Where are the “sitting ducks?”

In Chapter 7, I mentioned the publicly accessible Google keyword selector tool. At that time, we used it to see what your customers are searching for. And I’ll say it again: that’s a very powerful tool to understand your market. It can identify opportunities you probably never would’ve thought of.

Regarding keywords, the ones you want to find are the sitting ducks! What do I mean by that? I’m referring to the keywords that have respectable organic search volume but almost no competition. Those keywords are what I call sitting ducks. They’re just waiting to be targeted! And the Google keyword tool makes them easy to find.

Step #1: enter one of your primary keywords and sort the resulting list by competition. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and you’ll find the keyword phrases that don’t have that much competition. The ones with low competition but good search volume are the ones we’re after.

By “competition,” the Google keyword tool is talking about the pay-per-click (PPC) competition for that word. You may not be interested in doing PPC advertising and that’s fine. But you can extrapolate the competition in the organic world from the competition in the PPC world. The two usually mirror each other.

Step #2: pick a few phrases that seem to have good search volume but limited competition and write them down. Then search for “WordTracker keyword tool” on Google and use the free trial to get an estimate of the daily search volume each phrase gets. That’ll give you a good idea how many people are actually searching for each phrase.

WordTracker and Google run on different engines and you will find inconsistencies between them. That’s okay. The idea is to get as much information as you can and then target the phrases that are the easiest to conquer.

Step #3: put each phrase into a standard Google search with quotation marks around it. Make note of the total number of listings that come up for each. So if it says “showing 1 to ten of 238,400 listings,” I’m talking about the number 238,400. That gives you an even clearer idea of how many websites are discussing that precise phrase.

The exact number of listings that come up isn’t important. The important thing is to compare the number of listings for all the different keyword phrases you look up. Some have tons of listings while others have far less. The ones with the fewest listings are the easiest to rank high for because they have less competition.

These three simple steps allow you to identify the keyword phrases that are like “sitting ducks,” just waiting for some attention. In fact, it’s an extremely sophisticated research process and some companies regularly charge thousands of dollars to go through the process we just described.

I once picked a keyword phrase and got my website on page one of Google in just 17 days. The phrase was “growth marketing” and it didn’t take much for my site to come up first. Why? Because the phrase “growth marketing” had almost no competition. Do I get a ton of traffic from that one phrase? No. But I do get some, each and every month. Can you imagine if you targeted ten or 20 of these phrases? This stuff works.

I promise you that at least 90% of companies never do proper keyword research for their websites even though it can make a massive difference. Efficient keywords are the most important building block for a successful online identity. Please don’t miss this step. It’s worth it.

One last note. I am generally a big proponent of doing things yourself. That’s what this book is all about. And you can definitely do keyword research by yourself. But if you’re in doubt at all, it’s important enough that I recommend paying a professional to get it right.

Author Bio: Patrick is the author of \”Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed\” (2011, Wiley) and a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. Watch his video about keyword research on YouTube.

Category: Business
Keywords: patrick,schwerdtfeger,keyword,research