you’ve found your ideal keyword phrase you need to do market research. This will show you where your customers go online to find information related to your niche.

Related Articles

Search it review

How to Optimize Your Article Before Publishing It

Research the Best Keywords Using the Google AdWords Tool – Part 1

Research the Best Keywords Using the Google AdWords Tool – Part 2

How to Use Keywords to Optimize Your Site for Search Engines – Part 1
How to Use Keywords to Optimize Your Site for Search Engines – Part 2

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Learn how to start and build a profitable online business with

“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design and SEO Services

Filed Under: Starting An Online Business Tagged With: ,
November 16, 2008 by 2 Comments

Video Marketing – Research the Best Keywords Using the Google AdWords Tool – Part 2

To read Part 1 please visit: Video Marketing and Keyword Research

3. Download your keyword results

You can download your keyword results into an excel spreadsheet. This makes it easier to sort the keywords you want to use plus you can refer back to this file when conducting future keyword research.

4. Add the keywords to your video

Add your targeted keywords to the title, description and tags of your video. Make sure you include your web site URL at the beginning of your description. Use the full URL (http://www.domain.com) so it will be a live link.

5. Provide a call to action

The purpose of your video is to direct visitors to your web site where they purchase a product, service or subscribe to your opt-in page. Include your call to action at the end of the video that also displays your web site address.

6. Embed the video in your web page.

YouTube provides the code for you to display your video on a web page. Write an article on the same
topic as your video and include the video in the text. This will attract visitors to your video because many of them prefer to watch rather than read the content. Use the keywords in your article to attract search engine spiders to it.

7. Repeat your keyword research

Whenever you create a video on a new topic or a different keyword repeat the steps above. The popularity of your keywords may also change from month to month. Even if you already have completed the research for a specific keyword last month do it again next month. This will help you to keep up with search engines changes and stay ahead of your competition.

Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your website with

“Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Maryland WebSite Design

Filed Under: Video Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
November 15, 2008 by 7 Comments

Video Marketing – Research the Best Keywords Using the Google AdWords Tool – Part 1

How do you get people to find your videos on YouTube and other video sharing web sites?

People find your videos in the same way as they find web sites. They enter a keyword in the Google or YouTube search box and Google displays the content. Your articles and videos often appear at the top of the results’ pages. It depends how competitive your topic is.

Video sharing web sites use tags for search engines to find them. You must include your main keywords in these tags if you want your video to be indexed by the search engines.

How to research your keywords

1. Start your keyword research with the Google AdWords Tool
(Google the term “Google AdWords Tool” to find it)

Type in the keyword phrase you think people will use to find your video and check the synonyms box. A table will appear with several columns:

Keywords related to terms entered
This is a list of keywords and related keywords that people are searching on,

Advertiser competition
This shows the number of advertisers bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google. A fully shaded green bar means that term is very competitive. A lesser shaded bar indicates less competition for that phrase.

Approx Search Volume
This shows the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network for that month. A high number indicates many people are searching on that keyword.

Match Type
Broad – shows the broadest number of searches for that term
Exact – shows the exact number of searches for that term
Negative – shows off-topic keywords that users may be thinking about.

It’s best to start your keyword search with broad matches then get more specific.

Choose Columns to Display
This is a drop down box that will give you other options to search for:

Estimated Ad Position – shows estimated position for ads appearing on each keyword based on the maximum cost-per-click (CPC).

Estimated Avg CPC – shows the estimated average cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword based on the maximum CPC.

Advertiser Competition – shows the number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google.

Approx Avg Search Volume – shows the approximate average monthly number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google over a recent 12-month period.

Search Volume Trends – shows fluctuations in Google search volume for each keyword over a recent twelve-month period, specific to your targeted country and language.

Highest Volume Occurred In – shows the month that each keyword received the highest Google search volume within a recent 12-month period, specific to your targeted country and language.

2. Select quality keywords

Select your most targeted keywords..one’s that relate closely to the topic of your video. Aim for keywords that have little competition and high cost per click. If you have difficulty with your selection then choose the ones that receive the highest search volume first then use the others later.

My next post will discuss where to place these keywords in your video
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Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your website with

“Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Maryland WebSite Design

Filed Under: Video Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
July 30, 2008 by 3 Comments

Article Marketing – How to increase traffic by targeting your main keyword

If article marketing is not done correctly you won’t increase visitors to your web site. Some folks write articles without targeting a specific keyword or keyword phrase. The more tightly focused your article is the better your chances of receiving high rankings and getting more traffic.

The problem

Search engines don’t want to show duplicate content in their results pages. They want searches to be as targeted as possible. If you write your article based on your main keyword their is a greater chance of it being indexed by them.

How to target your best keywords

1. Create a list of your main keywords

Place yourself in your customers shoes for a few minutes and think what particular keywords they would enter in the search engines to find your web site. Keep adding to the list until you’ve exhausted all your ideas.

2. Use a keyword research tool

Open a free keyword research tool such as WordTracker or Keyword Discovery and enter each keyword from the list above. You’ll get a list of keyword results that show how
many times that word has been searched on in one month. Repeat this procedure for each keyword.

3. Select the long tail keywords

Keywords that receive the highest number of searches are generally the most popular. This makes it very difficult to rank high for these keywords. Select the keyword phrases with a low number of searches (long tail). These are less competitive so you’ll have a better chance of getting high rankings for your article.

4. Weave the targeted keyword phrase into your content

Include the keyword phrase naturally throughout your content. Don’t overdo it as it will look like spam and won’t read well for your visitors. Remember it’s more important to write your article so it appeals to your visitors than the search engines.

5. Include your keyword phrase in the title and resource box.

Place your keyword at the beginning of your article title like I’ve done for this article. Instead of writing:

“How to increase traffic by targeting your main keyword”

Write…

“Article Marketing – How to increase traffic by targeting your main keyword”

6. Include your keyword phrase in the anchor text

Anchor text are the words contained in your hyperlink. The resource box at the end of your article allows you to place anchor text in it that links back to your site. This not only directs visitors to your web site but builds valuable backlinks that help increase your rankings in the search engines

7. Include your keyword phrase in links pointing to your web site

When visiting blogs, forums or doing link exchanges be sure to include your keywords in the anchor text of your incoming links. Google ranks your web site according to the number and quality of links leading back to your site.

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Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , ,
June 9, 2008 by 1 Comment

Keyword Research – How to Determine If Your Idea Will Be Profitable

There are many dead products being marketed online because they did not do the necessary keyword research. The product was dead before it was promoted. Don’t let yourself fall into the same trap. Many folks get so excited by their new idea they don’t even bother to check if their is a demand for it.

The purpose of doing the keyword research before you build a web site and market it by writing and submitting articles is to see if their is a demand and to determine how competitive your market is.

So how do you determine if there is a demand for your product?

1. Use the free wordtracker tool (Google “free wordtracker tool”)
Enter any of your primary keywords in the search box to find how many searches are being done for that term. The free tool will return 100 phrases you can use. If you wish to dig deeper try the monthly subscription.

2. Copy and paste these phrases into an excel spreadsheet labeled WordTracker at the top of the column.

3. Enter the title Google in the second column. Insert each phrase in the Google search box with quotations around them and press enter. This will give you the number of web sites returned for that term.

4. Enter anchor+keyword in the Google search box. The anchor text is the text used in the link for your phrase. It will return how many web sites are using that keyword in their anchor text.

5. Enter title+keyword in the Google search box. This provides all the web sites that contain your keyword in their title meta tags…a crucial element for optimizing your web site.

6. Enter url+keyword in the the Google search box. This returns web sites that contain your keyword phrase in a URL on their web pages.

7. Research the number of backlinks of top competitors. Take the top 10 web sites that appear in Google for your keyword, then do a backlink check for each of them.

Enter link:www.domain.com in the Yahoo search box then click the web search button. In the inlinks drop down box select “except from this domain” This will show you the number of backlinks this particular site has. If you want to rank higher than this site you will need to get ore backlinks than them.

Ideally you want to target the keywords that have the highest demand and the least number of competitors. For example if the keyword phrase “web site design maryland” produces a large number of searches, has only a small number of sites that contain that phrase in their title, anchor text, url and the top sites contain only a few backlinks, you stand a good chance of achieving top rankings.

If there is no demand for this phrase or it has too many competitors, choose another one. This is why you need to create a large keyword list at the beginning of your research.

Resources

WebCEO
Enables you to do all the above research with one tool

Free WordTracker Tool

*****************************************
Get 1000s of NEW visitors to your website without spending
a dime on advertising.

Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…
to learn the most effective ways to write and submit articles.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: Ebook Creation, SEO Tagged With: ,
March 19, 2008 by 3 Comments

Market Research – Will Your Ebook Be Profitable? Part 2

Google is one of the best tools to conduct market research on your ebook topic. It’s the most popular search engine people use to find information. Using the list of the web sites below will help determine if your ebook idea will be a profitable one.

google.com/trends – provides trends of what people are searching for.

www.google.com/alerts – subscribe to google alerts to receive up to date news based on your topic. This content can also be used to update your blog.

Google.com – use quotes around your keyword to display the number of sites in google. Not using quotes will give you a larger number because it includes other words mixed in with your primary keyword.

allintitle:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the title of their web site.

allinanchor:keyword – enter allintitle:keyword in the google search box to find sites that display your keyword in the anchor text.

link:www.competitorssite.com – enter link:www.competitorssite.com in the yahoo.com search box to display the number of backlinks for a competing site.

Forums and Blogs
To find a list of forums or blogs in your niche enter keyword+forum or keyword+blog in the Google search box. Participate in conversations related to your niche by interacting in the forums and commenting on blogs.

Survey your niche
Use http://www.surveymonkey.com/ to survey potential customers in your niche.

Per Per Click
Create a pay per click campaign to determine if people are interested in your niche. Write different ads to see which one pulls the best then use this content in your ebook and on your web site.

Read
“The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords”

and

“Find your best keywords using PPC”

Note: Use an excel spreadsheet to display the results of your research. This makes it much easier to view the whole process
and decide what topic you will write your ebook about.

Working through this market research phase will help determine if your ebook will be profitable. You will know where your audience resides on the Net, what the latest trends are, how much advertisers are willing to pay how popular your topic is and if you can make money with it.

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Filed Under: Ebook Creation Tagged With: , , , ,
March 17, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Market Research – Will Your Ebook Be Profitable?

Keyword research is only one part of the necessary work needed to create a successful ebook. You also need to look into the current market to see if your idea will be profitable.

Why wouldn’t your ebook idea be profitable if there are a high number of searches for it?

Many people use the Net for researching information but may not be willing to pay for it. Some of these people may include educators, researches or individuals pursuing their own interests.

You need to visit the locations where people congregate based on your ebook topic. Read their blogs, forums, newsletters and subscribe to current news feeds and trends.

You don’t want to spend 100s of hours creating your ebook, only to find no one is interested in your content. You will have wasted a lot of time and money and possibly come to the conclusion that marketing your information online
does not work for you.

Market Research Web Sites

Listed below are web sites that offer a wealth of information that will help you make a well-informed decision on selecting the best topic for your ebook.

Search It! – provides all the research tools you need in one place
read the review at http://www.isitebuild.com/search-it-review.html

Here are other research tools you can use:

amazon.com – find books written on your subject.

magazines.com – browse the main topics then research the sub topics

ebay.com – use the search tool to see if there are products being offered in your niche. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal – find keywords related to your niche topic and see advertiser competition.

spyfu.com – displays how much advertisers are willing to pay for your keywords. ie if thee are paying $10/click you know it’s worth developing this subject.

ezinearticles.com – if many articles have been written on your subject, it’s a good indication you have hungry readers.

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Receive fresh, in-depth articles articles on how to design, optimize and promote your web site by subscribing to my “Marketing Tips” newsletter at: http://www.isitebuild.com/

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization

Filed Under: Ebook Creation Tagged With: , , ,
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