[Tips]7 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Keyword Research

Once upon a time, when I was new to IM, I used to do keyword research in a terrible way. Made so many mistakes and learned a lot. Now I see many new comers doing the same mistake so I?m just posting a small thread to point them in right direction.



1. Exact Search Count

Always look for the exact search count. Initially when you enter a keyword in the search box and hit search, what you get by default is ?Broad? search count. Under match types select [Exact] and hit the search button again. That shows the approximate 12-month average of exact user queries for the keyword on Google search.



Just see the difference in the search count above. That?s a huge difference. Don?t even care about broad/phrase search count.



2. Long Tail Keywords

Don?t target a single keyword and build a whole site optimized for that. Target 3 or 4 other long tail keywords related to the main keyword for more traffic. When you rank #1 for a keyword, you are not gonna get the same exact visitors what keyword tool shows you. This is where CTR comes into picture. I searched many sites looking for data about the percentage of clicks the number 1 ranking website receives. Their result is not same. All the sites show the CTR in the range 35% to 55%. The more the CTR, the more visitors you get. Here is the 12 months stats for one of my sites which is ranking #1 for a keyword with global exact search count ? 1600 and local exact search count ? 590



So Go0ogle sent 6135 visits via 810 keywords where I received only 3236 visits from my root keyword. On an average I receive only 279 unique visits monthly from my root keyword, rest of the traffic comes from other variation keywords. I optimized the site ONLY for the root keyword yet getting traffic from other keywords. If I target few more long tail keywords related to the main keyword, I would get some more traffic and conversion.



3. Seasonal keywords

Make sure the keyword which you target gets consistent traffic throughout the year. There is something called seasonal keywords which gets HIGH traffic during a particular day or a month and the traffic goes down drastically for the rest of the period. If you are looking for a keyword to build a site for a consistent long term income better stay away from these keywords.

Previously G0ogle used to show the keyword trend graph in the keyword tool and gives the search count for each month, but for some reason it was removed. Now the only way to find the traffic consistency is by using Google insight. Using Google insight, you can see the search volume trend for any keyword from the year 2004 to till date. There are many filters available to do the in-depth analysis.

Let?s take an example keyword - grandparents day



Grandparent?s day is celebrated in the month of September so the spike what you see in the graph shows high traffic during September and goes to normal for rest of the months. So when you build any website in that niche, you can expect some good traffic and conversion only during September not throughout the year. Please note, the numbers what you see on the graph is NOT the absolute search volume; it?s just a scale from 1 to 100. So never use insight for search count, always stick with keyword tool. More details given here



4. Keyword tool-Competition & Approximate CPC

The competition column what you see in the keyword tool is NOT SEO competition. Many people, who are new to keyword tool, think in that way.

Competition: This column shows the number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across G0ogle. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword. Source

Click to expand...

So if you are gonna monetize the site with Ad-sense, check the competition column also in addition to CPC. A keyword is very profitable if the competition is very high. If you are targeting a product keyword and not gonna use Ad-sense for monetization, then you don?t have to worry about CPC.



5. Exact Match Domain

EMD is good for ranking but it is NOT mandatory. You just need the keyword in domain for SEO purpose so you can use the long tails which gets some traffic as domain name. For example, top level EMD not available for the keyword ?alli side effects?, but see below what are all the other possible domains which we can register..





6. Domain Infringement

You should be very careful when buying domains with brand name in it. Not all the companies care much about copyright infringement, but there are few who are very active and serious when it comes to copyright infringement. Usually when I look for any product keyword, I search in G0ogle like this

Keyword + ?domain infringement?
Keyword + ?copyright infringement?

Click to expand...

If I see any DMCA complaints or any information about domain cease, I skip that keyword. Also if I see search result like this while doing keyword research I blindly skip that keyword.





7. Official site at #1

When you come across any product keyword where product?s official site is already ranking #1 better you skip that because your site will suffer bad CTR even if you rank in the first page. Visitors gonna click the product?s official site rather than clicking on other sites. Even if you manage to outrank them, they will try to take you offline or try to outrank you(Think about their budget). I have one blogger blog ranking #7 for an online product keyword with global exact search count 12k. The first three spots are occupied by the official site. Here are the last month stats for the same



Received 16 visits from G0ogle out of which 8 visits are from main keyword. So you do the math

Well, that's all for now. Will post few more threads if I get some time. Happy keyword hunting

Nice guide, cyberzilla. Perfect for beginners, and a great reminder for the more advanced users.

Great post Cyberzilla. This is going to help a lot to the beginners! Also, I never checked keywords for domain infringement, thanks for this. Will check them from now.

Thread deserves to be stickied.

Nice tips you got here Cyberzilla. You are right, when I first started the kwd research I did the mistake to look for broad search and not exact search. Very helpful guide for newbies and not only. Rep given.

Helpfull reminder of some of the basics, thanks

This is definitely a great read for everyone especially for beginners, I also vote that it be stickied. There are a lot of common mistakes that people have started threads about which you've managed to cover. Thanks, Rep+

This post is like finding an oasis in the desert

I hear like this before, but when I read, I still learn something.. Thanks, this is great post!

This is great guide for keyword research. Thanks for talking to time to also give screenshots and to show a real example.

Thanks again.

Once again, another great writeup. Some of these would of been great to find when I was spending 16 hours a day just reading to figure out WTF I was doing.

Very well put together for the starters

Thanks Zilla...

Fantastic post my friend, I know a few people that can totally utilize this.

Thank you all for your feedback guys. Did I miss anything?? Is there any thing which needs to be checked?

Yeah this is a great post for anyone new to keyword research. It took me years to figure all this stuff out on my own. I wish someone had broken it down for me like this when I started out in the game. Good share.

Do you care much if the searches are local or global? They say that cpc's are much higher if you set your sites in the local US search results. Sometimes the figures can be bloated too.

cyberzilla said:

once upon a time, when i was new to im, i used to do keyword research in a terrible way. Made so many mistakes and learned a lot. Now i see many new comers doing the same mistake so i?m just posting a small thread to point them in right direction.



1. Exact search count

always look for the exact search count. Initially when you enter a keyword in the search box and hit search, what you get by default is ?broad? search count. Under match types select [exact] and hit the search button again. That shows the approximate 12-month average of exact user queries for the keyword on google search.

just see the difference in the search count above. That?s a huge difference. Don?t even care about broad/phrase search count.



2. Long tail keywords

don?t target a single keyword and build a whole site optimized for that. Target 3 or 4 other long tail keywords related to the main keyword for more traffic. When you rank #1 for a keyword, you are not gonna get the same exact visitors what keyword tool shows you. This is where ctr comes into picture. I searched many sites looking for data about the percentage of clicks the number 1 ranking website receives. Their result is not same. All the sites show the ctr in the range 35% to 55%. The more the ctr, the more visitors you get. Here is the 12 months stats for one of my sites which is ranking #1 for a keyword with global exact search count ? 1600 and local exact search count ? 590

so go0ogle sent 6135 visits via 810 keywords where i received only 3236 visits from my root keyword. On an average i receive only 279 unique visits monthly from my root keyword, rest of the traffic comes from other variation keywords. I optimized the site only for the root keyword yet getting traffic from other keywords. If i target few more long tail keywords related to the main keyword, i would get some more traffic and conversion.



3. Seasonal keywords

make sure the keyword which you target gets consistent traffic throughout the year. There is something called seasonal keywords which gets high traffic during a particular day or a month and the traffic goes down drastically for the rest of the period. If you are looking for a keyword to build a site for a consistent long term income better stay away from these keywords.

Previously g0ogle used to show the keyword trend graph in the keyword tool and gives the search count for each month, but for some reason it was removed. Now the only way to find the traffic consistency is by using google insight. Using google insight, you can see the search volume trend for any keyword from the year 2004 to till date. There are many filters available to do the in-depth analysis.

Let?s take an example keyword - grandparents day

grandparent?s day is celebrated in the month of september so the spike what you see in the graph shows high traffic during september and goes to normal for rest of the months. So when you build any website in that niche, you can expect some good traffic and conversion only during september not throughout the year. Please note, the numbers what you see on the graph is not the absolute search volume; it?s just a scale from 1 to 100. So never use insight for search count, always stick with keyword tool. More details given here



4. Keyword tool-competition & approximate cpc

the competition column what you see in the keyword tool is not seo competition. Many people, who are new to keyword tool, think in that way.


So if you are gonna monetize the site with ad-sense, check the competition column also in addition to cpc. A keyword is very profitable if the competition is very high. If you are targeting a product keyword and not gonna use ad-sense for monetization, then you don?t have to worry about cpc.



5. Exact match domain

emd is good for ranking but it is not mandatory. You just need the keyword in domain for seo purpose so you can use the long tails which gets some traffic as domain name. For example, top level emd not available for the keyword ?alli side effects?, but see below what are all the other possible domains which we can register..

6. Domain infringement

you should be very careful when buying domains with brand name in it. Not all the companies care much about copyright infringement, but there are few who are very active and serious when it comes to copyright infringement. Usually when i look for any product keyword, i search in g0ogle like this

if i see any dmca complaints or any information about domain cease, i skip that keyword. Also if i see search result like this while doing keyword research i blindly skip that keyword.

7. Official site at #1

when you come across any product keyword where product?s official site is already ranking #1 better you skip that because your site will suffer bad ctr even if you rank in the first page. Visitors gonna click the product?s official site rather than clicking on other sites. Even if you manage to outrank them, they will try to take you offline or try to outrank you(think about their budget). I have one blogger blog ranking #7 for an online product keyword with global exact search count 12k. The first three spots are occupied by the official site. Here are the last month stats for the same

received 16 visits from g0ogle out of which 8 visits are from main keyword. So you do the math

well, that's all for now. Will post few more threads if i get some time. Happy keyword hunting

Click to expand...

best post i have read on this forum

just one question how many exact search count you prefer for the keyword to choose and also how do you assess the difficultly level of the keyword to rank. do you also see allintitle, allinanchor, other things

It's always good to see the things you know and don't know in a readable and very well structured way. Thanks cyberzilla.
And extra thanks for the copyright tip.

Very good article. I've made mistakes #6 and #7 several times.

I just happen to be working on keyword research today. Gave you a thanks. Your guide will help me from falling into a pit that I could have wasted away in for months!!