Keyword Research | Google Keywords | Search Engine Keywords

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Keyword Research. Where Search Engine Marketing All Begins.

Tuesday, October 20th 2009, by Adam Barger

It's no secret that being on top of search engine rankings is key to getting a ton of qualified traffic to your website. After all there is no better way to market than pop up in front of a potential customer's face at the moment they're searching for your products or services.

How to find the right keywords to target.

Finding the right keywords to target for your website can be tricky. There are many factors to consider before trying to get good search engine ranking for a particular keyword. Some of the factors are listed below.

Volume - The number of times someone searches for a keyword or keyword phrase. Upon doing some research you may find a keyword or keyword phrase you're considering targeting doesn't appear to have a lot of competition. Often times this is an indication of a low volume keyword. Which simply means not many people are searching for it. It is also an indication of a low value keyword. A low value keyword is one which doesn't generate a lot of money.

Ability To Monetize - The chance someone clicking on a keyword or keyword phrase can be converted into a paying customer or become part of a marketable audience. Basically there are two ways money is made on the internet. Selling products/services and advertising. So if you can't sell an audience a product or service maybe your advertisers can. If you and your advertisers can't sell anything - you've got nothing.

The best words to pursue are those with a high keyword value. These are keywords and keyword phrases which lead to real dollars. I have put together a formula to help you determine a keyword's value.

total search volume x click through rate x conversion percent x average transaction = keyword value

Keyword value is the total amount of revenue which can be derived from a particular keyword during a given time period. For example: If the term "baseball' is searched for 1,000,000 times in a given month, your site was displayed in the search results for that term each time, and 5% of the people searching clicked on your link you would have 50,000 people visit your site from that search term for the month. Out of the 50,000 visitors you may convert 5% (2500 people) who are buying a product for $25. So the total keyword value for the term baseball would be $62,500 in that scenario.

1,000,000 x 5% x 5% x $25 = $62,500

Keep in mind the numbers in the example are fantasy. You'll have to plug-in your numbers to determine your real keyword value. In order to do this accurately it will require some tracking. I'll cover tracking in a later chapter. If you're unsure then make some educated assumptions. Make sure your assumptions are in line with reality. From years of experience on the internet I can tell you a 5% click through rate and a 5% conversion rate are really high. In fact, you're probably doing well to convert 2-3% but of course this also depends on your industry and what you consider to be a conversion.

Let's take a look at another example: If the term "Seattle plumber" is searched for 1000 times per month, your site is displayed each time, and 3% click through to your website you would get just 30 site visitors per month from that term. But out of those 30 let's say you get them on the phone, which usually increases conversion rates and a whopping 10 end up becoming paying customers. In addition each job averages $1000 per transaction. In this scenario your keyword value would be $10,000 per month.

1000 x 3% x 33.33% x $1000 = $10,000

There are a whole slew of things that can affect any one part of this formula, ranging from how your search results are displayed, to the amount of competition within your industry. The bottom line is that it's not prudent to spend more money pursuing a keyword than the total keyword value minus your cost of doing business or cost of goods sold. So using the example above, if I'm a plumber in Seattle it wouldn't make sense for me to spend more money pursuing the phrase "Seattle plumber" on a search engine than the $10,000 minus the cost of all my business expenses including labor, gas, parts, and whatever else.

Stay tuned each day as I roll out a series of posts about how to build and market your business online. Tomorrow I'll be sharing specific tools you can use to determine exactly how frequently a particular keyword is searched for on the internet.

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