Keyword Research For Beginners

This is page 4 of a 5 page keyword research tutorial.

On the last page we introduced the concept of analyzing keywords, and learned a little bit about finding profitable keywords, pagerank research, and the keyword research formula called KEI.

Now we'll roll up our sleeves and do some real world keyword research with what is likely the Net's most well known keyword research tool, Wordtracker.

Wordtracker will help us to:

find lots of keywords

find out how popular different keywords are

run a KEI analysis on tons of keywords

Wordtracker is used by a wide variety of webmasters, from beginners to very sophisticated Net business people.

This tutorial is aimed at first time users, so we'll focus on learning enough about the Wordtracker interface to get up and running quickly doing basic research.

Getting Started With Wordtracker

It's hard to look at two websites at once on one monitor so at this point this tutorial will continue in a PDF file. You should print out this PDF file and refer to it as you explore the Wordtracker site.

So the next steps are:

1. Download Getting Started With Wordtracker (a PDF file)

2. Print the PDF file.

3. Give the PDF file a quick review.

4. Go to Wordtracker and sign up for a one day account.

5. Follow the steps in the PDF file, one easy page at a time, and learn the basics of using Wordtracker.

By the time you finish working your way through Getting Started With Wordtracker (20 very easy pages, mostly screenshots) you'll have a basic understanding of how to use the Wordtracker interface.

Wordtracker has other features, and there's plenty more you can explore if you wish to, but you can do useful work using only what you'll learn today.

If you've completed this lesson you will also have one or more Wordtracker reports on the keywords that interest you. Let's review these reports briefly.

The Competition Search Report From Wordtracker

The Competition Search report you receive from Wordtracker will look like this.

Wordtracker runs a KEI analysis on all the keywords. As you'll recall this is a process of comparing the number of searches for a keyword to the number of web pages containing the keyword. That is, comparing demand against competition.

KEI is expressed as a single number, and the report is sorted by that number with the highest KEI terms, the terms that represent the best opportunity, listed at the top.

You'll see this simple guide to the KEI numbers in the Competition Search report.

Understanding the KEI Number:

0 - 10 Poor keyword to target

10 - 100 Good keyword to target

100 - 400 Very good keyword to target

400+ Excellent keyword to target

Wordtracker Companion

If you have a Publisher-For-You account, you can take the Wordtracker report and copy/paste it in to Wordtracker Companion, a keyword research tool included within your Publisher-For-You account. (see the Keywords button within the Power Publish menu of your control panel).

Wordtracker Companion helps you store, organize and sort your Wordtracker reports in various ways. It comes in handy if you have a number of different projects underway at once.

If you don't have a Publisher-For-You account, you can use Keyword Results Analyzer, a Windows program by Andy Williams that imports and analyzes Wordtracker data.

If you aren't already familiar with Andy Williams, now is a good time to check out his site. Andy knows a lot more about search engines than I do, and he publishes an excellent newsletter that can assist you in continuing your search engine education.

If you've read this entire tutorial, and actually done all the exercises, you've accomplished a lot and are now ready to enter the world of keyword research.

Closing Comments

Now that you're no longer a keyword research beginner, I'd like to leave you with a few remarks that I hope will help you get beyond some of the obstacles that have challenged my own keyword education.

The various keyword research concepts we've discussed here, like KEI and page rank for instance, are expressed in number form. A keyword is said to have a KEI of 167, or a page is said to have a page rank of 7.

While using numbers can be convenient for an efficient conversation, the use of numbers can also introduce a fundamental misconception.

Keyword research is not science.

You can't plot the orbital path of an asteroid using keyword research formulas! :-)

Keyword research is at best an art posing as a science and your common sense, intuition and sense of humor are indispensable guides.

No matter what keyword research technique you use, it will be easy to find forums full of people who will tell you it's all wrong, and you should be doing XYZ instead.

And these statements have some merit. KEI is a VERY general index. Page rank is notoriously imprecise, perhaps by Google's purposeful design. Each search engine will list a different number of back links to your site. The list goes on....

Try not to get sucked too deeply in to these controversies and uncertainties.

Keep your eye on the ball, which is the creation of lots of quality content on specific subjects web users have shown an interest in.

Your goal is to please both search engines and visitors, and both these parties want the same thing from you.

Lots of quality content.

Links

Finally, I haven't even touched upon the subject of incoming links here, because that is a subject in and of itself.

It's worth mentioning that building the quantity and quality of incoming links to your site will have a profound impact upon your search engine rankings.

If you haven't already done so, this would be a good subject for you to dive in to next.

This concludes this tutorial, I hope you've found it helpful.

Best of luck with all your projects!

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