a few keyword research questions

Hi folks, first thread here on BHW. Long time lurker. Sorry if this is in the wrong spot.

So I think I have some good keywords to go after but am not so great at KW research yet. I am looking for any tips you wanna give, but more specifically:

1. What are good numbers to see? Currently I am using adwords kw tool. Thats all I know of. obviously higher searches are better with low comp. I am assuming when they say low comp, that is a relative term. Like music, has a ton of monthly searches but it said low comp. so for the keywords I was researching I was seeing, 300k global monthly searches, 18k, 450k, 45k and so on. What are the type of numbers I want to see so I know what kw's to go for?

2. I think it is the short term memory loss or something, but I cannot for the life of me, remember what my next question was going to be. I will try to remember.

1. What are good numbers to see? Currently I am using adwords kw tool. Thats all I know of. obviously higher searches are better with low comp. I am assuming when they say low comp, that is a relative term. Like music, has a ton of monthly searches but it said low comp. so for the keywords I was researching I was seeing, 300k global monthly searches, 18k, 450k, 45k and so on. What are the type of numbers I want to see so I know what kw's to go for?

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When you do keyword research using Google keyword tool, you have to remember the following things.

1. The competition column what you see over there is adwords competition NOT seo competition. If the competition is low, then that keyword may not be good if you are gonna monetize with Adsense but if you have other ways to monetize it, just go for it after analyzing the SEO competition.

2. Always set the match type to [EXACT] to validate the search count. It is somewhat accurate when compared to others. Some even recommend to check "Phrase" match as well, but I stick to exact. The exact search count I prefer varies all the time as it depends on some other factors like SEO competition, how profitable the niche is and so on. People usually stick to keyword with local exact 1000 and above. I go for even lesser search count keywords if there are plenty of related long tail keywords available.

Hope it is clear.

I understand more now than before I read your post, thanks So using the google adwords kw tool is an ok way to do research? How do I check seo comp? I've read that I want to target 5-6 keywords, that about right?

Any other KW tools you might recommend, paid or free.

Yes G keyword tool is fine.

If you are a beginner then I suggest you look for keywords from 3k to 10k local exact searches per month. Anything above 10k has usually higher competition.

I check the competition by entering the keyword in G and hit search. If I get more than 3m results usually it's not worth it for me. But anything below 1m would work fine.

The last step in keyword research is the manual checking and that is where I can help you. Find the best onsite SEO practices and check the competitors for those. The ones with the least factors covered are the easiest because you already have a head start with onsite.

For offsite, high authorty backlinks that can't easily be replicated are the hardest. Wikipedia links can be changed but high PR domains are even stronger now that a lot of networks are down.

Hope this helps

i myself keyword reseach pro.It harvests keywords from all the major search engines.I used it in past,it did wonders for me,just google keyword research pro.As for me now keyword scout looks best,it got many features .Check out buy/sell/trade section here.

Market samurai's keyword research module is free as is traffic travis if you want to use tools. The low comp in google adwords keyword tool means low advertising competition, which is bad (low advertising comp=low cost per click). You want keywords with around 1000+ US exact match searches, $1.00+ cost per click and intitle:your keyword, inurl:yourkeyword under 30,000

thank you so much folks, this info is very helpful to me. I am going to read this all a few times, then implement, then come back here if I get stuck soon enough. I was way off.

I have some rearranging to do. Thanks so much for this resource.

alright, maybe some one can help me understand this a little better. As I said I was way off in what I thought I wanted and how to correctly do research.
I am just curious though, one of the keywords we rank for only gets 22 local exact searches which is I know is no good, but the kw retrieves 33m results. We have had our sit up for 1.5 weeks and have been adding lots of content and playing a lot with ads. We are on the first page for that kw, how is that? I thought with 33million results, that would mean high comp?

Wordpress site, all link building has been me and my buddy hitting up forums and facebook and yahoo answers and whatever else we could think of. Like I said, I am new and just learning and just playing aroud till I figure out what works, but man was I stuck on KW research. thanks again.

alright, maybe some one can help me understand this a little better. As I said I was way off in what I thought I wanted and how to correctly do research.
I am just curious though, one of the keywords we rank for only gets 22 local exact searches which is I know is no good, but the kw retrieves 33m results. We have had our sit up for 1.5 weeks and have been adding lots of content and playing a lot with ads. We are on the first page for that kw, how is that? I thought with 33million results, that would mean high comp?

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Never judge keyword competition based on search results Google shows. A complete analysis of on-site/off-site SEO factors of top 10 sites is what required to judge competition. In fact, Google always lie about the number of search results! If you want to know the exact number of pages, just go to last page of the search results.

hmm, ok, so in order for me to gauge my comp, I need to type in my KW, then go look at the pages of the top ten sites. Since I am new to SEO, all of their on-site might not be so obvious to me. So I run their sites through keyword checker tools?
As for off-site, if the top ten results do a bunch of radio advertising or commercials or other stuff, then probably a little too rich for my blood, eh?

Bottom line though, I want to be on the first page for the kw's, right? Do you folks have any luck with traffic for a page that is on the second page?

sorry, when you said offsite, you meant links and such, I took that a little too literally and was thinking off-internet, I am learning! haha.

Hey man something I found helpful was after doing a search with my keyword in quotes put "&start=990" at the end of the url address and search again. This will take you to the last page in search that shows your keyword. If it's less than a 1000 you're probably fine, the lower the better.

I wish you the best of the luck!