Proper keyword research, they say, is the key to building
a successful blog. Yes, it is 100% true, and in my case I also believe that it is the fastest route that one can use - given that you know the ropes well.
So many bloggers put tons of hours, days and even weeks into the keyword research stage of building their blogs, and further go on to work hard at posting articles and promoting their new blogs built around their golden keyword.
What if I told you that in 80% of the time you are bound to fail (beautifully, as a matter of fact) at taking your new super blog anywhere? Would it come as a surprise to you if your best days of blog traffic are the days you are able to pull in 5 visits; that is some four months long after publishing your blog live?
Perhaps, a lot of you out there would have a strong connection with me on this one as you have had personal experiences like this - maybe a couple of times. I have had my own fair share of disappointing results with blogs that I thought were going to be the next best thing in their niche; only to turn out to be majestic failures. If 80% of the time we fail at building a close-to-successful blog (at least), then it is apparent that there are some big mistakes we are making some where along the lines of our hard work.
Below are the 4 biggest mistakes that I have made in the past in the process of finding a good keyword to build my blog on, and that I think anyone starting out should totally avoid.
Mistake #1: Targeting Massive Keywords
A lot of bloggers and site owners in general fall for this one more often than not.
In my early stages of foray into keyword research I used to think that I would be the next dot com billionaire just by targeting lucrative and big keywords. When I say big keywords I am talking of the likes of Forex trading, make money online, internet marketing, online dating. If only I knew better.
There is no essence wasting your time, resources and effort in fighting the big boys in such competitive niches. These big dudes are well established, and have thousands to millions to splash on genius SEO guys. Quit the goose chase.
Fix: Leave them big keywords alone and start gunning for the the low hanging fruits; they have proven to be even better!
Instead of engaging in a David and Goliath fight for the big keywords, a good thing is to go for long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords are longer sentences keywords (key-phrases, actually) that contain your primary keyword. An example is to target forex trading for beginners instead of just forex trading. Another example is make money online by selling ebooks rather than make money online.
Long tail keywords are guaranteed to bring you success as they come with very low competition; hence making them easy to rank for in Google and other search engines.
Now that you have realized your biggest mistake ever in keyword research and you have now made up your mind to go with long-tail keywords, we are on to the next step.
Mistake #2: Neglecting The exact match Search Figures
This is another big mistake that took me a long time to get conscious of. If you use Google Keyword Tool for your research, you might have (or not have) noticed that there is a big difference between the normal (broad) search results and the exact match result.
Normally the exact match gives much smaller search numbers than the broad search. While the broad match results might blow you away by giving you search results in the range of tens and hundred of thousands, the exact match would give you just thousands; true ones actually!
The exact match results give the true number of people searching for your keyword rather than the broad search that gives you a rather grossly bloated one. I have found the exact match results to give more precise and accurate results and is the best way to perfectly gauge your potential audience. This is evidenced in the blogs that I rank for people and myself having monthly visit levels very well near the figures given by the exact match result in my keyword research stage.
This explains why you have little to no traffic after building a blog around a keyword you saw 50,000 monthly (broad) searches for on Google Keyword Tool while you diligently did your keyword research. Enough said!
Fix: Always turn on and place great importance on the exact match result figures. You can turn this on on Google Keyword Tool by ticking on the Exact box. You would easily find this at the left sidebar when you perform a search. In Market Samurai (a computer install, go here for some cool Market Samurai tips) keyword tool you can do this by choosing exact match option.
Now that you are aware of the reason for your low traffic level even after ranking for your keyword, I think it is important you also know what might make even a big traffic blog lose traffic over time.
Mistake #3: Not Paying Attention to The Local Monthly Search Results
This is yet another tricky one that is killing a lot of bloggers, site owners and internet marketers alike; and also troubled me for a long time.
While global monthly search is the average search figure for your keyword over a span of one year, local monthly search is the search figures for the previous month. How this affects you is that looking at only the yearly average (global monthly searches) would not give you a clear-cut picture of what the actual search activity has been like in recent times.
It is common occurrence for some search terms to die off in terms of search volume with time. By following the global monthly search figures you would never know you are on to one such dying term. A quick way to tell this is; if the local monthly search result figures is far too less than the global, then the search term is sick. However, note that in normal cases there would always be a little spread between the Local monthly and Global search volume figures; if the spread is not too wide, and the local search figure still looks impressive to you, then you can go for it.
fix: Start paying significant attention to the local monthly searches. You can take things to a whole different level by using Google trends to check the search pattern for your keyword in the past months and also look at the future projection. This keeps things simple, clear and effective!
Mistake #4: Paying Too Much Attention To The Competition
I guess you must also be webbed in the big fallacy of checking your keyword competition level by looking at the number of result pages in Google after putting your keywords in parenthesis in a Google search i.e searching for say Internet marketing on Google and seeing something like About 28,700,000 results (0.18 seconds).
I use to live in that deception in the past and it stopped me from pursuing keywords that would have turned out successful; lots of them!
With that said, I am here to tell you that your true competition (the ones that really matter) are on the first 2 to 3 pages of Google. The problem with using the parenthesis method of finding your competition is that it brings up far more pages than is true. It includes all web pages that have your keyword in their title; even though most of those pages are not in anyway trying to rank for that term.
If I was to follow that method of gauging my competition then it means I would have totally kept away from my best way to lose weight keyword that one of my recent niche sites is ranking for; that actually returned 1,200,000 (yes, 1.2 million) results. It is currently ranking at number 16 in Google right now (and climbing everyday) and I am reaping the benefits already because I refused to follow the parenthesis crowd 
Fix: Check for the top 20 to 30 sites currently ranking in Google for your chosen keyword and look at how strong or weak they are. A quick, effective and neat way of doing that is by using a free online tool called Scroogle. Just input your keyword (without the parenthesis) into the search bar and look out for the first 20 to 30 results that it loads up; those are the guys you are really up against!
You can tell how established, tough and much of a competition they are by looking at their ranking parameters such as domain age, number of inbound links, title, etc. A free Mozilla and Google Chrome browser plug-in called SEO quake can efficiently help with that.
That is it. Above are the four (4) biggest keyword research mistakes that bloggers and internet marketers do (unknowingly in most cases) that hinder their success. You also have the fixes to the problems - it is my hope that now you know them you make amends where necessary.
Is there any other problem (perhaps peculiar to you) that you are aware of and you would have loved to see in my list above? Please share them in the comments below. I am sure a lot of people would be more than happy to learn from you.
UgoDosh is a quiet, peace loving and a fun seeking guy who is crazy about blogging and tech stuffs! He is currently studying for his Bachelors Degree in Electronic/Communications Engineering. He loves making and keeping friends. You can find him on Facebook or at his weight loss blog http://www.ebestwaytoloseweight.net/.
Hey UgoDosh,
We all agree keyword research is crucial.I think to start a website or blog one should focus on 1 or 2 keywords in his reach.I use market samurai for my keyword research,SEO Quake to measure different seo parameters quickly.But i think paying attention to competition is important sometimes even crucial.
You are right on it, Alexis. Carrying out a thorough keyword research and having 2 to 3 ‘solid’ keywords to build a new blog/site on is the very foundation of a successful blogging, without which is like taking a stab in the dark.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Long tail keywords can add yo fast, remember you don’t want all your eggs in one basket. So tackle many keywords and not just one or two.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
You are very right ‘Black Seo Guy’. In-fact, long tail keywords, when their individual traffic inputs are summed up, usually do out perform my main ‘killer’ keywords.
Thanks by dropping by and engaging in the comments.
I second the “go for the long tail” approach.
Not only are they easier to rank for, but they convert WAY better. People searching for something generic are just looking around. Whereas if they search for a specific long tail, they are past the looking around stage, they’ve narrowed down what they want and are usually ready to buy. Especially if the long tail includes the word “buy” in it, as in “buy large red beach towel”.
If you are selling beach towels, you are more likely to get a sale from someone who searched “buy large red beach towel” than someone who simply searched for “beach towels”.
Solid tips Ugo, and being an addict in things related to SEO, I can say from experience that these mistakes are bound to be committed by almost all of us, specially in the beginning. In my opinion, mistake #1 is probably by far, the one that has more occurrence as it is easy to shoot for “gazillion” keywords and kinda like hope for the best. Bad move indeed and the concept of targeting competitors that are ranking on the second and third pages is also great advice. These are really the ones that are trying to jump to first page and most likely are the ones that are doing something to make that happen.
I also would like to add another common mistake that I have noticed and that is, “not monitoring results and strengthening” the keywords you are already ranking well for. Many think that it is a “hit and run” process and that is a big mistake. Getting there is one thing and maintaining it there is another.. just my 2 cents
DiTesco, you sound to me as someone who is very well grounded in the ropes of proper SEOing. I can’t but agree with you that Mistake #1 is the most committed ‘sin’ of most beginning, and in some cases, experienced SEO geeks.
By the way, your addition is very relevant and true. Thanks for dropping by.
This is something I never got a hold of, which is why I now outsource my SEO…these are some hidden gems though UGO, thanks.
Dennis Edell, yeah, anything being tried at first would seem hard, but if you hold on a bit things would start falling in place.
I remember when everything SEO was just way above my head, but I can say that I’m getting to grasp matters of SEO firmly now. As for outsourcing your SEO, it’s the best thing to do if you don’t just have the time to ‘waste’. At least you can now focus on other fruitful projects.
Thanks for reading in.
Exactly UGO, except it took me way too long to realize this. Please don’t misunderstand and take me for some kinda newbie…it’s much worse then that. LOL
I’ve been blogging since early-mid 2000; 2003-2005, I don’t really recall. I do remember it was WP 2.0.4 (pause for laughter); KW research has always been my nemesis.
I get the key basics, but the terminology, the numbers, and all that kinda shhtuff has had me totally flubbing for years.
Now, finally, I came to my sense (and into enough money) to outsource. I write, she SEO’s, I publish…..easy-peasy. lol
Wow, then it means you have been around for a long time. Guess you are one of the early birds who must have dug out gold from the early rush.
Nice strategy on she SEOing while you focus on the writing. Have a great time.
Oh I wish I had the gold. I wasted a lot of time. Truth be told, I didn’t even start getting “serious” until a couple yrs ago.
I am excited though that I now outsource two of the biggest time suckers if you ask me…..SEO and Design/Maintenance.
Nice work Ugo, these points can all render the effort we put in to SEO useless!
Another one to add is targeting keywords so esoteric that nobody searches for them. Ranking at number one for terms which bring zero traffic is not worth the effort. Finding the balance between highly competitive and easy but worthless keywords is the key.
Love that you mentioned SEOQuake in here too, it’s a great tool to have running whilst you’re looking at the competition. Another one I like to use is Yahoo Explorer, as a means to see where my competitors are getting their backlinks…
Thanks for sharing this - correct keyword research is absolutely the foundation of successful blog marketing.
Targeting and ranking for esoteric keywords may give the blogger in question some sense of fulfillment - at least he ranked for a word! However it can be closely related to living on an Island.
Just as you have said, it all boils down to your skills of identifying optimum keywords.
Yeah, I actually use Yahoo Site Explorer, but another tool which I have found very valuable is backlinkwatch - it’s at http://www.backlinkwatch.com. It gives you anchor text of each backlink of your competitor’s. You might want to add that to your tool box if you haven’t.
Thanks for reading in.
Hi, Ugo!
Very well written, I really like!
Because you’re right regarding those big keywords things, those big shards have a lot of genius people to work for them and they can easily get to any place they want.
So its best to put our hands on low hanging fruits.
You are absolutely right Usman. When the competition is so fierce, you go for the low hanging fruits instead.
I’m very glad you enjoyed the article. Thanks for visiting.
Well we can also team up with fellow bloggers to work on some hard keywords as well
Yeah, you are right - division of labor gives room for good productivity.
People always keep looking for keywords in order to have the perfect boost to their business but many a time forget about what has been or can be a foolish act in hurry. I must say thanks for sharing, at least I have taken this article on a serious note!
Joshua, I’m very pleased that this article was able to add to your knowledge.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Keyword research is indeed very important, however I tend to use it especially for my small niches blogs only.
For bigger niches like “blogging” I would rather spend my time on social media and networking with other bloggers and just write for the people without putting too much efforts into keyword research.
Ugo,
Great SEO tips here. I am far from considering myself an SEO expert. But every bit of success i have had I think comes from pain-stakingly spending the time and effort to really find the quality keywords.
There is certianly a lot of sweet spot keywords out there (decent volume but beatable traffic)
You HAVE to know what your competition is and what it will take to beat them before you start.
Simply put that knowledge is the difference between moderate to great succes -or- utterly wasting your time.
I would say figuring out proper keyword research is simply one of the most important things someone starting out can learn.
You are very right Steve. Keyword research is the very foundation and pillar of most blogs (most especially niche sites), and spending enough time at finding a great one (keyword) is half of the battle won.
Thanks for visiting mate.
Hello Jane. It is unwise targeting the BIG keyword and using Tool External to seek for low competition keywords is better. Are you saying in #3 that one needs to pay attention to monthly results?
Ivin, yes, you have to take a lot at the monthly search volume figures at times. Thia is just to let you know if the search for your targeted term is reducing over the months or increasing.
Generally, you would want to keep away from keywords with fast deteriorating monthly search figures as it entails that they keyword is loosing traffic over time, and you sure know the end effect.
Thanks for visiting and commenting. Have a nice time.
Enjoyed your article Ugo, great information. I was glad to see you include paying attention to the “Exact” keyword search because I’ve seen a number of blogging experts leave that bit of advice out - and as you point out it can make a big difference in the results!
Sure Marquita, exact match numbers matters a lot and I’m glad you also know that. Thanks for leaving a comment.
I’m using Market Samurai as my keyword research tools and it really helps in finding the right keyword for niche website I’m building. Keyword research is an essential activity for any online business and avoiding this 4 mistakes would really to make your research time yield more profitable results.
Yeah John, I personally use Market Samurai a lot in my keyword research and would recommend it to any one as it is great at finding good keywords.
Thanks for visiting.
Sound advice on keyword research. However, while using keywords effectively is critical to ranking well on search engines, a great headline/title without keywords can drive lots of traffic from other sources. I would not neccessarily scrap a catchy title for a post simply because it does not include keywords that may generate search engine traffic. Obviously, the best of both worlds is a compelling headline, with keywords frontloaded at the beginning of the title. The title of this article offers a good example of doing both.
Hi Randy, I’m glad you know the importance of striking a balance between a catchy post title and a keyword laden one - it is gold!
Thanks for leaving a comment.
This is a lot of great advice, I haven’t spent very much time on keyword research. I’m sure that I could benefit from it though because I do know it is important for traffic generation. Is it something that must be done each time a post is published or something that could be done weekly?
Stacy
Stacy I’m glad you like the article. It’s a good thing that you recognize the importance of embarking on keyword research.
There are several ways to looking at an effective keyword research. The first one is looking for target words that your entire blog would be built around. This one would be done at the birth of your new blog.
The second way is the “on going keyword research” where you may be looking out for good keywords for each post you publish. This one would be done each time you are crafting a new post - at least, that’s the way I do it. Here I try to target keywords with an extremely low exact match numbers; around 15 to 50.
Finding keywords for individual post is a whole new topic on its own which would need a post to cover effectively. There’s a lot more to creating keywords for posts, and what I’ve said above is just a summary.
I’m glad you found the article interesting. Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.
Great tips Ugo.
Though I may slightly disagree with the first one. I think - sometimes - it can be beneficial to invest on massive keywords on an early stage of a campaign (especially for new blogs) if you know how to use and aim for them effectively, as this can be a good motivation for any blogger to consistently produce keyword-driven and of high quality content (saying you have lots of keywords to target). In doing this, you’ll be able to target multiple keywords through individual posts who can in turn contextually (internally) link to other relevant posts - or article clustering, which can really help boost your posts’ rankings, given that they are supporting each other.
Quite agree with you Jason, but as you pointed, that approach is for the ‘advanced geeks’. Sadly enough, it takes quite long for a regular blog owner to get to such heights.
Thanks for your input.
Hi Jane!
Some really great gold nuggets in your article! I never knew the real meaning behind the difference between monthly and global searches and how to compare them meaningfully. Now I do!
And I hadn’t heard of Scroogle… excellent resource!
Your list is excellent. I can add one more mistake I’ve made on my blog regarding keywords — paying too much attention to them! This may seem like heresy, but I was actually guilty of being held hostage by trying to rank for keywords on my blog. The problem?
I was forgetting to let “me” shine through my writing, rather than writing for the search engines. I was so worried about ranking for a long tailed KW in EVERY post, that I was forgetting to just have fun with it.
As a result, I feel that my blog was being seen as keyword stuffed, and maybe it turned people away. Not sure, but it felt that way to me!
Anyway, now I do a combination of both. When I really want to rank for new keyword I’ve found, I write a post with that in mind. But that’s maybe half the time. The other half I just write on things that I feel are important to me and my readers.
Thanks for this great resource, Jane!
Dr. Bob, I’m very pleased that you enjoyed the article.
As for your problem, I’d confidently tell you that you are not alone on it. There are a whole lot of SEO guys that experience the same problem with you. I’ve also experienced that (but thankfully in the past).
The way that I get around the problem is having a slot in my posting schedule just for my KW. Like say, if I post three times a week, I dedicate one day in every 2 weeks to write for the search engines. That’s just the way that I use to try to strike a balance between posts for the Search engines, and writing ‘kick ass’ posts for my readers.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
That’s useful advice, Ugo. It makes sense to plan ahead and dedicate a certain time to write just for the search engines. It kind of takes the pressure off and let’s you just be yourself the rest of the time!
Keyword research is very important and you give some great advice which I think I’ll make use of.
Thanks for reading mate. I’m glad the article was useful.
Exact keyword research is the soul of the blog. It is my experience what we examine with the tool and what we achieve through SEO. Can you tell me why this difference is?
Hi Zain, first off, thanks for commenting. You might want to rephrase your question so that I can provide and answer because I can’t quite get you.
I’m waiting patiently to answer your question. Thanks for reading in.
@Ugo Dosh, If “ABC” is keywords and in key word research I have checked its local searches “290,000″ but experimentally I do not found such a traffic that tool showed. Why it was so?
Hi Ugo (and Jane),
Thank you for this very helpful post. I appreciate how thorough the explanation is. Glad that I read other comments too, as I found out about http://www.backlinkwatch.com. Very interesting tool. But I must admit, up until this point, I haven’t optimized my blog for keywords yet, and I am definitely looking at your point #2 & #3, then I’ll proceed with checking out what the leaders in my industry are doing.
Thanks again, Ugo!
- Rowena
HI Rowena, I’m very pleased that the article was ‘gold’ to you. It’s also a good thing that you are now using backlinkwatch as it is a great tool that I use a lot and would recommend to anyone.
Please, take a shot at ranking for a term on your blog, no matter how old your blog is, it’s never too late. You would get to reap the benefits bountifully. As you do so, be sure to keep away from the highlighted mistakes above.
Wishing you good luck with your blog.
It is all about that low hanging fruit. Love that low hanging fruit. It sends traffic to my site searching for “how long can a hippo fling poop” haha.
Yeah Eugene. When the individual traffic that the ‘low hanging fruits’ (long tail keywords) pull in is summed up, it gives some pretty nice figures.
I’m glad to know that you are personally reaping the benefits of ranking for the low hanging fruits.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Hey Ugo,
What an expanatory post! Totally love it.
I was not even aware of the ‘exact’ box in google keyword. Thanks!
Gotta keep this page and go through it at least twice since SEO related topics could be a little over my head. lol
THanks!
~Tosin
P.S.: You based in Nigeris, Ugo?
Hi Tosin, I’m glad that you were able to learn something new from this post.
Yes, I’m based in Calabar. Just visited your blog, and all I can say is wow! Keep it going mate. Thanks for commenting.
Hi Ugo,
I use a plugin called SEO Scribe to maximize my posts. I guess if you can’t spend a lot of time or money, and don’t have direct information about what search engines want, this is a good option. It even has a section to help you with keywords, but I’m not much for contorting my content towards keywords. As long as SEO Scribe is happy, I’m happy.
Thanks for your tips.
Lou Barba
Hi Jane,
thanks for sharing your out-of-the-box advice regarding keyword research. Very refreshing. The beauty about longtail keywords is also that visitors are more targeted because they searched more specifically.
Take care
Oliver
Such a good article!
Great Tips Ugo. All the points are awesome. I really like the post.
I’m already using SEOQuake and have to say it’s a great tool. I wasn’t aware about the “exact” box thing. So Thanks for sharing this great stuff.
wow. This is a excellent post. All the points are too cool
You are right. A lot of folks skimp the keyword analysis phase and jump right in to site building. As you have rightly pointed out, targeting wrong or competitive keywords can lead to lot of frustration.
Targeting long tail keywords is a very good way to start. Once some foothold and authority is established by ranking for long tails, one can consider going after the more competitive ones.
I do fine keywords a lot of hard work but they are the key to success. Great writing!
Hey UgoDosh,
I too have made all four of the mistakes you have outlined and until I learned how to look for keywords, I continued to make mistakes.
This is great advice for anyone who is not seeing the traffic they would’ve expected by now or even a complete newbie who is just starting out.
Thanks for sharing this UgoDosh and have a good one!
The main task of a person, who searches for the best keywords and key phrases to perfrom search engine optimization of a website is to select phrases, which are effective and have low level of competition at the same time.
I always use Market Samurai and go for long tail keywords. They’re not as easy to find as short tail, but the potential is there and the work you have to put into them is significantly less.
I know there are some people who pick really hard keywords, but to rank for those you need a lot of time and the pay is not always worth it. You could take ten long tail keywords, work less with them and get the same money if you do things right.
Ugo -
Thanks for the advice here. These 4 mistakes are really common and easy to make, and I’m glad to see them outlined here in such detail. Bookmarking this page, for sure!! Anything else I should avoid??
Natasha
Next time I am using Google Keywords Tool , I am keeping your advices in my mind and then selecting the keywords. Its very important to lookout for right keywords rather than going for many top keywords.
Nice share especially the mistake number 2 which is something I knew for the first time. Thanks it gives me idea about the real monthly search for specific keyword.
Nice tips, it will help me a lot as I’m going to launch a Adwords campaign.
Glad that the post is of useful to you. Please use your real name next time. Thanks
Nice tips and you have well summarized the key factors for selecting keywords. I think that keyword research is one of the critical task and you should ensure that at the end of the keyword research, you are getting keywords that can be ranked on the first page of google and I think you must also ensure that these are achievable. Too high competition of page 1 will require hard work to beat them.
Before attempting to rank for any keyword you’ll need to understand the important metrics for ranking.
very valuable tips for us bloggers which we often dont take care of!!!
great article indeed!!!
thanx a lot
Well said..But i want to know “How to choose keywords that has Competition High,medium,low?”which one to use high or medium or low….i am confused in that area….