[Keyword Research] My Dear Noobs,you are doing it totally wrong!

I get a lot of PMs by new members and even old ones asking for suggestion on keywords they have selected. They say that "Google says the competition is low" by looking at the competition bar (pic below) in the Google Keyword Tool.



Well guys..I've got some bad news for you. This is NOT the SEO competition, it is actually competition for advertisers, the amount of bidding going on for that particular keyword. So if you are making an Adsense site, you want the competition to be "High" in the Google Keyword Tool.

More Competition=More Bidders=Better Payout

There are other ways of analyzing competition for a keyword which are explained HERE and HERE by IamNRE. So I won't repeat that, but don't judge the competition of a keyword by the bar shown above.

It's called the Adwords keyword tool - not the SEO keyword tool.

Good Luck
Jeevs

You haven't selected [Exact] Match

BTW,yes,this is a mistake which many people make.

youssfy said:

You haven't selected [Exact] Match

BTW,yes,this is a mistake which many people make.

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I just pulled out an image from Google That's why I provided a link for proper keyword research after the post.
Yes this is a very common mistake...even I realized it after I spent a fair amount of time in IM.

haha, When i was a noob, i also used to think like that

Thanks for making a good post educating noobs

MadMaddy said:

haha, When i was a noob, i also used to think like that

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Same here! Thanks to BHW!

Thanks! Definitely will be helpful ! +rep added !

Yes, a big search issue.

Anothe tip: I have a theory to analize the "quality" of keywords, if they have an high cost in CPC, it means that this keyword have commerce value and it can bring you people interested in buy some product or service.

This is a simply idea and maybe doesn't work for some niches, but, there's always a reason why people are paying for a keyword between others, and it helps to find the good ones

Seolic said:

Anothe tip: I have a theory to analize the "quality" of keywords, if they have an high cost in CPC, it means that this keyword have commerce value and it can bring you people interested in buy some product or service.

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Yes, Like I said..if you have an Adsense site..look for a keyword with decent CPC competition.

Damn I'm selling keywords from 2 years and thought it's seo competition
hope my clients don't read this ....

Thanks For This Jeevs...........
Even I Too Thinking Like This..............

I'm glad I've read this.

Forgive me for my opposition but I disagree with you guys. Yes that "statement" shows competition for advertisers. But it is also a remark for publishers too.

If there are so many advertisers in that area and if they are competing wildly, simply there will be harsh competition for taking place in SERPs. For example, we can see that most of EMDs overlapping those "high" competition keywords have already been bought. Or we may notice many authority sites trying to be on the first page regarding those terms.

After my experience of 3 years with hundreds of domains/sites, I may say that those competition statements (high, medium, low) are generally valid for publishers too.

trustedfire9 said:

Damn I'm selling keywords from 2 years and thought it's seo competition
hope my clients don't read this ....

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Now this made my day... Thanks needed a laugh...

trustedfire9 said:

Damn I'm selling keywords from 2 years and thought it's seo competition
hope my clients don't read this ....

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Oh my dear God, I hope this is not true

trustedfire9 said:

Damn I'm selling keywords from 2 years and thought it's seo competition
hope my clients don't read this ....

Click to expand...

lol Post of the day!

I've had dozens of clients come to me with this misconception. It's got to be more widely misunderstood than the 'broad' vs 'exact' check box.

I mean, it's called the Adwords keyword tool - not the SEO keyword tool.

I also used to think in that way only earlier then I attended an Adwords course and things became more clear.

I still often forget to click on 'Exact' while doing quick searches.

Stupid mistakes.

myownhero said:

I mean, it's called the Adwords keyword tool - not the SEO keyword tool.

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This pretty much concludes the story! Thanks, adding it to the post now

Holy crap! Thanks a lot for this. I had read a good amount on finding the right keywords by messing around w/ global and local filters but I kept avoiding great key phrases for THIS reason! Now I'm not going to fear the 'high' label.

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