12 keyword research tips the pros use!€¦ · · 2015-08-1912 keyword research tips the pros...

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12 Keyword Research Tips the Pros Use!

To maximize your profits, it’s absolutely crucial to increase free, targeted traffic from search engines to

your site. Compared to other forms of online marketing, bringing visitors from “organic” (i.e. non-paid)

searches is significantly less expensive.

How do top-ranked sites do it? They have great keyword strategies. It’s the foundation for qualified

traffic that drives high sales volume from search.

Think of keywords as the way customers ask Google to find you. Your keyword strategy is your plan to convince Google to position your site in front of those customers (and above your competitors). Keyword research is the foundation of that plan.

The Tips In addition to using Google’s Keyword Planner tool for keyword research, take advantage of these

keyword research tips to get an advantage over your competitors in the search engines.

1. Use Google Webmaster Tools to Identify Long-Tail Keywords

Google has secured their search results, which means that they generally don’t provide the exact

keywords a visitor used to arrive at your site. The next best thing is Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). It

will show you up to thousands of keywords, including very long-tail keywords that your site is already

ranking for.

If you don’t already have a GWT account, sign up for free today at

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.

Keyword Studio has Google Webmaster Tools integration built right it. Just enter you GWT account

information, your site’s domain name and we’ll pull in all the keywords from your GWT account.

2. Use KeywordTool.io or Ubersuggest.org to Quickly Get Loads of

Google Suggest Keywords Click here to use Ubersuggest.org or here to use KeywordTool.io for free!

Google Suggest is Google’s auto-complete function that you see when you start typing a search phrase

in Google. Millions of people select what’s presented to them in these suggestions, so sites that rank for

them will get lots of additional traffic. Make sure yours is one of them!

http://www.keywordstudio.com/

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

http://ubersuggest.org/

http://ubersuggest.org/

http://keywordtool.io/


The hard way to get these keywords is to start typing in Google to see what keywords Google suggests.

Use Ubersuggest.org or KeywordTool.io and all the work is done for you! Plus, it’s easy to export this

data and put it into your favorite keyword management tool or spreadsheet.



You can easily copy and paste the keyword you find using these tools into Keyword Studio where we’ll

automatically pull the search volume and CPC for you.

3. Discover Your Competitor’s Keywords with SEMRush Click here to try SEMRush for free!

Uncover what keywords your competitors are ranking for using SEMRush.com.

This tool constantly checks Google’s search results for millions of keywords and records the top 20

ranking sites for each—including your competitors!

To use this tool simply enter the URL of a competitor and let SEMRush do the rest. SEMRush instantly

returns a list of keywords your competitor is ranking for. See the “organic” keywords report.

It also provides other helpful information, including the ranking of the site you entered for each

keyword listed. Plus, for each keyword it gives you Google’s search volume and Cost-per-click (CPC)

values among other valuable data that SEO professionals use to gain a competitive advantage.


http://www.semrush.com/


Unfortunately, the free version only shows 10 keywords per domain; you’ll need a paid license to get

any real work done.

How to use SEMRush:

1) Enter a competitor’s URL

2) Review the organic keywords report

3) Export the data for additional analysis

After exporting, add these keywords to your growing keyword research list! Do this for at least your top

3 competitors.

Keyword Studio has SEMRush integration built right in. You don’t need a SEMRush account. Just enter

your competitor’s domains and we’ll pull in the keywords for you plus automatically group them into

page groups and themes.



4. Exploit Informational Keywords That Precede the "Buying” Phase

Use the above tools to identify keywords that indicate your visitor is looking for information and isn’t

ready to buy right now. For example:

• "How to"

• “Guide”

• "How do I"

• “Tutorial”

• “Help”

• "How do you"

You’ll use these keywords on supporting pages of your site and in blog posts. There are many reasons to

target keywords that will not lead to an immediate sale, including:

• Search engines expect your site to be an authority in your industry. Authorities provide

information.

• Search engines expect important sites to produce new, informative content on a regular basis.

• Information-rich content attracts visitors and encourages others to link to you.

When using the above tools to gather keywords be sure to also get these informational one.

5. Use a “keyword competition score” to Predict How Difficult it is to

Rank for a Keyword You need to know how hard it will be to rank for a keyword or a keyword niche before you invest time

and money pursuing it. At the outset, it’s critical to determine how many competitors you have, and

how strong they are.

Since you will be considering hundreds (perhaps thousands) of keywords during your keyword research

process, you’ll need a single number associated with each that summarizes the level of competition (or

difficulty) for the keyword. Here are three methods for creating that number.

Method #1: Use the number of results in Google

A common but not very accurate competition score that many SEO’s use is the total number of URLs

listed in Google’s search results for the keyword.



To find this number, enter a keyword into Google and see how many results Google says it has for that

phrase. Using this method this is your keyword competition (or difficulty) score.

For example, searching “perfume” gives 62,400,000 results. But searching “discount perfume” in Google

gives 9,990,000 results. So there are approximately 6x more pages relevant to perfume than discount

perfume. Using this as a competition score, “discount perfume” is easier to rank for than “perfume.”

Look for values below 1,000,000 for keywords with light to moderate competition.

This method is helpful, but it has several limitations. It does not tell you: 1) how many other marketers

are actively trying to rank for this keyword, or 2) how strong their sites are for that keyword.

Use the method below to discover how many marketers are actively optimizing for a keyword.

Method #2: Use “intitle/inanchor”

To learn how many site owners are actively trying to rank their sites for a particular keyword, use

Google’s advanced query commands “intitle” and “inanchor,” as shown below.

Note: Do not include spaces after the colons.

Your competition score using method #2 is the number of results Google displays as shown above.

Intitle/inanchor tells you how many webpages have the keyword, such as “discount perfume,” in both

the title tag of a webpage and in the anchor text of at least one backlink to that page. Since search

engines use the words in your page’s title tag and those in the anchor text of incoming links as ranking

factors, this combination will give a boost to the rankings of the target page.

How does this measure the intensity of competitors? The assumption here is that if the keyword is both

in the title tag and in the anchor text of a backlink, it’s likely not an accident. It is taken as an indication

that the page is being intentionally optimized for the keyword.



For example, if the intitle/inanchor score is 52,900 then we can assume there are that many pages

actively competing for that keyword.

These scores can range from zero to millions. Lower scores mean less competition, while higher scores

mean more competition. Use the following guide to determine the degree of difficulty.

Intitle/inanchor difficulty ranges:

• 0-100 very easy

• 101-1000 easy

• 1001- 5,000 moderately difficult

• 5,000-9,999 difficult

• 10,000-99,999 very difficult

• 100,000+ extremely difficult

A word of caution regarding any competition score:

While these numbers are a good guide, they aren’t foolproof. In practice, it might be easier to rank for a

keyword with score of 50,000 than one with a score of 5,000!

In particular, don’t rely solely on intitle/inanchor to gauge a keyword’s competition level—especially

now that Google has started penalizing sites for the over-optimization of anchor text, which means that

there will be fewer sites that have the exact keyword in the anchor text, yet they are still trying to rank

for the keyword.

The intitle/inanchor value is difficult to get on a large scale from Google, so you’ll have to build your own

tool to get this data in bulk. Another option is to use MajesticSEO.com intitle/inanchor score. They

calculate the competition score based on their crawl of the web and don’t rely on Google’s data, so you

won’t have a problem getting the score. Unfortunately, their values for intitle/inanchor tend to be lower

than Google’s and, in many cases, will be not available because of a lack of information (such as for

many local geographic queries). In either case, they’re still good for a relative comparison between

keywords.

Method #3: Use the average Moz Page Authority (PA) for the Top 10 (or Top 5) Ranking Sites

Moz Page Authority (PA) is a score designed to provide the same type of information that Google’s

PageRank provides. Both PA and PageRank tell you about the quantity and quality of links to a page

(both backlinks and internal lins). Pages with more quality links have a higher score. Google’s PageRank

ranges from 0-10 and Moz PA ranges from 0-100. (Moz also has a Domain Authority (DA) score with the

same scale. It measures the strength of the whole domain.)



This competition score has two major advantages over methods 1 and 2 above:

a) It tells you how strong the competitors are. The other competition scores only tell you how many

competitors there are.

b) It tells you how strong your page needs to be to compete!

We’ll illustrate this with an example in a moment.

The PA values are easy to get using free toolbars such as the Moz Toolbar, on OpensiteExplorer.com, or

through their Mozscape API, which is free for low volume usage.

Here’s how to create a competition score using Average PA:

This example uses the keyword “discount perfume”:

1) Install Moz toolbar in either the Firefox or Chrome web browsers (search “Moz toolbar” in

Google to find and install it).

2) In Google, search the keyword you want to calculate the completion level for. In this example,

we’ll use “discount perfume.” The Moz Toolbar will display the PA values for each search result.


http://moz.com/products/api


3) Find the average PA for the top 10 (or top 5) sites.

PA

59

57

62

27

43

40

44

64

1

17

41.4 Avg

Done. The average is your competition score.

Using your competition score 1) To use your competition scores, create a table for all keywords you are considering targeting:



Keyword Avg PA

perfume 62.5

discount perfume 41.4

cheap perfume 42.8

discount perfume online 30.8

low cost perfume 32.9

buy discount perfume online 40.1

2) Find the PA of each page on your site that you want to target for each keyword.

3) Create a table for all the keywords you’re considering targeting, including both the Avg PA and the PA

of the target URL on your site (in this case we’ll just target the home page, but you could target different

pages for each keyword):

Keyword Avg PA PA of Your Site’s

Target URL (ex. Homepage)

perfume 62.5 30.2

discount perfume 41.4 30.2

cheap perfume 42.8 30.2

discount perfume online 30.8 30.2

low cost perfume 32.9 30.2

buy discount perfume online 40.1 30.2

What does this tell us? Based on the above, what do you think? Which keywords are most difficult and

which are least difficult? Which keywords are we strong enough to compete for right now? Which will

we have to build up to?

It looks like “perfume” is the most difficult keyword with a score of 62.5, and “discount perfume online”

is least difficult with a score of 30.8. Our homepage, with a score of 30.2, is strong enough to compete

with both “discount perfume online” and “low cost perfume.” There are three keywords with

competition scores in the low 40s, which is only 11 higher than our 30.2, so these keywords make for

good medium-range goals (achievable after some solid work on our part). Also, keep in mind that the

Avg PA score is an average, so there are generally values above and below this number. Therefore,

depending on how wide the variation is, your page may already be strong enough. Looking at the actual

ranking sites will help you determine that.

This method calculating a keyword competition score is the one that Keyword Studio has built in.

Competition score conclusion:

Now you’re armed with data from three keyword competition scoring methods to help you determine

which keywords to go for!



These scores aren’t perfect, but they are great, simple tools to help you find the gems and to keep you

out of trouble by avoiding keywords that are too difficult to rank for with your site.

Keep in mind that you will experience a lot of “false positives” and “false negatives.” These metrics can

make keywords look easier or harder to rank for than they really are. So it’s best to use multiple

competition scores and compare them to see if they agree. Most importantly, watch the performance of

your site for each keyword.

6. Use Rankings to Find Misleading Keyword Competition Scores You

Can Profit From Quickly Get your site’s ranking for each keyword in your list and use rank to identify keywords that will be

easier to rank for than the competition score implies.

Keyword Competition Score (Using

Method #3) Your Site’s Ranking in Google

Discount perfume 41.4 12

Know where your site ranks for each keyword. This is critically important to figuring out how difficult a

keyword is for your site. Very often you’ll have two keywords with similar competition scores, but your

site quickly ranks for one and not the other. When this happens, you know that your site has an

advantage in the first keyword niche. Go for the one that is working naturally and your efforts will yield

quicker results.

In the example above, you can see that the competition score (using method 3) is pretty strong. Since

you are using method 3 to calculate your competition score you also know that your homepage has a PA

of 30.2 so you know that you are weaker than the competition. But you also know that your site is

already ranking 12 in Google. That indicates that this keyword isn’t really as hard as it looks for your site.

With a little work you could be on the first page.

So keep in mind: your site’s ranking should put the keyword competition score into context directly

relevant to your site.

7. Discover the Most Valuable Keywords using Google’s Adwords

Estimated Cost-Per-Click (CPC) What makes a keyword valuable? Because lots of people are searching it? Not exclusively. Just because

a keyword is searched a lot does not mean it’s valuable. A keyword’s ability to drive business and sales is

what makes it valuable.



One easy and accurate way to gauge a keyword’s value is to look at how much money search marketers

are willing to pay per click to get traffic from that keyword.

If one keyword averages $34.75 per click and another $0.50 per click, which do you think is more

valuable from a business perspective?

If high Cost-Per-Click (CPC) coincides with a high search volume, then you’re looking at very valuable

keyword!

For example, if two keywords each have 1,000 searches per month but one has an average CPC of $1.00

and the other’s is $10.00, the one with the $10.00 per click is far more valuable per visitor.

But the number of visitors is also a factor. What if one keyword has a CPC of $2.50 with 1,500 searches

per month, but another has a CPC of $4.25 and 250 searches per month? How do you choose between

them?

Here’s how.

Create a Keyword Value Score by multiplying the CPC by the Search Volume.

Keyword CPC Search Volume Keyword Value Score

Keyword 1 2.50 1500 $3750.00

Keyword 2 4.25 250 $1,062.50

Here we can see that Keyword 1 is more than 3x more valuable than Keyword 2.

A good rule of thumb is not to target a keyword with a CPC of less than $1.00 unless it’s for a supporting

page, such as a blog post.

You can get the average CPC value for each keyword in Google’s Keyword Planner or in keyword

research tools such as Keyword Studio.



8. Exploit “Low Hanging Fruit” Keyword Opportunities Change 2nd Page Listings to 1st Page Listings

Find keywords your site is ranking for in positions 11-15 and increase their rankings! Very little effort is

typically needed to move a keyword from the top of page two to the bottom of page one where you’ll

get significantly more traffic. Optimize the title tags on these pages and build a few links and you’ve got

quick and easy new traffic!

9. Think In Terms of Keyword Themes, not Individual Keywords Since Google has almost stopped providing keyword-level data to your analytics package, thinking in

terms of individual keywords is out, and thinking in terms of keyword themes is in.

Think of each page as the landing spot for a collection of closely related keywords. Think of collections of

related pages as a keyword themed silo for capturing traffic for an entire keyword niche.

Do this:

1) Group synonyms and closely related keywords into a single page.

2) Group individual pages into “themed silos.”



You can manually group the keywords in Excel or you can use Keyword Studio which does it

automatically.

You’ll want to group keywords into page-appropriate groups and then assign to each group the URL on

your site that you’d like to rank for the keywords in that group.

Design your site’s pages around keyword themes and not individual keywords.

10. Find New & Rising Keyword Opportunities by Monitoring Traffic

to Each Page The most important keyword metric you have is the traffic coming to a page. Since you don’t truly know

how much traffic is coming from each keyword, you use the next best value—the amount of organic

traffic to the page. The organic search traffic values shown in your analytics to a page on your site tell

you exactly how many people came to your site using keywords (you just don’t know exactly which

keywords and how frequently from each keyword). If you’re getting a lot of organic traffic to a page it

means that the keyword theme that this page represents is working.

Determine which pages are driving the most traffic and cultivate them. But also look for pages that have

recently started getting traffic. If a page’s keyword theme has lots of traffic potential, then it might be

the next big winner for you.

Remember: It is now a page-centric SEO world, not a keyword-centric one.

In a spreadsheet notate how many visits came to each of your target pages over the last thirty days.

You’ll need to go into your analytics to manually get that data for each url. Or if you are using Keyword

Studio that information is automatically pulled in for each target url you enter in Keyword Studio. You

just need to enter your Google Analytics login info into Keyword Studio to establish the connection.

11. Identify the User Intent of Each Keyword and Target Each to a

Different Page

Identify the user intent behind each keyword and target each intent.

For example, a user searching “why hire a publicist” is looking for different information than someone

searching “book publicists.” The first query is informational. The person wants information on why to do

something. The user may be new to hiring a publicist and is not sure if they need one. The person

searching “book publicists” is looking to hire one. This second type is called a “buying” or “transactional”

keyword.



In this example, the searchers are looking for two different types of content. Your site needs to have

content for both if you intend to rank for both terms.

You should have a different page for each intent. That way your content will be focused and convincing

to the user.

This approach will not only improve your conversion rate, but it will help you rank better in search

engines for two reasons:

First, because you have content specifically targeted to address each specific user’s intent that makes

your content more relevant to each query and more likely to rank for each type of query.

Second, better matching of the user’s intent to your content reduces your page’s bounce rate (the

percentage of the time a user lands on a page and leaves your site without visiting another page of your

site). This increases what is called your page’s “dwell time” (the time a searcher spends on your page

before returning to the search engine) for that query. Google uses information about how quickly a user

returns to Google to run another query that appears to be trying to find the same information. This is an

indication that your site didn’t satisfy the user’s needs. Google uses this information to change your

site’s ranking position. So you want to make sure your content answers their question or provides what

they need so you can increase your page’s “dwell time” which in turn will increase its rankings.

You can create content for all steps in the sales funnel. At the very least you need two: informational

and transactional.

12. Only Fight Keyword Battles You Can Win! This one is obvious, but it gets forgotten a lot!

Use the data you have about competition scores and your site’s current rankings to determine if you can

realistically get into the top 5 in a reasonable timeframe. If not, move on to another keyword niche. You

can always come back and reassess the situation when your site is stronger.

Tip: A keyword you can’t rank for is of no value to you at all—no matter what the search volume and

average CPC!

Go for it! Well, there you go! 10 keyword research tips you can use right now to get an advantage in the search

engines and drive more traffic! Which ones will you use right away?

About the Author:

Anthony Martello is an entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Keyword Studio a startup developing

software to help Internet marketers save time and get better results with their keyword strategies.

Previously he worked as a senior SEO strategist at a large SEO agency, Digital Current. He’s developed

hundreds of successful keyword strategies for companies ranging from small local businesses to Fortune

100 companies.


12 keyword research tips the pros use!€¦ · · 2015-08-1912 keyword research tips the pros...

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