Keywords and Competitive Research

What Traffic Source am I Focusing On?

I might mention PPC (Pay per Click), but the main focus of this series is building affiliate niche sites that attract quality Organic (free) traffic.

Attracting quality, search traffic boils down to two things: Keywords and Competitive Research.

When I'm going to sit down in the hopes of uncovering a hot niche with the best chance of succeeding, there are two methods I pull from...

Campaign Blasting: Using my PPC methods I uncover niches to tackle (that are already making sales)... but with this series my main focus isn't going to be PPC or those methods. PPC is for another series down the road. ..if you want to learn how I do that today, you'll need to join the Blast Membership. :)

Regular Search & Market Analysis: Seeking popular or hot products using market analysis tools, simple observation and pinning down keywords that have a good balance of volume and I feel I can compete with.

That's pretty much it!

Blasting is pretty straight forward. It uses PPC to test markets.. if you make sales, you weigh the potential and decide if you want to go after and expand into that market.

The Regular Search & Market Analysis method I use, which I'll be focusing on here, is pretty straight forward too and just uses some basic tools and methods I'll share here. There are tools I have invested in that help speed up this process, but you just start out with what you can... there are free options out there as I'll highlight as well.

The keywords you choose to target are the #1 influencer as to how much, what quality and how targeted your traffic is. And how much money you'll make! Your ultimate goal is to turn that traffic into dollars; let's not forget that.

Choose the wrong keywords and you won't get any or will get little traffic.

Choose the wrong keywords you could get traffic, but the wrong traffic that doesn't convert...

Choose the wrong keywords and you've just wasted your time..

How Do You Determine What
the Right Keywords Are?

Analysis Tools help. You could do it all manually, but it's going to take a lot longer and will be a lot more work. Many tools out there automate processes that are not only time consuming, but boring! But you have to start with what you can... and then invest in them over time as your income allows.

You want tools that are going to automate certain data gathering processes..

Here are the basic steps I take to uncover a good niche. And it highlights the type of tools I might use along the way:

ONE: First you need a tool (or method) that is going to help you pin down keywords people are searching for and products that are in demand. You need to feel rather confident that someone is actually buying a product (or service or..). These type of tools, sites (or services) will help you identify products that look good to target.

TWO: Then you need to use a keyword tool to pin down keywords (using the seed keywords.. product names etc.. from the first step) to help you determine the volume of searches and prioritize which ones make the most sense to go after.

THREE: From that list you have to choose the keywords that are most relevant and make the most sense to build a site or web page around.. to target. Volume isn't everything. These keywords need to turn into dollars! If what you have is too competitive or untargeted, go back to step one.

FOUR: And then you have to use a tool to weigh the competition from an SEO perspective. Make sure you can compete with the sites on the first page now or in a relatively reasonable time frame! Look at PageRank, Domain Age, Backlinks etc..

FIVE: You build your niche website around the keyword(s) you've uncovered! Monetize and apply your SEO skills.

I'm going to take each of those steps and break them down for you even more in the coming days as this series develops. Prepare to be an expert Niche Finder. Prepare to succeed.

-Matt Levenhagen

GO TO PART TWO: Researching for Worthy Niches

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Comments (2)

2010-08-25 13:00:22 | tra - trying to find a market in online tea sells

how would tea sales do online?
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2010-08-25 13:15:26 | | Matt Levenhagen

Hi Tra,

Have you done any research yourself?

If I were doing the research for you or I was interested in the tea niche, I'd need to narrow down the niche a lot more and learn more specifically what I'd want to target.

There are a lot of different sub-niches, types of teas... around the world! We'd have to start there by being more specific.

The keyword 'tea' is WAY to broad if you want to build an effective niche site. If I do some quick research with Market Samurai (which I did just now..) and when I run the synonym tool, it brings back a ton of niche phrases including:

-decaf tea
-japanese tea
-herbal tea
-organic tea
-chinese tea
-ginseng tea

...the list goes on into the 100s! So that's what I'd first suggest you do. Narrow it down and then follow the things I teach in this niche finder series.

Measure the traffic, gauge the competition.. see if you can find one that has moderate to easy competition that you can compete with right away.

Then build a niche site around that..

Now, there's a chance if you are stuck with this niche that it might be more difficult and you might have no choice but to choose a more competitive phrase; someone like myself isn't tied to any one niche..

..if one is too competitive, I just move on.

Hope that helps!

-Matt Levenhagen
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