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7:43 am
June 10, 2011
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QuoteYes, thanks John! I wasn't aware of the way anchor text on backlinks informs keyword relevance because I haven't gotten that far along in the process. I'm just trying to figure out what domain name to buy and how to create a site that capitalizes on niche marketing but doesn't box me in... thanks for clarifying that the most relevant keyword or term needs to be up front...
7:51 pm
August 27, 2011
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Great thread that keeps delivering the insights. It's really cool that John gave us an example of a mini-site that he built and hopefully everyone appreciates what he's sharing here as many people withhold their other web properties - even if that site isn't a main one for them anymore.
I also agree with John on having the main keywords as close to the start of the domain name as possible and adding extras towards the end if necessary.
7:57 pm
June 10, 2011
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Ok still unclear (and if this is getting old feel free to direct me towards other online resources):
google adwords competition ranking: what is it good for?
Using John's example of his restaurant recipes mini site, I see that it says low for competition using the phrase "restaurant recipes." However, when I check in title results I see @ 1.5 million uses of the term "restaurant recipes" in the title of people's websites. That sounds competitive. I've gotten similar results on many searches. The adwords tool tells me competition is low but then my in title search shows crazy high #s in the results.
I'm looking for a formula to title my mini site but the keyword search process still has me mystified. Hopefully my quest for clarity will be of use to others in this forum down the line.
Many thanks all!!
9:00 pm
June 9, 2011
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Hi Julianna,
The keyword tool tells you how much competition there is for paid ads, not for competing website. You find competing sites by doing the intitle and phrase match searches, but the keyword tool is measuring paying advertiser volume.
Generally if a heavily searched keyword has low advertiser competition, it means there really isn't any real money spending going on in the market… or at least not for that keyword.
However, one thing I'll point out, is that may not necessarily be true. People may have tried to tap the market, but their approach may be all wrong. Think back to John's distinction between an exposure model and an access model.
What I'm suggesting is that there may be money there, even if the ad comp is low, it may just be that other companies have approached the market all wrong. 🙂
I hope that kind of clears up the "competition" thing.
-Steve
6:21 am
June 10, 2011
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Many thanks for clarifying that Steve! What about when searching keyword phrases for article content? Is knowing the competition for paid ads useful to determine what keywords might score search engine ranking for an article? I'm wondering whether the adwords tool is useful (if more primitive and general) for any of the stuff market samurai does...
5:52 pm
June 9, 2011
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In short, no. With advertiser competition, you are talking about the other side of the page in the google search results. It will tell you how easy and costly it will be to rank highly on the right side of the page (or the top two paid results on the left), but not for organic (article) listings.
I've not used Market Samurai, but one thing to use google's competition score for is to determine whether or not it's worth it to run paid traffic for a specific keyword.
There may be a lot of search volume and there may be a lot of competing sites, but the question becomes are people buying from, or spending money on that keyword? That's what the competition score is good for.
However like I alluded to earlier, try some paid traffic to those lower competition keywords and see if through your free offer, follow-up and direct response triggers, whether or not you can generate sales and come out with a profit. At that point all that matters is whether or not you are wasting money with paid traffic.
Building authority for a keyword or high ranking helps too, because most people click from the organic results anyway, so it's worth it to be on both sides of the page.
The trade-off is that you can find out whether or not a keyword is going to be a winner very quickly by paying for the traffic before you spend a lot of time trying to rank for it. 🙂
5:13 am
June 10, 2011
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Hi Steve,
yes thank you! It definitely clears up my confusion regarding the adwords tool. I'm still mixed up about site titles though and peppering keywords throughout articles. I guess regarding site titles, what I'm unclear about is the balance to strike between how many people are actively searching for a keyword term and how many competing websites are using that keyword in their site title.
Let's use the example "hip hop dance tracks" which shows 190,000 results for in title. That seems like manageable competition. But that title contains both the terms hip hop and dance tracks which are hugely competitive, highly searched keywords. "hip hop dance tracks" as a complete phrase, however, has an extremely low monthly search. Why would I want to use it if no one is really looking for it?
So I'm trying to figure out how the search engines read the keyword phrase in it's entirety (why wouldn't they just recognize two separate keyword phrases "hip hop" and "dance tracks"). I'm also trying to figure out how it's ever possible to come up with a term that is both highly searched and low competition without including a highly competitive keyword like "hip hop" and if you do include that keyword, won't you just get lost in the morass of competing sites/articles?
Hope my question makes sense.
Many thanks Steve!
6:07 am
June 9, 2011
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You're welcome.
Hey, a simple way to look at Search engine marketing, whether paid or organic is to just think about the context in which people would be searching for a certain group of keywords. Most people don't just peck a few keywords into the search bar, they use them in a certain way, or phrase. Sometimes people who are likely to buy something use them differently than someone who is just looking for a list of something, for instance.
Advertiser competition is indication of market activity and means it's worth trying to rank for organically, assuming there isn't a mountain of search results to climb. However you can pay for the traffic first and decide whether or not the mountain is worth trying to climb.
The point is, that you are trying to zero in on those keywords that have a market worth competing for.
6:03 pm
June 10, 2011
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Yes, but aren't you trying to zero in on those keywords that both have a market worth competing for and also are not so competitive in organic searches that you have no hopes of ranking? My question is speaking to organic search competition.
In the world of music, all adwords competition appears to be low no matter what niche you look at... ie no one appears to be buying music. But as you pointed out, that can be because no one has figured out how to sell properly to that population... clearly lots of people are searching.
My question is: How can you choose keywords which will rank in searches so you are coming in contact with the right traffic, if the keywords people use to search for what you're selling are highly competitive organic search terms?
That's why I used the "hip hop dance tracks" example. I thought it was a title that might rank easily for a mini site and capture a small segment of the population, if you happen to be selling hip hop music and some of your tracks are dance tracks. But I wasn't sure about that. Since the phrase contains two highly competitive keyword terms "hip hop" and "dance tracks" I wondered whether that would make it more difficult to rank.
Does my question make any more sense now? I am definitely challenged by this stuff so I may be completely misunderstanding how it works.
Thanks Steve!
10:01 pm
June 7, 2011
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Julianna Raye said:
My question is: How can you choose keywords which will rank in searches so you are coming in contact with the right traffic, if the keywords people use to search for what you're selling are highly competitive organic search terms?
That's why I used the "hip hop dance tracks" example. I thought it was a title that might rank easily for a mini site and capture a small segment of the population, if you happen to be selling hip hop music and some of your tracks are dance tracks. But I wasn't sure about that. Since the phrase contains two highly competitive keyword terms "hip hop" and "dance tracks" I wondered whether that would make it more difficult to rank.
Does my question make any more sense now? I am definitely challenged by this stuff so I may be completely misunderstanding how it works.
Hey Julianna, reading through your thread a bit I'm not sure I am totally clear on what you're asking...
Let me see if I can simplify. If this doesn't address the question let me know.
Most music keywords are highly searched. The music niche is only second to porn in terms of how much bandwidth it is responsible for on the internet (or so I'm told). However there is a lot of conversation about music as well so the terms are usually quite competitive. The only good news there is that they are usually not very monetized so often it is not hard to beet the sites with a little effort.
To rank for a competitive term you will usually need to build a large authority site with a lot of content and a lot of back links. Think of that site like a pyramid with your big keyword on top, your category terms that are also big but not usually quite as big beneath it, and then hundreds of related smaller terms beneath it. Hypothetical example...
Primary keyword to build your site around (I usually have 1 - 3 very related terms): hip hop music, hip hop songs, hip hop artists
Secondary keywords for categories: hip hop music, hip hop lyrics, hip hop dance songs, rhythm and blues music, old school rap
Tertiary keywords for targeted articles: snoop dog biography, how to become a hip hop producer, best rap artists of 2012
Totally just a hypothetical. I have not looked into those terms.
But lets say there was not a thousand related terms and the competition was not that steep, but steep enough that a single article wouldn't do it (IE, Seattle Hip Hop). You might build a mini site around that.
Short of that you can simply publish articles to EZA for a quick ranking with the right long tail term.
In terms of stacking your domain, I wouldn't try and over think it. Just pick one target keyword and try and buy a domain that has the phrase within it. Then structure your site so it is also targeting one or two other words. You do this by including those terms in the site title, description and keyword tags, as well as by building back links accordingly.
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10:38 pm
June 10, 2011
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Ok, yes thanks John. This gives me the whole picture.
The "Hip Hop Dance Tracks" example was my attempt to find a mini-site title like Seattle Hip Hop, that is niche specific enough to rank and includes relevant keywords. The phrase in it's entirety only pulls in @ 140 searches monthly, so I realize it's not a great example, but I think I understand the principle now.
Thank you for clarifying that and hopefully this will be useful to other people starting out with this stuff too.
Julianna 
4:34 pm
June 9, 2011
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If I can simplify a bit as well, while trying to not be confusing:
Because there is so much organic competition, it may be hard to rank organically, but like John mentioned people aren't really monetizing the traffic, which means they probably aren't paying for the traffic either.
This is why keyword tool is telling you the competition is low.
In a sense MMM2.0 is all about monetization of traffic, so if you dial in John's process for conversion, you should be able to monetize to the point that you can afford to pay for the traffic.
And because there is low competition, it's much easier/cheaper to rank on the right side of google (or the top 2 paid slots on the left) than it would be to try and compete with all of the organic listings on the left.
I hope that is clear. 🙂
4:58 pm
June 10, 2011
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Yes, thanks for the additional clarification Steve. This is a lot to absorb, especially for my mind! There's also the issue of how to maintain the online sales relationship once you've established it. It's overwhelming when you look at all the moving parts, but I'm finding repeatedly hearing the information does help a lot. Thanks guys...
5:02 pm
June 9, 2011
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Best to not over-think it though. Put it in action and cross the other bridges when you have to. Otherwise it's easy to psyche yourself out.
Paralysis by analysis, I believe is the term 🙂
10:15 pm
August 27, 2011
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Julianna Raye said:
Yes, but aren't you trying to zero in on those keywords that both have a market worth competing for and also are not so competitive in organic searches that you have no hopes of ranking? My question is speaking to organic search competition.
In the world of music, all adwords competition appears to be low no matter what niche you look at... ie no one appears to be buying music. But as you pointed out, that can be because no one has figured out how to sell properly to that population... clearly lots of people are searching.
My question is: How can you choose keywords which will rank in searches so you are coming in contact with the right traffic, if the keywords people use to search for what you're selling are highly competitive organic search terms?
That's why I used the "hip hop dance tracks" example. I thought it was a title that might rank easily for a mini site and capture a small segment of the population, if you happen to be selling hip hop music and some of your tracks are dance tracks. But I wasn't sure about that. Since the phrase contains two highly competitive keyword terms "hip hop" and "dance tracks" I wondered whether that would make it more difficult to rank.
Does my question make any more sense now? I am definitely challenged by this stuff so I may be completely misunderstanding how it works.
Thanks Steve!
Hey Julianna,
Sorry if I'm late to the party (still doesn't stop me from crashing anyway), but I think I can provide a little insight as well.
Ranking for "Hip hop dance tracks" will be easier than ranking for Hip Hop or Dance Tracks individually. This is a stealthy way to eventually SEO your site to rank for the more competitive keywords (Hip Hop, Dance tracks) because once your page is ranking for Hip Hop Dance tracks you can then link that page with rank that Google trusts to a specific page on your site on Hip Hop or Dance Tracks and spread a little of the 'link juice' along.
This makes sense if you've already determined that both Hip Hop and Dance Tracks are worth ranking for!
Also keep in mind, the more broad a keyword is, the less likely it is to know the intent of the searcher.
Ranking for Hip Hop - even if it gets a billion searches a day, might be a waste of time if the people typing in the keywords doesn't want to purchase the music or click on related ad or affiliate link (if you plan on monetizing this site in these ways).
A long tail word like "buy hip hop dance tracks" or 'cheap hip hop dance tracks" or 'hip hop dance tracks coupon' would indicate that the searcher is looking to make a purchase - so even if there are only 10 people a day executing this search...it could be far more profitable than the 1 billion that are just doing a general search for hip hop.
So, when you write the hip hop dance tracks page, your could include 'hip hop', 'dance tracks', 'hip hop dance tracks', 'buy hip hop dance tracks', 'cheap hip hop dance tracks' in the content you write and as tags (if you use wordpress). Keywords in tags are most effective when they're in the actual content as well.
In general, I tend to target only about 5 keywords per post as you want to keep the content relevant and not just swimming with a pile of keywords.
Make sense? I don't want to add to the overwhelm here. Keywords take a while to wrap your head around so don't feel bad about it!
The rest of your confusing seems to be on SEO (organic traffic) competition (searching for keywords in quotes) versus SEM (search engine marketing/ppc) competition on the Google Adwords tool.
2:00 am
June 10, 2011
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Actually that's really helpful Mike! That is what I was getting at but I realize that there were several bits of confusion wired together on my part and they each needed to be addressed. More to come. 
That part about including a word in the keyword phrase that qualifies the searcher's intent to purchase hadn't occurred to me but it makes complete sense, so many thanks for that tip! It also helps me understand the thinking behind keyword searches more clearly.
Thank you all for helping to unravel my massive SEO/keyword brain knot!!
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