Finding Keywords - Searching High and Low!

Finding keywords can be fun if you know what you are looking for and how to find them. If your aim is to appear on the first page of Google then allow me to share with you today The Golden Rule: The key to Keyword Research is High Search and Low Competition. Once you understand this simple two step process you'll be way ahead of the pack. Allow me first, if you will, to clarify for you what exactly a keyword is and, what keyword research is. What is a Keyword It's a word or phrase that is typed into a search engine. It can be made up of one word, or several - no matter how many words are used it is still referred to as one keyword. There are 2 types of keywords - Long Tail and Short Tail. A long tail keyword is made up of several words e.g. how to grow roses from cuttings (Google results at time of print was 11,700). The more words that are used the less the competition - as fewer people will search using those words. A short tail keyword is made up of fewer words e.g. growing roses (Google results at time of print was 308,000) or just the word roses on its own (Google results at time of print was 245,000,000!). As you can see the competition for these is very high. So what is our aim here - it's to find popular profitable long tail keywords in order to rank high on the search engines. What is Keyword Research When someone wants to find information on the internet on a particular subject matter they'll key in a few words into the search engine e.g. how to grow roses. Therefore, when you are preparing your website, article or blog it's vital that your content is rich with popular profitable keywords i.e. finding keywords to include throughout that someone is likely to search for. If they key in a keyword that matches one of yours, your website will be picked up and they will find you. And bingo! Your research pays off. Now for the fun bit - Finding Keywords in just 2 steps Step One- High Search. Go to Google AdWords Keyword Tool, this is a powerful Google tool and better still it's free! You'll see a box to enter a word or a phrase. Ensure that match type Broad is selected. Think about what your site or article is about - and enter your keyword. Now click on Search. Note the results won't just be for your keyword alone, it will also throw up lots of suggestions and ideas for other closely related keywords. The monthly figures we are interested in here is the Global Monthly Search Volume. Important - ideally you want to see searches of more than 2000 per month. Anything lower would mean that not very many people use these words to search. Step Two- Low Competition. Go to Google search engine and type in your keyword but this time put it in speech marks e.g. "how to grow roses from cuttings". Important - ideally you want to see searches of less than 60,000 or 70,000. So, why do we test our keyword in speech marks - so that Google will only show us the results that exactly match those keywords and nothing else. If you don't get the above results straight away - please don't worry this is completely normal. Play around with different words and ideas - experiment - you can't break anything! And don't forget Google Keyword Tool will have lots of suggestions. This can take some time - but it will be time well spent. Get this bit right and you will reap the rewards for your hard work. Finally remember The Golden Rule: The key to Keyword Research is High Search and Low Competition.