There
are all kinds of keywords being used by people daily, in their search
for information. Most professional search engine marketers learn early
in their career, that all keywords are not the same. Some keywords are
highly competitive while others are less competitive, which often seems
as though fewer people are searching for them. But then there are some
keywords that are really hardly being searched for at all. Some of the
most ideal phrases are those that relate to a product or service but are
being fairly often used by a specific audience of searchers, but at the
same time have low competition.
Let's
put it another way. Phrases which have a low number of competing pages,
but also are phrases that are actually being used often by searchers,
represent a nice "window of opportunity." The reason these
keywords are appealing is because you can gain significant advantage
(with little or no competition) while only performing mild optimization.
Result:
High visibility on major search engines without the stress of competing
with millions of pages.
Of
course you can go after more competitive phrases once you know how, but
the point is that you have to work a little harder if you are competing
with 40,000,000 pages as opposed to say 400 pages or maybe just 40
pages. In a minute I'm going to give you 8 tips to help you think
more deeply about your keyword research in Wordtracker.
But
first, for the purposes of this article, I want to talk about some of
the tiny differences in keyword combinations that can make an enormous
difference in the end result. This article focuses on the use of
Wordtracker and observes a few comparisons between phrases to
demonstrate some major advantages in just choosing the best keyword
terms.
Rule 1: Wordtracker uses a
KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)
A KEI Value of 100 may
represent a good keyword phrase.
A KEI Value of 400 usually
represents a much better high use/low competition "window of
opportunity."
The higher the KEI value
usually represents a much bigger window. The assumption is that the
higher the KEI the better. But notice that I use the word
"usually." KEI is not perfect, but it is a simple
mathematical equation and it does reveal interesting opportunities. The
question for most people, is how to tap into these high KEI keyword
phrases without spending hours of research. In a minute, we'll talk
about the new Wordtracker Academy, but first let's just give you some
sets of examples of phrases and how they stack up with similar but
slightly different phrases.
BIG differences in little
keywords:
1. "Download Free
Knitting Patterns" has a KEI value of 419.0
2. "Easy Knitting Patterns Free" has a much greater KEI
value of 2140.5
-----------------------
1. "purchase
watercolor paintings" KEI 002.7 (Very
weak)
2. "Watercolor prints to Purchase" KEI
705.0 (Excellent improvement)
3. "watercolor paintings southwest" KEI 2916.0
(still better yet)
------------------
1. "dropship affiliates"
KEI 256.0 (fair window)
2. "dropshipping affiliates business" KEI
512.0 (much better)
3. "dropship affiliates business"
KEI 1600.0 (better still)
-------------------
1. "sales ability tests"
KEI 475.4
2. "sales management tests" KEI 680.3
3. "sales competency tests" KEI 1176.0
-------------------
1. "no
soliciting signs"
KEI 0.325 (very weak)
2. "no soliciting signs custom"
KEI 4230.0 (much better)
-------------------
These were just a few observations I made
recently on the KEI
Observation Deck
Now what I have not shown you are the
other details such as the compete number or the 24 hour count or how
many times each phrase was searched in the last 60 days. For these
details, you can visit Wordtracker
and log in to the members area for yourself.
Do you ever feel like you are running out
of ideas when you are working in Wordtracker? From my point of view, I
think that often, the challenge is that we simply do not think laterally
enough about our visitors. The more you practice the better you
become at lateral thinking, just like anything else.