KeyWord Research | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

A good tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

If you are looking up keyword search research try to look up "search engine optimization" and/or "SEO".  Tons of available information on picking keywords.

Post edited 2:31 pm – April 17, 2012 by lgott

Hi Finance Yoga!  Wow, that's a loaded question, but I will try to offer a few tips to get you going in the right direction. What LaTisha said above, to capitalize on incoming keywords is a good strategy when you're starting out.  For every 10 posts you write, you may have 1 or 2 winners, and I like to analyze the statistics for those posts to see why they're good performers vs. the not so great ones.

I have to respectfully disagree with Modest Money's advice.  :=)  It's true that you won't likely be able to rank for short 1- or 2-word keyword phrases with a new blog, but volume isn't what matters – it's all about the quality of your competition.  

The easiest way to gauge the quality of your competition is to do a simple Google search.  Look at the results.  Are there pages and pages of exact keyword phrase matches or are there a few matches then lots of mediocre matches that don't entice you to click on them?  As an example, I can show you my results page for one of my more popular articles based on the keyword "missing 2011 W-2."  You'll see that my post comes up third – just below two very authoritative links to the actual IRS guidance on the matter.  Why?  It's because no one else has written exactly on that subject using those keywords in a manner that gets Google to notice.  A lot went into that article – keyword research and strategic optimization, but that's a whole 'nother tutorial that I don't have time to get into because my toddler is yelling at me right now. ;)   

I would suggest playing around with the Google AdSense Keyword Tool so you can get familiar with its settings.  It's fairly intuitive once you've used it for a while.  I like to use it to tell me what words to avoid and what people are actually typing into the search engines.  For instance, if you are thinking about writing an article about "Affordable Cell Phone Plans" and you search that phrase only to find modest volume, back up and search "Cell Phone Plans" and see what other terms Google says people are looking for.  As you do this, you can pay attention to volume to tell you what terms are more popular.  Popular is good.  It's always good to get a small slice of a humongous pie.  And there's no reason why you can't test your research ability by writing competing articles with different angles.  ;)

I know people who use the low volume, high $ keyword strategy, and it's a valid strategy because you will eventually get clicks that are worth a lot of money.  But, since there's not much to lose, I like to go for bigger wins and sometimes am surprised at the results.  You never know when you might hit upon a keyword variant on a hugely popular term and get tons of organic traffic that way.

Don't be afraid to spend lots of time on keyword research.  It definitely pays off.  I'd say I spend at least as much time researching topics as I do writing about them.  Sounds ridiculus, but the better prepared you are, the better your post will fare in search results.  My biggest tip – think like someone who would actually be Googling what you are writing about.  Going back to the cell phone example…if you are sitting down to research "affordable cell phone plans," you are going to type that in, not "the wild and crazy business of cellular communication."  Dumb example, but the point is that writing creative headlines won't work if you want organic traffic.  Now, you just have to determine the line where creativity and relevancy cross.  After all, even if you rank highly on page 1 for a given search term, the searcher still has to find your link the most enticing one to click on or if was all for naught.