Market Samurai - How to select a Keyword

[DomFinder]

I got my self SENUKE and MS both. Now I am trying to use both of them for my kw research and it is just confusing me more.

a. SENUKE use the allintitle google command to assess the competition which I think is not the correct way to go about. OR is it?

b. Now, Market Samurai takes me deep into values associated with seem to me working against me rather than for me.

So, I was researching a niche which threw up quite some results. I am attaching a screenshot. Can some one please tell me how to assess the info?

 

[chockomonkey]

Oooh that's from a newer version than i have... what's "IC" represent?

I wondered the same thing btw when i first got the program... go to youtube or google and type in "Market Samurai Tutorial Video"

They'll cover how to use the program...

 

[biks]

Are you trying to climb an easy or hard niche? It looks like you've got way too much red on that chart and certain domains have too many BLP's to crack. If I saw that chart, I would've passed it over. You basically want as many green blocks as possible. The ones that I've ranked on page 1 and have eventually moved up into the #1 spot, the chart's were almost completely green.

There's more to it that that...but just a simple heads up.

Does a .org/.net/.com domain exist for the keyword? If not, you've got even more work to do to get yourself to rank. An exact domain match in my estimate is worth about 40-50 quality backlinks of juice.

 

[DomFinder]

Are you trying to climb an easy or hard niche? It looks like you've got way too much red on that chart and certain domains have too many BLP's to crack. If I saw that chart, I would've passed it over. You basically want as many green blocks as possible. The ones that I've ranked on page 1 and have eventually moved up into the #1 spot, the chart's were almost completely green.

There's more to it that that...but just a simple heads up.

Does a .org/.net/.com domain exist for the keyword? If not, you've got even more work to do to get yourself to rank. An exact domain match in my estimate is worth about 40-50 quality backlinks of juice.

Biks, for one there is a .com domain for the keyword.
Secondly, the way I see it if you remove the amazon.com , thefind.com, target.com and wikipedia, we are hardly left with anything.
What I was wondering is how does having sites like wiki and amazon affect my chances ?
Also, how does having a hyphen in the name affect my chances? Say iphone-accessories.com is not as good as iphoneaccessories.com ?


@chockomonkey : "IC" refers to the indexed pages. How many pages on the site has been indexed by Google. It is the newer beta version.

 

[biks]

What I was wondering is how does having sites like wiki and amazon affect my chances ?

From my niche product sites, I now get half my income from Amazon! I've got plenty of domains sitting at the #1 spot, out ranking Amazon. (selling the same stuff that's listed below me.) The big thing seems to be how many LINKS are pointing to that Amazon product page. Hardly anyone gives a link to something obscure. (Except my site) Same deal with wiki pages. I've got one authority domain that took years to build, because it's an authority site on a broad subject like "popcorn", the only site that's beating me out in the SERPs is a wiki page that has hundreds of links.

Also, how does having a hyphen in the name affect my chances? Say iphone-accessories.com is not as good as iphoneaccessories.com ?

God I hate those fucking hyphens. (for what we do) They seem to get less respect than an .info domain. Again, getting an EXACT match to your keyword gives you something extra in Google's eyes.

Reasons why you would want to use a dash: You're doing an adwords campaign and want to increase your score and lower your bid costs. Having the same keyword in your domain name as the ones your bidding on help you reach the mythical 10 score.

If your building an authority site and you'll need hundreds of links to rank. At this point ANY domain will rank as long as you hammer the links to it. Having the extra boost of 30-40 quality link "juice" associated with the exact match is basically irrelevant. Because we're working at the micro level, having that extra push from the start is vital.

 

[DomFinder]

From my niche product sites, I now get half my income from Amazon! I've got plenty of domains sitting at the #1 spot, out ranking Amazon. (selling the same stuff that's listed below me.) The big thing seems to be how many LINKS are pointing to that Amazon product page. Hardly anyone gives a link to something obscure. (Except my site) Same deal with wiki pages. I've got one authority domain that took years to build, because it's an authority site on a broad subject like "popcorn", the only site that's beating me out in the SERPs is a wiki page that has hundreds of links.



God I hate those fucking hyphens. (for what we do) They seem to get less respect than an .info domain. Again, getting an EXACT match to your keyword gives you something extra in Google's eyes.

Reasons why you would want to use a dash: You're doing an adwords campaign and want to increase your score and lower your bid costs. Having the same keyword in your domain name as the ones your bidding on help you reach the mythical 10 score.

If your building an authority site and you'll need hundreds of links to rank. At this point ANY domain will rank as long as you hammer the links to it. Having the extra boost of 30-40 quality link "juice" associated with the exact match is basically irrelevant. Because we're working at the micro level, having that extra push from the start is vital.

So, basically competing even with a keyword having full amazon and wiki listings is bad?

How does the TLD score go? 1. Com 2. Net 3. Org ??

Found a bug in MS, it keeps showing me the average CPC as 0 but the google keyword shows me a figure over $2.

 

[Fwiffo]

Been using MS for a year now and love it - personally I think it's well worth the $$ for the full version just to stay updated.

- Great tutorials at the dojo on their site - basic stuff but walks you through the process
- Always remember that 100% of the data from MS comes from other sources.

Because 100% of the data comes from other sources:
- Remember that these sources are often wrong (Google's data isn't always right)
- Can be pulled from a different data center than the one you're using
- Sometimes based on annual, sometimes on last month's data (therefore "Christmas" niches may look awful in December, fantastic in January)
- When looking at SEOT - always double check the "exact" section if you're dong micro-niche or specific keyword style work - often a broad and even phrase category will have high traffic but the SEOT exact numbers are awful and therefore that term really doesn't get much traffic.

 

[DomFinder]

Been using MS for a year now and love it - personally I think it's well worth the $$ for the full version just to stay updated.

- Great tutorials at the dojo on their site - basic stuff but walks you through the process
- Always remember that 100% of the data from MS comes from other sources.

Because 100% of the data comes from other sources:
- Remember that these sources are often wrong (Google's data isn't always right)
- Can be pulled from a different data center than the one you're using
- Sometimes based on annual, sometimes on last month's data (therefore "Christmas" niches may look awful in December, fantastic in January)
- When looking at SEOT - always double check the "exact" section if you're dong micro-niche or specific keyword style work - often a broad and even phrase category will have high traffic but the SEOT exact numbers are awful and therefore that term really doesn't get much traffic.

If the Google data can't be trusted, how to assess the feasibility of a keyword?

Dojo tuts are too basic in nature, gone through them.

 

[Fwiffo]

By my personal estimate, I'd say that Google data is 75% right 75% of the time.

So 75% of the time, I'd say the the Google numbers are accurate +/- 33%.

The other 25% of the time, results are nowhere near close.

Example of "flawed data" - (CPC is a good one)
- Someone will run a huge regional campaign for a short amount of time, then stop - some data centres still show high CPC, some don't.
- Someone could have been throwing tons of $$ at a highly profitable campaign, and then google dumped their quality score in the tank, and they didn't notice until a few days later when they'd already dropped a few thousand $$ (hiking CPC numbers with it)
- The niche you're looking at has huge season potential, starting right now, and the data centre you're using has been updated already and the one MS is using hasn't yet.

There is no 100% accurate method of getting data - Google's numbers are just the "most accurate" - even with their flaws.

To make sure that keyword numbers make sense, I personally:
- double check google trends
- look on the search page to see who's advertising (if you're not in the US, there's a firefox plugin to get the US search results) and see if it "makes sense"
- test the market out by throwing up a page and advertising to see where the costs are to rank at different positions
- do more than I need to, because I know that there's no perfect answer, and even projects that don't work out can be reused as a backlink or giveaway or something for other projects

MS and keyword research with other tools is part science part art. The science is how you find and work the data, the art is how you interpret and work with it.

Think of it this way: if it was that easy to get exact data, it would be a matter of who has the biggest computers and the most $$ wins - thankfully for people like me, half the time, it's not

 

[chockomonkey]

Dojo tuts are too basic in nature, gone through them.

This is basically the problem i have with ALL Internet Marketing information. They'll give you the 101 course, but conveniently leave out the info you actually need which would be found int he 102 or 103 courses... seems like everyone expects you to find the answers which would appear in the 102 and 103 courses by trial and error...

Like in your situation (one I still find myself in!), no matter how many times or ways you ask, or how many places you look for answers, no one will ever be able to (or maybe they just decide not to) give you a real definitive answer like: "When you see this, you know you can rank"

The best I could ever get was shit like, "The lower the backlinks to the page, the better!" ...well obviously, dumb-shit =D

I wish i had the experience to give you a straight-up answer, but alas i do not. I am still trying to find better understanding on my own through trial and error.

 

[DomFinder]

By my personal estimate, I'd say that Google data is 75% right 75% of the time.

So 75% of the time, I'd say the the Google numbers are accurate +/- 33%.

The other 25% of the time, results are nowhere near close.

Example of "flawed data" - (CPC is a good one)
- Someone will run a huge regional campaign for a short amount of time, then stop - some data centres still show high CPC, some don't.
- Someone could have been throwing tons of $$ at a highly profitable campaign, and then google dumped their quality score in the tank, and they didn't notice until a few days later when they'd already dropped a few thousand $$ (hiking CPC numbers with it)
- The niche you're looking at has huge season potential, starting right now, and the data centre you're using has been updated already and the one MS is using hasn't yet.

Ok, so basically you are saying, one data centre has a concrete info whereas other dont? Thats an interesting theory. Lets take an example:
iphone

1. Google Keyword set to India (my home country) :
http://content.screencast.com/users/smith.john/folders/Jing/media/4ad429dd-d31e-4c0f-977d-fe791eca5e88/2010-04-30_0002.png


2. Google Keyword set to US:

http://content.screencast.com/users/smith.john/folders/Jing/media/84761d13-323b-44fe-a10b-1ea9ea9cff15/2010-04-30_0003.png

So, in a nutshell if MS is extracting info only for my home country I could have a situation where Keywords and MS differ.

To make sure that keyword numbers make sense, I personally:
- double check google trends
- look on the search page to see who's advertising (if you're not in the US, there's a firefox plugin to get the US search results) and see if it "makes sense"
- test the market out by throwing up a page and advertising to see where the costs are to rank at different positions
- do more than I need to, because I know that there's no perfect answer, and even projects that don't work out can be reused as a backlink or giveaway or something for other projects

Checking google trends and running a small campaign might be a good idea to assess the likeness of a keyword.
What plugin for FF displays the results for US (I am in a non-US country)?

MS and keyword research with other tools is part science part art. The science is how you find and work the data, the art is how you interpret and work with it.

Think of it this way: if it was that easy to get exact data, it would be a matter of who has the biggest computers and the most $$ wins - thankfully for people like me, half the time, it's not

Yep, it is not as easy as 1, 2, 3 but in all likeness on broad category keywords it is the big money which wins. The other day I was looking at a tool which did "Social Analytics", who, where and how many are talking about a product, making it easier to throw up a targeted site (just like shezblogs). The cost for it was too damn high but worth it.

Failed projects can any day re-packaged and sold as flipped websites even a low $50 for a failed project is not so bad.

 

[DomFinder]

This is basically the problem i have with ALL Internet Marketing information. They'll give you the 101 course, but conveniently leave out the info you actually need which would be found int he 102 or 103 courses... seems like everyone expects you to find the answers which would appear in the 102 and 103 courses by trial and error...

Like in your situation (one I still find myself in!), no matter how many times or ways you ask, or how many places you look for answers, no one will ever be able to (or maybe they just decide not to) give you a real definitive answer like: "When you see this, you know you can rank"

The best I could ever get was shit like, "The lower the backlinks to the page, the better!" ...well obviously, dumb-shit =D

I wish i had the experience to give you a straight-up answer, but alas i do not. I am still trying to find better understanding on my own through trial and error.

Yeah, I think the reason behind this is not many people are themselves aware 102 or 103. They take an educated guess rather than a straight up faced answer. You can take an example of Linkwheels, so many say it works other says it doesn't. None of them is wrong, both are taking an educated guess from their experiences.

I am learning too and I think have taken a 102 in finding potential keywords (still at 101 at researching them)

 

[Fwiffo]

Ok, so basically you are saying, one data centre has a concrete info whereas other dont? Thats an interesting theory.

Kind of, but not exactly

More like one data centre has one set of informational from a certain period of time and activity that it get's it's data from, while another has a different set of information.

Sometimes it's the same, sometimes it's different. Why? only speculation can tell

So, in a nutshell if MS is extracting info only for my home country I could have a situation where Keywords and MS differ.

Yes, there are often differences between google keyword and MS, but keep in mind that MS gets its numbers from google - so with differences, it is not MS that is differing, it is different google data from different google data centres that is differing.

What plugin for FF displays the results for US (I am in a non-US country)?

google global or global google or google globally - something like that. Not hard to find.

 

[Longover]

It looks like you could shake up the results (at least get into position 10) and move up from there. I assume that the domains you crossed off were not social properties because of the low BLD. Depending on the keyword, it might be worth a shot.

The best way to assess the info is to use the video from MS that talks about how they pick a keyword. They talk about how you shouldn't worry about on page results because you can duplicate that. Rather look at the items that take more time to build upon (domain age, BLD, BLP, internal page, PR, etc...)

 

[DomFinder]

Kind of, but not exactly

More like one data centre has one set of informational from a certain period of time and activity that it get's it's data from, while another has a different set of information.

If that was the case , Google will be obliged to connect to the most updated data center on their actual page. After all, they are in the search business, aren't they?

But I still have doubts over this theory. Tell you why:

As you said one campaign was launched to boost sales and then it was withdrawn. The campaign is over but the data center is not updated. This seems to be the case with seasonal keywords/newly launched and hyped products.

In case of a every day keyword like fat loss or gambling wont happen.

Even if it did, trends will tell you the whole picture.

google global or global google or google globally - something like that. Not hard to find.

It is google global. Found it. Thanks

 

[DomFinder]

It looks like you could shake up the results (at least get into position 10) and move up from there. I assume that the domains you crossed off were not social properties because of the low BLD. Depending on the keyword, it might be worth a shot.

The best way to assess the info is to use the video from MS that talks about how they pick a keyword. They talk about how you shouldn't worry about on page results because you can duplicate that. Rather look at the items that take more time to build upon (domain age, BLD, BLP, internal page, PR, etc...)

Longover, yep they are not social properties and will serve no purpose other revealing my keywords. Here, my contention is, the keyword.com site exists but still cudn't make into the 10, what are my chances?

And isn't the PR , BLD, BLP part of the on page results? Or am I missing something ? (Just checked MS videos too, now I am confused )

Given 4-5 months, the only thing which I can't beat here is the domain age and the PR of the links. So, what are my chances of ranking within top 5 ?