Keyword Research the BTB Way

[karkade]

Thanks BTB, this is incredibly useful.

I have a question about using Wikipedia for keyword ideas.
Say I'm looking at iPhone on Wikipedia, usually the linking pages are on topics that are much more general.

For example, on the iPhone page, I have links to "games", "application software", "web browsing".

Would you plug these general KW's into adwords tool, or would you be looking for keywords that are more focused on, in this case, iPhones?

Thanks again.

 

[mouthpaw]

Some people use the category and the post name but I just use the post name when I build the site and WP can feel free to contact me about "performance reasons" and I'll show them my traffic and revenue.

I know a guy that swears by category and post name and I know he does very well also so I could be wrong but post name only looks very clean and I think if it looks clean to me it would look clean to the search engines.

WP 3.3.1 includes postname as one of the common settings now (by popular demand). I think it's a cleaner look if nothing else.

Re: article length. I'm finding since panda that 500 words just doesn't cut it as well as it used to. G seems to be treating longer articles as a sign of "authority" and weighting them heavier. Not that every article should be 1500 now, but a site should have a balance of articles ranging from 500 to 1500 words, with longer articles aimed at the more core keywords targeted. Anyone else finding that to be true?

re: a source for writers - I use elance. I def had my fair share of trouble with providers on there in the beginning (partly due to my own noobishness), and a majority are way overpriced due to the popularity of the site for people sans a clue, but if you put some energy into your post, and into screening the crappy bids, you can find some great writers for decent prices (generally $5 - $6.50/500 words). It helps to have a history and a good rating when you have the audacity to ask a provider to lower their bid .

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Writer sources:

User PPCMaster's service.
User ScrapeBoss's service
User Ramsweb's service
User seoguru13
This guy - [email protected] - can't find his username here

They are all solid and good people.

 

[wakekitty]

thank you for this guide a different approach to keyword research than my traditional method.

 

[kafai]

Very helpfull, i will try it, thanks

 

[karkade]

Hi BTB,

I seem to get a lot of keywords that are only very loosely related to my main keyword, especially after filtering as you reccomend.

Would you write articles on these loosely related keywords, or am I doing something wrong ? Thanks for your help.

 

[Alaric]

Say for example I have two keyword terms:
xxx yyy - 0.30 competition
xxx zzz - 0.02 competition
Both are medium competition, but have same local monthly searches.

Is it better to get an EMD of one of the terms....or can I incorporate both keyword terms? This is considering that both terms start with the same word "xxx"

...and assuming I can put all three words into the domain, is it better to keep the order as "xxx zzz" considering that has lower competition?

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

EMDs are not important at all to me... I don't care to rank the root page. Every page on my site other than the root page are EMDs.

mainsite.com/KW1 is a page
mainsite.com/KW2 is a page
mainsite.com/KW3 is a page

and so on.

Using that method I rank hundreds of pages for each site... put me up against those 5 page MNS sites and my sites will make much more money.

 

[pxoxrxn]

Do you target 10+ keyword in one article or just 1 per article?

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Do you target 10+ keyword in one article or just 1 per article?

I only target 1 KW per page and have one article on each page.

I'm very simple in my approach but once the page with the KW is in place I backlink that page to get it to rank.

 

[tommgerry]

thanks for sharing useful info.

 

[brainstorm1]

Hey BTB,

Just wanted to give you a little "thumbs up" for the thread. I'm building an authority site and I have about 55 keywords that I got using your method (actually a friend of ours helped me).

I'm planning to write at least 1 article / kw for myself and then get the offsite done. I'll let you know my progress! Thanks!

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Hey BTB,

Just wanted to give you a little "thumbs up" for the thread. I'm building an authority site and I have about 55 keywords that I got using your method (actually a friend of ours helped me).

I'm planning to write at least 1 article / kw for myself and then get the offsite done. I'll let you know my progress! Thanks!

As well as you write I am sure it will be a winner!

 

[Gormagor]

Hey Greg,

I have some questions about your keyword research.

If your keyword list contains keywords that are similar but not direct duplicates, e.g. 'video game stores' and 'computer game stores', would you still write articles about both, even though the content is about the same subject?

If most of my site's visitors are finding my site because of a good keyword, e.g. 'video game stores located in Hawaii', but according to Alexa or Analytics, 95% of people are actually finding this inner page because of a shorter version of the keyword, e.g. 'video game stores in Hawaii', would you shorten the original page's keyword accordingly? Or would you just leave things as they are?

What is your current policy on duplicate keywords whereby both combinations make grammatical sense, e.g. 'math tutoring' and 'tutoring math'? Would you still write articles on both for your authority site? Also, what about those keywords that are technically duplicates, yet each combination actually pertains to different subjects (e.g. 'swimming pool' and 'pool swimming')?

Thanks in advance for any advice you offer.

 

[fr33sh]

Let me start by saying great thread. The wikipedia idea is genius. Now here are some of my thoughts:

1. Sort the data by local searches - ascending.
2. Delete any KWs under 800 or so.
3. Sort the file by competition.
4. Delete any KWs that are .80 or higher.

Why dont you just use the filters in the adwords tool. That's what I do. It saves you a lot of time on filtering later.

one thing i do is i type the keyword phrases into google and try to target the one that comes up first in google instant because i think a lot of people are lazy now and just click on it rather than continue to type.

I don't mean to sound lazy but couldn't you just use scrapebox keyword scraper and just set google suggest as the only source or for more results set the only sources as yahoo suggest, google suggest, bing suggest, and ask search suggest. This way way you could go through all of your keywords at once on multiple search engine for suggestions. Or do you get better results doing it by hand?

 

[fr33sh]

Another quick question.. At the moment i am working on my first 2 niche sites. The way i have been structuring my article is so that they each target 3 keywords. At the moment i have about 7-8 articles per site.

My goal is in the future to make them bigger authority sites do you think i would be better off making an article per keyword?

Also what I try to do is I try to mix my keywords so that I shoot for 1 keyword that brings alot traffic, 1 that has a high cpc and 1 that has a good mix of both. Of course i keep all the keywords related to the article topic.

My theory is that the high cpc keywords combined with the traffic will lead to higher overall earnings. Plus this way 2 out of 3 ads on my site will have a decent cpc.

 

[reallist]

Fantastic post. This was exactly what I was looking for.

 

[freakmedia]

Tanks for this tutorial

 

[yoyo33]

EMDs are not important at all to me... I don't care to rank the root page. Every page on my site other than the root page are EMDs.

mainsite.com/KW1 is a page
mainsite.com/KW2 is a page
mainsite.com/KW3 is a page

and so on.

Using that method I rank hundreds of pages for each site... put me up against those 5 page MNS sites and my sites will make much more money.

I've already plans for ranking inner pages. Haven't worked too hard on a website and some http://site/page are in page 2 (serp).

What do you mean by
mainsite.com/KW1 is a page

Many times keywords are made from 2-4 words. My question:
mainsite.com/KW1KW2
or
mainsite.com/KW1-KW2
(using hyphens)?

Thanks!

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

I've already plans for ranking inner pages. Haven't worked too hard on a website and some http://site/page are in page 2 (serp).

What do you mean by
mainsite.com/KW1 is a page

Many times keywords are made from 2-4 words. My question:
mainsite.com/KW1KW2
or
mainsite.com/KW1-KW2
(using hyphens)?

Thanks!

I only use one KW per page or one KW phrase per page.

For instance if I was build a site about cars it would be

cars.com/fords

cars.com/chevrolet

cars.com/chevrolet-impala

cars.com/blue-chevrolet-impala