This post is a followup to the post on how to find good keywords. If you haven’t seen that post, I suggest you read it here.
Today I’m going to give an example of how to pick between related keywords, based on competition and ease of use. For this example I’ve assumed you’ve already done your keyword research, and are at the choice/selection stage before you begin to write your post.
Recap of Finding Good Keywords
For a quick recap of how to find good keywords, basically you’re looking for a ratio of high search volume to low competition. In order to keep this post succinct, I’m representing competition in terms of the number of quoted search results and the search volume in terms of total monthly searches.
You can do all of these easily with a keyword tool like Jaaxy.
There are a few other ways to think about search volume and competition, but those will have to be covered in a separate post.
Example of Choosing Profitable Keywords
This example is actually of a keyword I’ve used on this site, about earning money in your spare time. When I was choosing this keyword, I knew that I wanted to write an article focusing on the “spare time” aspect of affiliate marketing. I did some keyword research and came up with 3 top contenders.
- Earn money in your spare time: 2651 monthly searches, 214 QSR
- Make money in your spare time: 256 monthly searches, 44 QSR
- Make extra money your spare time: 328 monthly searches, 5 QSR
If you were to pick one of these keywords, which would you choose?
Most people tell me they’d choose the first one, which has 2651 monthly searches and an acceptable QSR of 214. They argue that the fact that the total monthly searches is 10 times that of the other keyword is the dominating factor in keyword selection. Since any QSR under 300 is ok, the first phrase fits the bill.
This line of logic is ok, and you may have a chance of ranking on that keyword. Part of the analysis has to take into account just how competitive those other QSR results are. While 214 QSR might be ok for a lot of niches, the ‘make money’ niche is filled with lots of other professional marketers, making it much harder to rank for high volume keywords.
That means that I’d personally gravitate towards the lower QSR in this example. In that case, though, I’d be moved towards the 3rd phrase, with 328 searches and only 5 QSR. While these numbers appear attractive, the phrase isn’t realistic. It sounds awkward and is difficult to fit into a natural sounding sentence.
I don’t want to sacrifice the quality of my post.
Thus, I chose (and wrote and published a post on) the 2nd phrase. That’s because this phrase had the right combination of a decent number of monthly searches coupled with much lower competition.
That is, I knew I could start to rank for that phrase and get at least some clicks every month, whereas for the 1st phrase I might rank well, which, while it would provide me with more traffic, won’t provide me with any real traffic if I’m down on page 3 or higher of the search results.
I hope this example helps give you a better idea of how you might choose profitable keywords. To learn more, I suggest you work through this free training.
Click here to read more about how to earn money through internet marketing!