Keyword Search Terms..Is There Such Thing As An Ineffective Keyword?
Monday, November 23rd, 2009The following is a post I put up on the Wealthy Affiliate Forum in a discussion about finding and using quality keyword and what purpose different keywords serve. I though some might find it helpful here as well since Wealthy Affiliate is a private members only foum and you would not otherwise be able to read it…
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How about we take a different approach and try to find out where you are having a disconnect when it comes to doing keyword research.
The first thing I am going to start off with is the “standard recommendation” of finding valued keywords that have less than 5000 phrase search results. It’s hogwash.
Well not really hogwash 
but rather, as the tutorial in WA states, an EASY way to get listed on the first page of search results. That’s all fine and well but I do not know when anyone decided that building an growing a business is easy. It is not, online or offline.
I am not looking for keywords that are easy. I am looking for keywords where I can obtain long term consistent sales with a fair amount of work.
What is a fair amount of work?
Let’s go ahead and start with the EASY recommendation of 5000 or less competition. Now understand that the method I am going to outline below is NOT the best way to grow a long term business in this industry but It can serve to add nice little chunks to your monthly revenue.
What if you find a long tail keyword that gets a measely 20 searches a day. Waste of time right?
Keep in mind we are talking about a fair amount of work here for the potential return. I say potential return but the fact is with article marketing we are all hedging our bets on “potentials”
So our keyword only has 20 searches a day…ugh
We write an article and submit to Ezines with a url redirect to our WA account.
***side note*** There has been discussion on here that Ezines is cracking down on this or that they are not allowing url redirects to WA. Simply not true, I do it every single week and they get accepted every time. Atleast for now
So we spent 15 minutes to go grab a $1 .info domain at Godaddy and set up our redirect.
We spent 15 minutes writing and submitting our keyword optimized article to Ezines.
Once the article is submitted we spend another 1.5 hours supporting our article with Ezine author RSS feeds to some nice RSS directories. This is nice to do because once you have your author feed out there you will get a backlink for each and every time you have a article published under that author. We will also do some bookmarking in this time frame.
A well written Ezine article targeted for your keyword is almost always going to rank high in low competition phrases simply because of the juice Ezines has with Google. The RSS feeds and social bookmarking are probably going to be enough to push it high on the first page and keep it there.
How do we know it will stay there?
There is hardly anyone optimizing for the phrase right now and quite honestly what are most marketers going to say about a phrase with 20 searches a day? WASTE OF TIME..so you probably are not going to have too many people trying to bump you for 20 searches a day. Makes sense right?
Okay, so we have our article on page one for our phrase with a measely 20 searches a day and it links at the bottom to WA. Total time spent is 2 hours..
Let’s say that over the course of the year we only get 2 clicks a day, that’s it. 365 days in a year X 2 clicks a day = 730 article views.
Now let’s say that your article only has a url click through of 20% (should be higher than this if you are writing good article content.)
That means that only 146 of the 730 article views actually clicked through to check out WA via your affiliate link.
We are also going to assume that WA only converts at 2%. I can tell you that my own personal experience is that it converts a little higher but we will go with 2%. That is 2.92 conversions, so let’s say 3 sales.
You get 20 bucks a month residual for anyone you refer to WA.
Now we are going to assume the average WA member stays 3 months. I know by my referral stats that it is longer than that but we will go with 3 months.
Totals:
2 hours total spent getting listed in Google.
3 sales @ $20 = $60 times the 3 months they stayed at WA = $180
That is the equal to [b]90 bucks an hour[/b]. Would that be considered a waste of time?
I here you all the way from over here…THAT IS ONLY $180 A YEAR, I cannot pay my bills on that. no you cannot and if you can please tell me where I need to move.
You can also use this same article to link to a website you have created that is going after a more competitive keyword with more search volume. Anchor text link that site and you have a nice little backlink pushing your site up in that premium keyword phrase.
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Now let’s take a look at what you really want BUT you assume the competition is too high.
While you were doing your research to find the keyword you used above you noticed another keyword phrase that had really good search volume but the phrase competition was 250,000 websites. WOAH, too much competition there right? NOPE..
You have a really nice MMO website you built that features WA and provides a ton of honest and valuable information about what WA can offer a new member. Maybe you put an optin on the page. (I certainly hope you did).
You optimized your website for that phrase with THOUSANDS of searches a month but 250,000 direct phrase competition.
Now, while you were doing your keyword research you were completely frustrated because all the low competition keywords had very little search volume like, oh I don’t know, 20 searches a day (pointing to example above). There were TONS of those useless keywords. You know the ones everyone will dismiss as a waste of time.
Take 20 of those keyword and do what we did in the direct linking example above and start writing articles. If one article got you 2 reads a day maybe another article will get you another 2. Now your $180 a year is $360 a year. Still not much I know but wait there is more.
While you are making that worthless $180 or $360 a year you are also anchor text linking to the main site that you want to get listed high for the keyword with THOUSANDS of daily searches.
Let’s say over the course of a year you wrote ONLY 100 articles targeting these small competition and pitifully low search volume keywords.
You now have…
$180/per article/year X 100 articles = $18,000 a year (an extra $1500 a month is not bad for keyword that are a waste of time 
) BUT that is not all…
You also have been creating very good unique content that ALL have anchor text links to your main site for that keyword with 250,000 search results. Minimum 100 quality backlinks.
Is 100 backlinks going to be enough to move your main site into the top 10?
Maybe but probably not in a highly competitive keyword, still you have 100 quality backlinks you have created WHILE making some money from the articles and direct links to WA at the same time.
How much time have we spent total.
Let’s say you spent an entire week @ 8 hours a day to make your main website. 40 hours.
We know we are spending a total of 2 hours per article to write, submit and support those articles. We have 100 of them so that is 200 hours.
We will also throw in that you are going to spend an additional 5 hours a week supprting your main site and crafting messages to send out to your optin list. (we have one right? gotta have it) 52 weeks in a year X 5 hours = that is another 260 hours.
Total = 500 hours or about 40 hours a month working your business. that is an average of about 1 hour 20 minutes a day. EVERYONE has 1 hour and 20 minutes a day IF they really want to grow an IM business. I do not care who you are or what your situation is currently. I
F you REALLY want to grow you business I guarantee you have 1 hour 20 minutes a day. Think you don’t? let m analyze your time management and I promise I can show you where you watse that amount fo time every single day. We both know it, it is simply a matter of being COMPLETELY honest with yourself.
The average full time employee in the United States works 2088 hours a year.
[b]From the US Census Bureau:[/b]
[b]Real median household income in the United States climbed 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, reaching $50,233.[/b]
That breaks down to about $24/hour average but does not factor things like travel time to and from work as well as gas and vehicle maintenance. Things we do not have to worrk about as much being IMers.
Now you and I both know that there are way more people in the US making less than that number than there are more, Actually there are ALOT less people making that much. Check around to your friends and family and see how many make $24 an hour or more. $24/hour as a IMer is a cake walk once you understand the business and apply on a consistent basis.
OK, so I got a little off the track there providing comparison numbers but I think it is relevant when we talk about “wasting time”
Summary:
Low search volume keyword do serve a dual purpose when you are trying to break into a niche. They provide small streams of traffic on their own and potentially small bits of consistent income.
Most importantly they serve to provide valuable support to a related main site by providing much needed UNIQUE & RELEVANT backlinks.
What happens when you are able to push that main site into the top 10 radar for that 250,000 competition keyword with THOUSANDS of monthly searches?
$$$$$$$$$ happens.
Working a niche is NOT about finding that 1 keyword and beating it to death. You certainly want to try and get mutiple lsitings on a first page if you can but just having that main site in a GOOD moderate or high volume search term will provide very good traffic.
This is the content versus keyword disconnect for many new people. I have to find that ONE keyword and write 5 millions articles, hubs, Lens’, etc. targeting that ONE keyword. NO….
You get the site you want to be your money maker optimized for that keyword(or even a couple but if you are new stick to just one for now). THEN…
Fan out through all those low competition long tail keyword that can trickle in traffic BUT push that main site you have into the realm of real high volume traffic.
You are making some money and building monthly income as you work.
You are providing useful and unique content. (Ezines, Google and potential customers love you)
You are pushing up your main page into that thousands of monthly search keyword (where the paydays are)
You are grabbing optins as your main site moves up and gets more traffic (Don’t let me tell you again about optins )
I think too many new people find themselves sitting at whatever keyword tool they choose to use and going..
too much competition..
not enough search volume…
BAH, there is no such things as either…Use keywords for what they are worth.
In article writing there really is no such thing as a waste of time if you are writing. If an article gets no views or clicks it STILL at a minimum provides a ANCHOR TEXT backlink to your main site helping prop it up. I do not think I have ever had an article get NO VIEWS or NO CLICKS at all and I have over 400 live articles on Ezines alone.
The ONLY waste of time is sitting and analyzing things to death without taking action.
Keywords ARE the most important thing in our business no matter the approach you are taking with IM. Understanding what a keyword tells you beyond competition and volume is critical.
Keywords speak directly to the frame of mind and thought process of a searcher. It tells you EXACTLY what they are thinking at the time of search if you put yourself in their shoes…
If you understand what they are thinking based upon the search term they are using then it makes it much easier to craft content that..
1. Speaks to what they are looking to find.
2. Allows you to craft content that can help direct that reader to what they REALLY want. Which is, of course, provided by clicking on that helpful little link you put there for them.
The next time you find a keyword you think might be something you want to write about…
Instead of thinking “How the hell am I going to write an article featuring THAT keyword”?…
Think, who is searching that keyword and what are they thinking when they search using that keyword. Answer that question and you can easily write content all day long.
Honestly, if you are struggling with keywords it is probably because you are trying to promote and write about something you simply do not know enough about it yourself.
What do people want? I mean what do people REALY, REALLY want, need and desire?
Why do they want, need or desire whatever it is you want to promote?
Maybe they know what they want, need or desire and you KNOW they are searching the wrong keyword terms to really find what they want, need or desire.
Target those keywords and HELP people move to where they really can find what they want,need or desire.
“Hey I know you were looking for Yellow Belly Sap Suckers but here’s the deal with Yellow Belly Sap Suckers that you may not know.”
“I know this because I used to spend all my time looking for Yellow Belly Sap Suckers and discovered that they do not provide the amount of Sap I need (want or desire)
“What I did find is that Blue Belly Sap suckers can provide 5 times the sap of a Yellow Belly and I actually save 20% on the cost.
[more information about the Blue Belly Sap Suckers to fill in the body and reinforce that this IS the answer to what they want, need or desire.]
Interested in getting some information about the Blue belly Sap Suckers and why they can provide all the sap you need at a reduced cost?
You can visit a really good resource site that provides a bunch of helpful information.
That site is:
(Anchor text link)
(url link for the folks that do not like to click on the words)
I hope this helps and I know you asked for an actual keyword example you can see to help understand..
I decided not to do that because there are literally dozens of threads on this forum provided by some pretty successful people that do just that..break down a niche keyword and sepll out what you can do with that keyword.
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I hope you enjoyed the information and you might want to ask how do I know this really works?
Great Question!!!
Check out one of my sites at http://www.onlinemoneytruth.com and you can get more information about how these things and some other really cool things can help you make a part time ot full time living online in a REAL and LEGITIMATE way..
Until next time….