There are only three basic ingredients to successful SEO and with that the success of an online business: on-site SEO, keyword research and online authority. This article is all about performing clever keyword research that yields results.
I take keyword research very seriously as no matter how good your on-site optimization or backlink profile is, if you are not ranking for the right keywords you are going to have sub-optimal results.
In this article I will describe one of the methodologies I use.
Step 1 - Getting Keywords
Google Adwords Keyword Tool is usually a first stop for keyword research.
For this example I am going to research keyword 'shaving'. Let's image we are building a website about shaving related products.
We begin by typing a phrase, hitting search, and selecting "Phrase" match type instead of default "Broad".
The navigation categories on the left help us narrow the search and I select "Razors and Shavers" for the purpose of this example. This gives us about 10 keywords to start with.
After being satisfied with the selection, I download the keywords as CSV for Excel.
Notes: There are many keyword idea tools out there. Out of free ones, I sometimes use keyword expander for quick ideas without having to type in the captcha. You can also check out how to use keyword tools to pick up good domain names.
Step 2 - What People Search For? Is it Any Good?
After modifying the downloaded file in Excel, I leave only Global Monthly Searches and Estimated Avg. CPC columns.
Why Global Monthly Searches?
Because we want our phrase to be searched as many times as possible. There is no value in ranking for something that is never searched for.
Why Estimated Avg. CPC?
Because it gives a simple signal about commercial value of the keyword - the higher the better. This factor is mostly used for sites that are based on third party revenue streams like affiliate sales or adsense.
Not all sites are about commercial products, and on sites which sell their own products this factor may not be as important.
Step 3 - Who We Are Up Against?
Next step is figuring out how many competing pages we are going to be up against.
I perform a search for each of the keywords in quotes (this gives us more accurate, phrase matched results).
Write down the number of results (check "About xxx results" line). Note that you can use a local Google site if your site/product is competing on the local market. For most purposes I use Google.com.
Next, I perform the same search but this time I select "Past week" in search options on the sidebar. This gives me the number of competing pages from last week only.
Why Past week results?
Because it gives me up to date information about competing pages. Some keywords may have relatively low number of competing pages, but the last week results can be relatively big, indicating high level of interest. This keywords will obviously be harder to rank and vice versa.
Step 4 - Strength of Competition
Next thing I want to check is strength of competition. I use mozRank indicator, which is a rough equivalent of Page Rank but with better granulation.
If you use Firefox you can get mozRank through SearchStatus addon or SEO Doctor (OSE Metrics menu link).
Now check the search results and add to Excel mozRank for #2 search result. Why #2? This gives us better indication as often #1 is heavily skewed (for example Wikipedia) and in most cases we would be as happy if we ranked as 'just' #2.
Why strength of competing pages?
Because sheer number of competing pages is not good enough indication of competition. It is not same running against Wikipedia and a forum post. Using mozRank gives us a better perspective of the relative strength of the competing page.
Step 5 - Online Commercial Intention
This step helps answer one question - so, is anyone buying this?
And the tool that answers it is Microsoft Commercial Intention. Just type in the keyword, select "query" and hit Go.
Why commercial intention?
Did you know that only 2% people looking for 'razor burns' have intentions to buy against 96% looking for 'shaving razors'.
If you were trying to sell a registry optimizing software would you not like to know that people looking for 'registry cleaner' are more than two times likely to buy than people looking for 'optimize registry'?
Step 6 - Wrapping it up - Keyword Commercial Value
When I have all this data, I can easily get an answer I was looking for - which of these keywords are best to pursue?
To calculate this I create a simple formula.
On the good side I have Searches, CPC, Commercial Intent - I want this to be as high as possible.
On the bad side there are Competing Pages, Pages Weekly and Strength - I want them to be as low as possible.
So I multiply all the "good guys" and divide them by all "bad guys" multiplied together.
Finally I add leveling factor just to get the result in reasonable boundaries.
Final formula in Excel I used for this example is:
H2=1000000*B2*C2*G2/(D2*E2*F2)
What I can see right away is that if I was making a site about shaving, "straight razor shaving" would be my best bet among the selected keywords, and by a large margin too.
And keyword research does not stop here. This is just the tip of an iceberg, as we need to delve deeper into the variations of the favorable keyword and also try other keyword ideas that we might have missed.
It's both a science and an art but one thing is certain - do your keyword research properly and you will have a solid foundation to build your online business on.
Suggested reading:
- Quick Way to Measure Brand Impact
- How to Improve Page Rank? Linking is the Key!
- How to pick a great Domain name
Posted in: SEO
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43 Comments
Great post Vladimir.
I have the same approach to find my keywords but I don't use MozRank because in France (I'm French) this indicator isn't reliable at all. I think that it works good with US sites but not with French. I'm wondering if you use Microsoft's tool "Online Commercial Intention" when you work with keywords which goal is not to sell. For exemple: lawyers, investment bank, school etc.
Thanks, this was a helpful article that delves a little deeper than just finding keywords with high search volume and low competition. Do you feel the commercial intention metric still apply when you're optimizing for an AdSense site that's not actually selling anything?
Hi Vlad, Vitaliy here again, and with another question.
I was looking at the excel sheet and can see that you have a value generally in the tens for strength (1.0 - 10.0) I am trying to figure out if you're getting this from using SEO Doctor stats (percentage) for Firefox. Considering 100% as 1.0 etc etc.
Thanks a bunch
Hi Vitaliy
Both your questions are answered in the post :)
I looked through it several times but could not locate the answers, I also looked through the SEO Doctor page as well. Thanks anyway, I will look again.
Vladimir, thanks for the post, a very interesting approach to keyword research. I've been doing something similar for a long time but not as intense so I am very happy to give this a try.
I am currently building my excel workbook for this and am wondering if when running your search on Google to figure out strength, do you run your search with or without quotes? Running it with quotes limits your search on Google but at the same time if you are proposing running Google's keyword tool using the phrase setting, this would include the quotes.
Thanks a bunch and by the way, it looks like Microsoft's Online Commercial Intent page doesn't load up. It might be something for the moment and I will check it again tomorrow but maybe it's just dead.
Thanks again and I look forward to your reply.
Vitaliy
All I can say is WOW!! I agree with every comment made, about the clarity and the ease of research concerning your information. This is truly selfless on your part. I always read sites like this, but I ABSOLUTELY never subscribe to them. But I have made an exception in your case. Keep up the excellent work and I will Definitely browse your archives.
Where do you get the number 1000000 for your formula? Do we all need to use that number to come up with KCV?
I was wondering that also. The 1,000,000 makes keyword searches with fewer results look better than they are in some cases. I guess you just need to keep that in mind when looking at your results.
Thanks for the thorough article, especially the note on the Intention tool from Microsoft...what a gem.
Vladimir,
Up until recently I used this approach but I've become disappointed with the estimated traffic numbers provided by the google keyword tool. They literally have no bearing on reality and I now only use that data to give me a priority order of keywords, rather than relying on the monthly search estimates.
Reason being is that the Google keyword tool relies on the Google content network and in my view the estimated traffic is up to 30 times more than actual traffic. And that's for exact matches in a local market.
AFAIK the best way to measure keyword demand is by looking at impressions in a PPC campaign.
And Dave Naylor agrees with me: http://bit.ly/bPJys6
Would be very interested in your feedback on this.
I have found keyword tool pretty accurate for projects I have been working on. In any case since the goal of keyword research is to find best subset of keywords within a large set, the absolute values are not as important - if the tool is wrong it is likely to be wrong the same for all keywords. We are more interested in relative values here.
Hey Vladimir,
Excellent post on SEO. I´ve hardly ever come accross such a thorough and yet easy to follow description as the one you´ve posted here. It is more than obvious that you understand a lot about SEO and we can all be happy that you´ve decided to share such valuable tips with us. Awesome!
Mirko
Thanks Mirko!
Very useful article about keyword research! thank you for your work to write this understandable and helpful article and posting it to your readers. I like these informations and I will use them for my current project -my SEO-blog- as soon as possible.
Thanks for sharing. I will try to apply this to my blog. I am already using your SEO doctor Very nice job! :) :) :)
This is great to see, how easy it can be to do proper keyword research WITHOUT having to use all these advertised keyword research programs on the market - you got a great keyword with a bit of elbow grease and investing a little time. Thanks for sharing!
Great post..! thank you Prelovac... thank you
Great post! thank you very much, stumbled accross your site for managewp - which is brilliant, can't wait for the locally hosted version!
Just one question about this post, you mention getting the mozrank for website listed number #2, is this for the "results in past week" or for normal results?
Good to make keyword work for Russian market is http://wordstat.yandex.ru (its a number one search engine in Russia)
Vladamir,
You talk about free tools that I have been using a while but never really mapped out my exact methodology - excellent work. I find my time can be limited and would be willing to buy a tool that automates these features and business rules. Any suggestions on this front?
I ran your formula on a few niches I am looking at and it seems that the best KCVs normally skew to the keywords with the fewest search results (you can see the effect in your spreadsheet example above). I guess this makes since as that makes for a much smaller denominator to compared to the numerator which is factored by 1,000,000.
I am thinking it is best to look at keyword phrases with similar total searches or total search results and then look what has the highest KCV to get a feel for the best phrases to shoot for.
Vladimar - great post - thank you - I have two questions:
You pulled 10 keywords out - how did you narrow it down? When I go thru your process, I have about 170 keywords - do I take the top 10 in terms of global searchs (or top 20 or 30), or the top with the highest combination of CPC cost and Global Search?
Two - how is this similar to the KEI in wordtracker, for instance - is it related at all?
I am a product seller - not an adsense site - how would I adjust for this - I know you mention it, butif CPC is not as weighted for products, is there a metric?
Tks
Judy
Hi Judy
You narrow it down manually or use categories. KEI indicates only search/competition, where my index has more factors including commercial value.
Hi Vladimir:
Thanks - ok - any suggestions on where to start narrowing? Would CPC or Global Search be better in your opinion. judy
First of all thanks for sharing this. All is clear, but not sure where to find a moz rank on stats bar. I have a doctor version. I'm not a pro in this, quiet new and trying to help my website :)
Would be good to have more info on this, thanks.
You can right click on SEO Doctor and choose OSE Metrics link to get Mozrank
Particularly like the part of the post RE commercial intent - do you happen to know if MS have an API call available for this?
I was wondering how you would adjust the forumla for seasonal research. I need to do keyword research for a seasonal product which starts Jan till june and thus if I did latest searches it would not be an accurate search. Could I replace latest searches with something else? If I had to take it out would this affect the overall forumla?
Thanks
I never knew there is a ppc column in Google Keyword tool. I would just browse the Keyword tool without exporting. Same was the case with Microsoft Adlabs stuff. Thanks for the wonderful article ! Very logical !
Great read. Thanks for sharing.
I also enjoy the rants sessions :)
Vladimir,
This is incredible information, and I truly appreciate the time you took to share your method. I've been developing websites for several years and although I've read a lot about SEO and keyword research, this helps to summarize keyword research in a straightforward and understandable way.
Thank you!
I am afraid more of my rants will follow, that's the beauty of being my subscriber :) Feel free to browse the archives, there is tons like this already there.
Love it!
Will you be adding to this as a part of a series? I have subscribed because of it!
I am afraid more of my rants will follow, that's the beauty of being my subscriber :) Feel free to browse the archives, there is tons like this already there.
Looking forward to it :) I need all the help I can get :)