Holzr
Elite Member
- Sep 4, 2016
- 2,236
- 2,666
Hi all!
So a lot of people know about checking scores, metrics, on-page SEO, links, Search volume and all that when doing keyword research. But a lot of people don't a simple keyword difficulty checker that can be done by searching Google.
I'm talking about Search Operators and the Moz article I linked to is a good cheat sheet for it.
Often I see people banging on about computer generated keyword difficulty scores and "should I use them" "what's a good score" etc. which is fine as an initial filter but the fact is is that metrics can be fudged very easily as @Nargil has spoken about a number of times including here on his post about expired domains. I'd like to give a big shout out to @hacko and his keyword research guide here as it's an excellent guide and this mini guide I'm writing here is sort of an addition to his guide to add to your keyword research arsenal.
How can we use search operators to improve our keyword selections?
Ok so we have a list of keywords we'd like to consider going after. They all have a KW difficulty score all the same, the SERP results look similar (the results below I haven't checked but as an example lets say metrics and volume is the same)
What's important to know is exactly how many pages are competing for your keyword. We can find the out using a search operator such as intitle:"your keyword" (with the " " don't add a space after the :.)
This simple search operator will show us the number of indexed pages that include your keyword/phrase in the title of a post. Say for example we want to find out whether to write an article about the best vodka brands or maybe tequila brands. What we can do is type in Google the following:
Using search operators is a great way of quickly judging competition of a keyword and I would highly recommend people to try it out and use some of the other search operators available that I linked to the Moz article above.
It's not a perfect keyword research method and by no means should you only use just this. Using search operators should be used with other research methods such as search volume, seasonality, commercial intent etc. etc. as mentioned by @hacko and many others who have spent hours writing about keyword research.
So a lot of people know about checking scores, metrics, on-page SEO, links, Search volume and all that when doing keyword research. But a lot of people don't a simple keyword difficulty checker that can be done by searching Google.
I'm talking about Search Operators and the Moz article I linked to is a good cheat sheet for it.
Often I see people banging on about computer generated keyword difficulty scores and "should I use them" "what's a good score" etc. which is fine as an initial filter but the fact is is that metrics can be fudged very easily as @Nargil has spoken about a number of times including here on his post about expired domains. I'd like to give a big shout out to @hacko and his keyword research guide here as it's an excellent guide and this mini guide I'm writing here is sort of an addition to his guide to add to your keyword research arsenal.
How can we use search operators to improve our keyword selections?
Ok so we have a list of keywords we'd like to consider going after. They all have a KW difficulty score all the same, the SERP results look similar (the results below I haven't checked but as an example lets say metrics and volume is the same)
What's important to know is exactly how many pages are competing for your keyword. We can find the out using a search operator such as intitle:"your keyword" (with the " " don't add a space after the :.)
This simple search operator will show us the number of indexed pages that include your keyword/phrase in the title of a post. Say for example we want to find out whether to write an article about the best vodka brands or maybe tequila brands. What we can do is type in Google the following:
- intitle:"best vodka brands" - About 757 results
- intitle:"best tequila brands" - About 371 results
- intitle:"best cognac brands" - About 192 results
- intitle:"best sake brands" - About 18 results
- intitle:"best tv" - About 349,000 results
Using search operators is a great way of quickly judging competition of a keyword and I would highly recommend people to try it out and use some of the other search operators available that I linked to the Moz article above.
It's not a perfect keyword research method and by no means should you only use just this. Using search operators should be used with other research methods such as search volume, seasonality, commercial intent etc. etc. as mentioned by @hacko and many others who have spent hours writing about keyword research.
