Finding Keywords When Your Chosen Product Has No S...

Finding a product to promote, is key. However, finding a product that has keywords with search volume is even more important. If your keyword doesn’t have search volume, you get no traffic. Period. In the Christmas Cash Blueprint I suggest you go directly to Amazon to find a product.  The purpose of doing this is to find a place to start doing your keyword research. This will give you an idea, and from there you can look for a good keyword. A good keyword being a keyword that has over 1000 searches a month and low competition.

I understand all this can be somewhat confusing, and let’s try to get a little clearer about it.

Yes. You want a product specific keyword. But it doesn’t have to be exactly the product description posted on Amazon. I have looked at the same product on multiple sites and the product name/title is different on each site ~ so this is not a hard and fast product name ~ it’s a place to get you started.

Here’s a video that walks through finding a product at Amazon, realizing it had no search volume and then finding a keyword that would work to still promote that product.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the text version of the video:

Step 1. Go to amazon and find a product. I went to the watches category, and just looked around. I’m looking for a product with a price point over $200, and some GOOD reviews ~ more the better.

Step 2. I found a watch I wanted to check out. It only has 3 reviews ~ I usually like to have more reviews than 3, but you can’t beat the price point, so I decided to test it.

Step 3. Take the whole product name and put it in the google keyword tool (or micro niche finder). Click the exact match button (top right hand side of the screen of google kw tool ~ mnf is set to this as default), and check how much search volume the exact keyword gets.

Step 4. The keyword has not enough info ~ which means not enough search volume.

Step 5. Start looking through the other keywords that came up with it for keywords that are related to your product and have over 1000 searches. Look for something with the brand name, or specific model in them ~ the more specific the better. ** This may end up taking you in a completely different direction than the one you came from and THAT’S OK!! Go with it ~ this is research, go where the facts take you.

Step 6. Found another possible keyword ~ went back to Amazon to look and see if I could find a decent product to promote with the new keyword. Looking for price point over $200 and good reviews ~ the more the better. If you’re doing this on MNF ~ click the new keyword and then click the search amazon link and it will take you right there.

Step 7. Found a produc that fit my requirements and matched the keyword I found.

Step 8. Go to Google and check out the competition. Using the SEO for firefox tool to show me the PR of each site on the first page, I add up the PR ~ 30 or less total 3 or less average is a go. If you are using Micro Niche Finder click the SOC button (far right) and see what comes up ~ I look for SOC of 20 and under, but anything up to 30 or 40 will probably work. Just remember, the lower this number the easier it will be to get your lens ranked in Google.

Step 9. If the competition fits my requirements I call it a good keyword and start making a lens. I will use the new keyword as the lens url, title and do all the other on page seo I need to do to get some google love.

That’s it. The key here though is to find keywords that HAVE SEARCH VOLUME. It’s pointless to grab the words written on Amazon for the product name and use them if no one is searching for them.  Rearrange them, try different portions of the keyword, check other words that come up in the search ~ find something completely related to a product, but it MUST have search volume.

If you have any questions please ask them in the comment section ~ I hope this helped clear up some confusion surrounding product related keywords.

Squidoo Christmas Cash Video Series
Step by step video tutorials walking you through the entire process of creating a Squidoo Christmas Cash lens
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Sometimes You Gotta Change Things UP

The biggest problem with being an internet marketing teacher and giving such step by step information, like I do, is your readers take you so literally.

I know everyone wants a road map. I know I wanted a road map when I was just getting started. I wanted someone to say “here do this and you’ll be successful and making money”. I RRRR wanted a list. So I could just follow the list and make money.

Hear me. Internet Marketing Does NOT work that way. I can give you a list. Hell, I have given you a list. The minute you decide you can ONLY do what’s on the list is the minute you decide to fail.

I’ve been getting some emails and comments that it’s becoming harder to find “good keywords” with the Google kw tool. That may be so. I don’t know. I don’t really use it much anymore. I know Google has made some changes to it recently and that may be part of the issue.  You’ve got two choices then… buy a tool that will help you do it, or change your strategy a little bit.

There are a million ways to make these product lenses work. I showed you one way that generally works for me. But if you go through my lenses you’ll see they aren’t all Christmas Cash Lenses. In fact, most of them aren’t. Mix it up, try new things. It’s the only way you’re going to grow as a business person. You’ve got to start learning what works for YOU, and that only happens by getting out there, trying new things, and knowing some of them will work, and some of them will be great big huge flops. Either way… you benefit.

I went through my old Micro Niche Finder Folders and found some keywords I would make lenses out of. They probably wouldn’t follow the template of a regular SCC lens ~ but they will work just the same.

I’m going to give them to you… I’d like to see you run with them. If you pick a keyword and do an original type lens with it, come back and tell me and I’ll put it through Traffic Bug for you if you don’t have it already. I want to see some of YOUR work, YOUR originality, YOUR personality.

Here’s the keywords:

Can’t wait to see what you come up with.

*** Notice ***

Kelly, a member of the KISS Club, has taken some bold action in her business. She has opened a new Quality PLR site. Her first PLR pack is up and for sale. Her prices are very reasonable and her writing is excellent.

Her first pack is related to Christmas Gifts. If you need some content maybe to use on free ad blogs, UAW, a spinner, to create a hubpage? PLR is great for all of that. Take a look and support a fellow community member.

Quality PLR Zone

Choose Your Weapon…

I talk about keyword research a lot around here. I know I do. It’s because it is the most important thing. It’s the foundation of your lens! When I talk about keyword research I offer different options, different tools, different ways to go about learning the things you need to know to choose a good keyword.

I do this because I want to provide information that will fit everyone ~ what they have available to them, be it free tools, or paid tools.

But here’s the deal.

YOU CAN’T USE ALL THE METHODS!

I offer all the options so people can choose the one that works best for their circumstances, for what they have. If you don’t have cash right now and need free methods ~ use the free methods I’ve described.

HOWEVER…

If you get the cash and pick up Micro Niche Finder, quit using the free methods and use the Micro Niche Finder methods. The numbers you will get from a paid product will always trump the free methods I’ve given you. The paid tools have technology behind them ~ they put together a bunch more information, more variables, more stuff ~ and run it through their “formula” and pop out a number that you can use to make a decision. All of this information put together adds up to a more accurate reading of the keyword.

The free methods I offer you in finding search volume and competition are down and dirty techniques. They are meant to give you a place to start. Once you get started and you’ve invested in a tool ~ use the tool.  The tool will always give you better information than the free methods.

Trying to use the methods described for tools, and the free methods will only lead you to confusion and frustration ~ I promise.

So choose your weapon and use it, and don’t try to mix and match. It just doesn’t work.

If you’re still having trouble with keyword research I highly recommend rereading this post about the secret to getting traffic. I just did and it’s really good. It shows methods for using both free tools and Micro Niche Finder ~ but remember ~ only use one method depending on the tools you have available to you.

On another note…

Charter membership for KISS Club is full… however, due to  some technical glitches I was unable to close the charter membership when I wanted to.  So… you win. I am keeping the charter membership (and its insanely low price) open until Monday morning (that’s Kansas Monday morning). So if you’ve been thinking about joining the KISS Club and want in for the charter membership price I’d do it now.  The public price will be at least double the charter membership pricing. (just so you know)

Keyword Research: Finding a Keyword

In my last survey Keyword Research was one of the two biggest problems people are having in their internet marketing career. (Building links/getting traffic being the other).

I love keyword research so I thought I’d start a regular keyword finding mission here. I think the more you see the process in action the easier it gets.  So here’s today’s first keyword finding mission.

Some basic tips for keyword research:

1. Get an idea.

Doesn’t matter where you get the idea. At the store, looking out the window, browsing a shopping site online, looking around your house. Ideas are everywhere. Just grab one and get started.

2. Don’t be too attached to the idea.

So many times I see people get an idea and then go to the search tool and hold on to that idea so tightly ~ whether it’s going to work or not, that they completely miss 5 or 6 great keywords that are right in front of them because they aren’t exactly the idea they went in with.

3. Identify basic information during your research.

• search volume (I like over 1000/month, but sometimes over 500 will work as well)
• competition (SOC under 30 in Micro Niche Finder ~ average Page Rank for first page of results under 30)
• commercial intent (if you have MNF you can click the OCI button. If you don’t, think about the word, and if you were doing the searching would you be buying or searching for information?)
• LASTLY exact phrase count. (this one just gives me a little more confidence in the kw. Sometimes things look good on paper but then you see it has an exact match of over a million. Even if it looks good otherwise I wouldn’t go for it. I try to keep it under 50k or 30k exact match pages ~ but that’s flexible. Remember I like to keep things really easy to rank for and there’s plenty of keywords in the sea.)

Ok so let’s see how I do it.

Today I was looking out my window thinking about starting a worm compost bin, when it dawned on me to check and see if it might be worth doing a lens on. (yes, starting keyword research CAN be that easy!)

I checked to see what worm bins cost. (I checked at Gardener’s Supply ~ only because that’s where I buy most of my gardening stuff  ~ but they have the same worm bins on Amazon.)

Opened micro niche finder and did a search of the broad words “worm bins” to see what all would come up. I found a few options and a couple that I would go ahead and build lenses out of.

Here’s the video:

So take it easy, have a little fun, don’t be too attached, and if you have any questions about how I did this, or how YOU can do it too, please ask in the comments section.

Using Micro Niche Finder For Squidoo Christmas Cas...

You can find everything you need with free tools. You can find keyword search volume with the Google keyword tool. You can find the competition for your keyword using the SEO for Firefox plugin. You can get ideas for keywords and products by going through all the categories of Amazon.

However… If you want to do this all quicker, easier and all in one place you need Micro Niche Finder.  I bought MNF a few years ago. I didn’t really “get” it. I used it once or twice and then “put it away”. I saw a video somewhere talking about the things MNF could do and it dawned on me that it would be PERFECT for finding products for lenses. So I tried it out and I was right!

Here’s some reasons I love MNF for Squidoo:

1. You can put in a broad topic and it will bring up keywords that don’t have all the words you searched for in it. This gives you tons of ideas that you might never have thought of.

2. It tells me all the things I need to know on one screen. No more searching and jumping from window to window looking for the info I need.

3. It tells me the commercial intent of a keyword. In other words, how likely is someone to buy when they search on that keyword.

4. You can save keywords you find in a folder. You can have a bunch of folders for different topics. You NEVER run out of ideas.

5. It’s regularly updated every time they get a cooler idea or Google makes a change.

Let’s take a look at how Micro Niche Finder works and how it can work for you.

First of all, once you purchase MNF you will download it to your computer. It stays on your hard drive.

When you want to use it you just click the icon on your desk top and it will open.

At the top of the page you’ll see a search box. Let’s say we’ve gone to Amazon and we want to find some keywords for cycling computers. You’ve seen that the VDO brand is pretty expensive, and if you’ve had any experience with serious cyclists you know they will SPEND on their equipment.

So let’s see what MNF finds for us.

The results will come in alphabetical order so you will see some great things that might catch your eye before you even get to what you’re searching for.

This is the left hand side of the screen. It shows you the keyword, local, global search volume and the trend for the keyword.

This is the right side of the screen where you’ll see you can get the exact phrase count for the keyword (putting it in google with quotes around it) You can see the adsense cost for the keyword. You can see the OCI which is the commercial intent ~ how likely people are to buy when searching with that keyword. The MOB which is measure of backlinks ~ in other words how much backlinking you’re going to need to do to rank. The last is the SOC strength of competition ~ which tells you how hard it’s going to be to rank in Google for that keyword.

To find out each of those things you simply click in that column for your keyword.

When working with Squidoo lenses I generally use the exact phrase count  the soc number, and the OCI ~ as well as the search volume number.  This is everything I need to know if a keyword has a good chance of doing well.

As I’m looking down the list I come across the keyword Cateye Astrale 8 ~ Cateye is a really popular brand of bike computer.

1900 search volume a month ~ that’s good. So I checked the SOC (that’s the second piece of info I like to check)

Zero! That’s excellent. That tells me it will be quite easy to rank for that keyword. Now I’m going to check and see how much this Cateye costs. I’m going to go back to the left side of the screen and click on the keyword. That will give me a BUNCH of options.

As you can see there’s a LOT of information you can find related to this keyword. You can find out if there are articles at Ezinearticles.com about this phrase, you can do a whole new search starting with this phrase. You can see if there are clickbank products related to this product.  You can check the Google trends. It might seem a bit overwhelming. All those options are there… so as your business grows they are there to use.

However… today we’re going to check amazon and see what the price is for this product and if there are any reviews. (Because those are the things we look for when creating Christmas cash lenses)

I clicked the Amazon search button only to find the product is 30 bucks. Nope that’s no good. Let’s keep looking down the list of keywords.

So I came across another kw that looked good Mavick Wintech ~ with 2400 searches a month. Here’s what it said for SOC though:

Big red X means no go.Keep looking.

As I scroll down toward my original search term I see this keyword:

Checked Amazon and it’s over 100 dollars. There’s 12 reviews and they are good.

Let’s check the rest of the info:

woo hoo! It has an SOC of 0 ~ which means easy to get ranked. The exact phrase count is 0 which means it will be SUPER easy to rank. The commercial intent is 99%, which means people are really just looking for a place to BUY this computer.

So yes, this is a keyword I’d definitely build a lens around.

As you can see it’s really easy and fast to find great keywords, check all the measures to identify if it’s a “good” keyword all in one place. Very easy.

Of all the things I’ve bought online Micro Niche Finder has definitely been my best purchase. I use it at least a few times a week if not every day ~ depending on what I’m working on. I definitely recommend it if you want to speed up the process of finding keywords.

To think I left it sitting on my computer doing nothing for such a long time.

If you have any other questions about Micro Niche Finder please feel free to ask in the comment section.

Where Do Your Keywords Fit in the Buying Cycle?

I have talked quite a bit about choosing keywords and why I think it is so important to make sure you’ve chosen “good” keywords. I’ve mostly focused on making sure you have high search volume and low competition. However, there is one element I haven’t talked much about. The buying cycle. The very nature of the Christmas Cash blueprint helps you overcome this problem, but I recognize people may venture away from product specific lenses/sites. So where your keywords fit in the buying cycle will be crucial to your success.

Keywords and Buying Cycle

When people come online they are generally coming in search of information. They have an interest in something and want to know more about it. This is the interest phase. They will not be purchasing during this phase.

The second step of the buying cycle is the research phase. This part of the phase they are looking for more detailed information and are really interested in this topic and want to know more.They will not be buying in this phase either.

The last phase is the purchasing phase. This is where they have made a decision and are looking to purchase what they were only interested in and researching previously.

Let’s take a look at an example. Seeing as Thanksgiving was yesterday and I have a great personal example of choosing the “wrong” keywords ~ we’ll use the example of deep frying a turkey.

Someone in the interest phase may google “frying a turkey”. They are looking to find out if this is something they even want to do.

Second stage research ~ they may have decided they’d like to try to fry a turkey and want to know how. They may google something like “deep fry turkey instructions”.

Third phase ~ they may google “deep fry turkey cooker” (or something similar).

A year or two ago I did a lens on how to fry a turkey/deep fry turkey instructions.

Here’s my stats for the last week.

That’s a lot of traffic. A LOT of traffic. I’m getting traffic from a lot of different keywords too.

I must be making a killing … right?

Wow ~ pretty cool huh? Well guess how many sales I’ve made from all this traffic?

0 ~ yep. 0. Not one sale.

In fact, of all this traffic I have only received 74 click throughs in the last 7 days, and only 34 of them were actually to amazon. (the rest were email, favorited, and facebook postings).

So … I hope this is hitting home. It’s NOT all about traffic, it’s all about targeted traffic. It’s all about hooking up with your reader when they are ready to BUY, not when they are ready to get information.

Do you think if I had researched and built a lens on a keyword like this I might have done better?

Do you think the people searching for the bayou classic fryer are looking for information or are they looking to buy a cooker so they can fry the turkey?

I think they’re looking to buy.

While it was exhilarating to see those kind of numbers on my lens, it was quite disappointing when I saw such a low clickthrough rate ~ but I know what the mistake was. I hope you see the mistake as well, and avoid it yourself in the future. I obviously did a good enough job choosing the keyword ~ it had tons of search volume, and had low enough competition I was able to get it to the top of Google search listings. What I MISSED was the keywords were NOT in the buying stage.

How can I fix this?

I can’t change the lens as it is ~ it is what it is. But I can add some lenses to the campaign, some lenses that target more buying keywords. I can then link the new lenses to this one via the featured lens module and lensrolling. At the bottom I might ask a question (in the featured lens module) asking them if they are ready to get started and link to the lens where they can buy the stuff.

Between that and optimizing the new lens for more targeted buying keywords I could get enough traffic to make some money from this campaign ~ next year. well… Christmas is coming. I could probably get that working by then.

Here are a couple good posts I’ve found that talk more about the buying cycle. This is crucial, (as you can see from my mistake) so take a little time and read them.

Understanding the Buying Cycle

Search and the buying cycle