A little research also shows that 1,040,000 million other sites are triggered by a Google search for abs exercise.



That is heavy competition. Although the high search volume offers a ton of potential visitors, the general line of thinking is why spend your resources trying to rank for a keyword with that high competition? It's much easier to rank much higher for other related keywords that offer a much lower competition and quite possibly a much higher commercial intent. I will no longer consider this keyword as the competition is too fierce.

Now I will go back to the keyword tool and look for other possibilities. I do this by simply scrolling up and down through the data it provided to me during the initial search that I made. I notice that the keyword phrase how to flatten abs receives 880 searches a month. That seems more realistic. I can then type that keyword phrase into a Google search box to reveal that there is a competition of only 54,000 other sites triggered by a search for the term. Does it seem like it might be much easier to rank a site for a keyword phrase that has 54,000 competing sites opposed to 1 million competing sites? Of course.

I realize that 54,000 may seem like a lot of competition still. But the reality is that your true competition will be much less than that, and if you utilize the strategies I teach on this website and in my guides, you won't have any problems ranking highly for a keyword such as this. There are some advanced methods to dig deeper to find out exactly how competitive the keyword term will be, but this is a good starting point. If you want to get more advanced then check out my Net Biz Boardroom Keyword Guide to learn the advanced techniques.

At this point I would just continue to look through the list and examine the other possibilities. I would check the competition on each possibility and eventually come up with a good list of a half a dozen keywords that I wanted to get serious about ranking. I could have possibly gotten ranked on the second or third page for the high traffic keyword (abs exercise) but that wouldn't have brought me any measurable traffic. However if I can get a half dozen keywords that offer less competition and traffic, all ranked in one of the top three spots on the first page of the search engine results (SERPS), then I will have plenty of traffic to make my offer successful. It's sort of like do you want to be a tiny fish in a large lake, or do you want to be the biggest fish in a small pond? I'll be the big fish every time!

Commercial Intent

In the example above, you should also note that the keyword phrase "how to flatten abs" has a higher likelihood of being used by someone that may be looking to purchase something. The keyword phrase of "how to flatten abs book" or "how to flatten abs videos" would offer an ever higher commercial intent by the searcher.

It's not enough to rank for a keyword that has a reasonable search volume with low competition. You must also use keywords that demonstrate a searchers reasonable intention to purchase something. I find this to pretty much be a common sense assessment on your part, but if you want help in this area there is a tool you can use.

The folks over at the Microsoft Ad Center offer their Online Commercial Intention tool. Their basic explanation of the tool is in the left column of that page. I do not put a whole lot of emphasis on this tool as I think one's common sense can sometimes be a better measuring tool for such a thing. But take it for a test drive and see what you think. You may find it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Start With the Basics

I have now shown you how to do very basic keyword research. You will be able to uncover profitable keywords using these methods. When you decide to expand on your research techniques there are some very good keyword research guides available. I have studied them all and I have assembled what I have learned into my Net Biz Boardroom Keyword Research Guide. Of course I am partial, but I believe it to be the best guide on the market. You can check it out and make your own decision as to whether it may be of value to you.

By now you realize that you can spend a lot of time in your keyword researching activities. The basic method I taught you will get the job done, but it is indeed laborious. There are many keyword tools on the market that can reduce the time needed to do very effective research. I have used most of them at one time or another. The one I continue to use everyday is Micro Niche Finder.

MNF is a very powerful software that flat out makes me money. By using it, I uncover little gold keyword nuggets that I would never turn up by doing my research manually. It's easy to use and once you do, you will never want to be without it.

As helpful as these tools can be, I still think it is important to learn how to do basic, manual keyword research before using these tools. By understanding manual research, you will be better equipped to understand and use these powerful tools to there fullest capabilities should you decide to step up your research game.


Keyword Research Pages   1  |  2  |  3