Keyword Research

Lets just quickly recap what you’ve done so far. First you selected a Micro Niche and then you checked to see if its worth going after. The next step is that you need to start looking at creating your website which will be based around the Micro Niche you selected.
 
You don’t want to just throw up some information to the web and hope that people will find it. Your websites content must be crafted in a way that is friendly to the search engines. What I mean by this is that you should be helping the search engines by giving them good quality content that is useful for their searchers. However to be able to do this you need to find out what it is people are searching for, what do they need! The words and phrases people type into the search engines are known as keywords or key phrases and you want to be putting good quality content onto your website based around these keywords and key phrases. Your content should help or benefit these searchers.
 
You should base each and every web page you put up around particular keywords and key phrases been searched for by actual people.
 
Keyword research is a very critical point in determining whether your website will be a success or not. This isn’t difficult to do however keyword research does take some time and can be quite a repetitive process. You’ll be glad to hear that there are tools available on the web to help you do this and save you some time.

Begin finding these keywords and key phrases by going to the Google Keyword Tool. (This little gem can real give you a lot of information). Take the phrase for your Micro Niche, ‘Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar,’ and enter it into the box, as shown below, and click on the ‘Get Keyword Ideas’ button:
 
 

 
 
This will bring back to you a huge list of keyword results and statistics all relating to the ‘Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar’ Micro Niche. Then click on the ‘Global Monthly Search Volume’ tiltle to sort by number of searches per month so that the highest searched words are at the top as shown below:
 
 

 
 
This list will be the list of keywords you’ll be targeting for your website and I would suggest you do the same for the words on this list as you did for the key phrase ‘Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar.’ Remember each and every keyword and key phrase has a number of searches attached to it and these are all potential visitors who could visit your website and buy what you have to offer.

Your next step is to check how competitive these keywords and key phrases are and create a short list of the ones you will be targeting on your Micro Niche website. I personally use a set criteria for assesing keywords and key phrases and here it is. A keyword or key phrase should be assesed by using the following matrix;

Before we carry on I should describe the types of Search reslults you can receive there are two and here’s an overview of each type:

 
Broad Match: A ‘Broad Match’ search result is every web page that contains the words you are looking for. The results brought back to you by Google can contain the words you searched for in any order. This is how people generally use the search engines to look for stuff.

 
Phrase Match: A ‘Phrase Match’ search result is every web page which has the term on it in the order it was originally typed into Google. However when you type the keyword or key phrase into Google you must include quotation marks around it, for example “Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar’”. The total amount of results will be much less than the ‘Broad Match’ results as this search is a lot more targeted.
 

Now we know the difference between Broad and Phrase Match now we can find out how competitve the keyword and key phrases are for our Micro Niche. To begin just start entering the keywords into Google with quotation marks around them. You’re ideal keyword or key phase should have more than 1000 searches per month and have less than 10000 competitng web pages, basically higher searche volumes and less competitiveness.

Run all the keywords relating to your Micro Niche against this chart and then open up an excel spread sheet and compile a list of the ‘GOOD’ and ‘GREAT’ keywords. You’re aiming for a list of at least 50 keywords and key phrases. Also enter the information on how many searches and how many competing web pages there are.

Although I’ve said to aim for at least 50 keywords you can do this as much as you like. The more keywords and key phrases you have on your website the more potential rankings and visitors you will receive.

So What’s Next?

Keyword research is a massive task however must be done before you even register your website domain name and pay for any hosting. Without the proper keyword research you’ll end up putting a lot of time and effort chasing what you may think of as a great market but will find that you can’t make any money from it. So once you’ve compiled your keyword list you’re ready to start creating content and building your Micro Niche website. 

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