Keyword Research Tools
Keyword Research Tools – Help Me Find The Right Keyword Phrase!
Earlier this week, while answering questions in a forum about Search Engine Optimization, I ran across a post by a member who was bewildered about the disparity between her #3 ranking in Google, and the lack of a specific type of traffic to her site so she could monetize it. Now, I really have an open mind when it comes to anything that is legal and moral. But honestly, never in my wildest dreams, did I think
- 1) that I would be blogging about “puppy potty training”, or
- 2) I would do research on it!
But alas, we Search Engine Marketing geeks are trained to follow the research. Don’t ever “go where you think”, rather, go where the research takes you. In this situation, I felt that another member of the group who called himself an SEO professional dissed this lady, and I was going to make it right! Huh?! I admit, I’ve had two puppies, I’ve made it through those couple of weeks when first Dianna, then Tuppence had to go outside about every 30 seconds, but really, we got over it and my wife says we’ll never have another dog! Alright, let’s get on with where the keyword research took me.
I really DID go to Puppy-Potty-Training.com, got the keyword phrases that were in the keyword meta tag and went to work! Here’s the list that were there:
- puppy potty training
- puppy training
- housetraining
- puppies
Not much, but it really was a start! Little did I know that this lady actually already ranked for 37 keyword phrases that had to do with puppy potty training. I went to Google and was stunned to find out that there were dozens of ways people were trying to figure out how to get fifi to do her job where, and when Master John, or Mistress Mary wanted her to! Very high level research showed me that the top 127 performing keyword phrases had an average of over 170,000 hits per month! Now I was interested!
I went to Google AdWords Keyword tool and exported the 200 keywords that Google offered me. As I mentioned before, 127 of those actually had to do with the topic at hand. For the purpose of this exercise, I stripped out the other ones. I went to SEO Sniper and set it to work. Here are the results:
Get the entire table here: Puppy Toilet Training Spreadsheet
Top 25 performing keyword phrases
| Keywords | Approx Search Volume: January | Approx Avg Search Volume | Compe- tition | KEI |
| pet training | 22,200 | 33,100 | 191,000 | 5,736 |
| crate training | 12,100 | 12,100 | 26,000 | 5,631 |
| puppy care | 6,600 | 6,600 | 27,700 | 1,573 |
| dog training tips | 6,600 | 6,600 | 32,900 | 1,324 |
| potty training puppies | 3,600 | 4,400 | 1,530 | 12,654 |
| puppy potty training | 4,400 | 4,400 | 9,900 | 1,956 |
| training puppies | 4,400 | 4,400 | 40,400 | 479 |
| how to potty train a puppy | 5,400 | 3,600 | 510 | 25,412 |
| crate training a puppy | 3,600 | 3,600 | 1,590 | 8,151 |
| housebreaking a puppy | 4,400 | 3,600 | 1,660 | 7,807 |
| crate training puppies | 4,400 | 3,600 | 1,710 | 7,579 |
| house training a puppy | 4,400 | 3,600 | 1,890 | 6,857 |
| potty training a puppy | 4,400 | 3,600 | 2,130 | 6,085 |
| puppy training tips | 4,400 | 3,600 | 9,400 | 1,379 |
| dog potty training | 2,900 | 3,600 | 10,200 | 1,271 |
| dog house training | 2,400 | 2,900 | 12,100 | 695 |
| dog potty | 3,600 | 2,900 | 18,500 | 455 |
| housebreaking puppies | 1,900 | 2,400 | 1,350 | 4,267 |
| house training a dog | 1,600 | 2,400 | 1,850 | 3,114 |
| house training puppies | 2,400 | 2,400 | 2,910 | 1,979 |
| puppy crate training | 1,900 | 2,400 | 6,750 | 853 |
| how to house train a puppy | 2,400 | 1,900 | 668 | 5,404 |
| how to potty train a dog | 1,900 | 1,900 | 1,580 | 2,285 |
| potty training a dog | 1,300 | 1,900 | 1,690 | 2,136 |
| house training dogs | 1,600 | 1,900 | 2,360 | 1,530 |
Now let’s figure out which keyword phrases are the most promising. Obviously, we want those with high monthly search volume, with no competition, right? Right! This relationship is exactly what we check first! That’s actually what we call the KEI Index. The higher the KEI index, the better the investment in organic search engine optimization. Please understand though, that the KEI value isn’t the only one! A KEI value over 300 or so is one that could perform well. Now we have to move on to the next decisions. Here they are:
- Is this the right time of year to be pursuing this keyword phrase
- What is the on-page strength of competing pages
- Overall, is this a good business decision
Each of these questions has to be answered before time and money is invested in attracting traffic! Here is the same list, just ordered now, according to the highest KEI value. notice that I brought in the
- average search volume
- Highest Volume Month
- KEI index
- Window of Opportunity Index
- Average On-Page Strength Index
Knowing that the KEI value is important, what time of the year is it? We don’t want to invest resources in optimizing the wrong keyword phrase, for example, Christmas ornaments in February, or Prom dresses in July! As we look at good keyword phrases, what month do they peak in? Are there good ones that we have to pursue first? If not, let’s move on.
The next indicator is the “Average On-Page Strength Index” This tells us how much the top 30 competitors have worked to optimize their pages. The index goes from 0 to 100. The lower the index is, the better. Taking this into consideration, which keyword phrases would you select? The first three I’d look at are:
- How to potty train a puppy
- House breaking a puppy
- Crate training a puppy
- Housebreaking a puppy
- House training a puppy
| Keywords | Approx Avg Search Volume | Highest Volume Occurred In | Compe- tition | KEI | Window of Opportunity Index | Avg. On-Page Strength Index |
| how to potty train a puppy | 3,600 | Oct | 510 | 25,412 | 84.55 | 74 |
| potty training puppies | 4,400 | Jan | 1,530 | 12,654 | 92.25 | 83 |
| house breaking a puppy | 1,600 | Dec | 247 | 10,364 | 75.85 | 25 |
| crate training a puppy | 3,600 | Dec | 1,590 | 8,151 | 92.50 | 55 |
| housebreaking a puppy | 3,600 | Jan | 1,660 | 7,807 | 86.15 | 20 |
| crate training puppies | 3,600 | Sep | 1,710 | 7,579 | 84.35 | 55 |
| house training a puppy | 3,600 | Sep | 1,890 | 6,857 | 88.40 | 23 |
| potty training a puppy | 3,600 | Oct | 2,130 | 6,085 | 86.55 | 61 |
| crate training | 12,100 | Jan | 26,000 | 5,631 | 93.75 | 99 |
| how to house train a puppy | 1,900 | Dec | 668 | 5,404 | 76.30 | 52 |
| housebreaking puppies | 2,400 | Dec | 1,350 | 4,267 | 83.55 | 87 |
| house training a dog | 2,400 | Dec | 1,850 | 3,114 | 79.65 | 50 |
| house breaking puppies | 1,000 | Dec | 422 | 2,370 | 69.60 | 56 |
| housetraining puppies | 880 | Dec | 327 | 2,368 | 69.60 | 31 |
| how to potty train a dog | 1,900 | Jul | 1,580 | 2,285 | 89.50 | 75 |
| potty training a dog | 1,900 | Dec | 1,690 | 2,136 | 79.25 | 59 |
| house training puppies | 2,400 | Dec | 2,910 | 1,979 | 83.05 | 90 |
| puppy potty training | 4,400 | Dec | 9,900 | 1,956 | 89.70 | 75 |
| housebreaking a dog | 1,300 | Oct | 953 | 1,773 | 82.60 | 74 |
| house breaking a dog | 590 | Mar | 203 | 1,715 | 86.35 | 15 |
| house training dogs | 1,900 | Dec | 2,360 | 1,530 | 81.80 | 30 |
| puppy training tips | 3,600 | Sep | 9,400 | 1,379 | 83.90 | 24 |
| potty training a new puppy | 110 | Sep | 9 | 1,344 | 76.60 | 39 |
| best way to potty train a puppy | 390 | Jan | 114 | 1,334 | 61.90 | 49 |
| potty train dog | 720 | Nov | 402 | 1,290 | 92.25 | 40 |
The final decision making index is the “Window Of Opportunity Index”. This is also a 0 – 100 index. The higher, the better. In other words, if two or three values are real close, this index will be a tie breaker for me. Because the Window Of Opportunity Index is tied to all of the discussed Indices, some people even start by sorting this the list by this index first, then looking at other values. It’s up to you.
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Competitor Intelligence – Use Cutting-Edge Technology To Focus Your Internet Marketing Campaigns
Have you ever gotten the urge to find out what your competition was doing! You’ve probably gotten there too late, huh? It’s never fun if the party’s already over and you weren’t invited!
You may, or may not know the story of William Tell. As a Swiss national, I’m proud of my courageous forefathers. Here it is as told in Wikipedia:
William Tell from Bürglen was known as an expert marksman with the crossbow. At the time, the Habsburg emperors were seeking to dominate Uri. Hermann Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf raised a pole in the village’s central square with his hat on top and demanded that all the local townsfolk bow before it. As Tell passed by without bowing, he was arrested. He received the punishment of being forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son, Walter, or else both would be executed.
Tell had been promised freedom if he shot the apple. On November 18, 1307, Tell split the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow, without mishap. When Gessler queried him about the purpose of the second bolt in his quiver, Tell answered… read more here
Back to our topic!
As diverse as the crosshairs in the picture are, so diverse are the tools you must use to become a success at understanding and “picking off” your competition on the first, or if needed as Tell intended, the second try. Competition goes back to way before 1307, and with the event of the Internet, we’ll surely see it heat up as more players become expert marksmen.
Today, I’d like to introduce you to a tool that I have in my tool belt that is compact, but feisty. It lays low until your competition decides to make a move! To be honest, I even use it on my own critical pages so I know immediately when a change is made on an optimized page. URLy Warning is a great little “gotta have”. Although it is free, there is a suggested donation of $29.95. This is truly a small price to pay for a utility that will keep tabs on your competitors web content. Remember, you don’t have to pay it an hourly wage. Not even vacation or sick pay!
Only URLy Warning has all these great features:
- Pops up and/or plays a sound when a page changes.
- Shows what’s been added or deleted since the last time you checked the page.
- Create alerts for when specific words and phrases appear on a page.
- Limit alerts to a subset of the page, or to a specific number of changes.
- Watch password protected sites.
- Receive an email or page when a change occurs.
- No Ads. No Spyware.
- And it’s really easy to use, too!
I’ll bet you’re still not convinced! How about this:
Here’s some things you can do with URLy Warning:
- Gather business intelligence.
- Monitor Craig’s List
- Watch your competitors Web sites.
- Monitor news topics.
- Monitor Google Queries.
- Track Usenet postings for keywords.
- Get alerted to new job postings.
- Check auction sites for hard-to-find items.
- Know when software updates are released.
- Track changes on your corporate intranet.
- Get instant updates on overnight shipping or airplane flights.
- And much, much more.
As my nephews would say: “cool, huh?” Here’s the deal: once you’ve identified your real competition, you’ve got to know what your competition is doing. The sooner the better! Then, like I do with my partner, on critical pages of your own website, if more than one person has editor rights to it, make sure that you are aware of what’s happening there too!
If you really do decide to use the tool, please pay the $29.95 to the guys that took the time to write the code. He’ll thank you for it, and I will too. Honestly, I don’t make anything off of it, but I’ve fully embraced the freeware / shareware concept since John McAfee brought out ViruScan…that’s another story though!
This brings me to my conclusion and a final story. Know your competition, know their moves, react quickly if you need that second bolt!
After my wife and I adopted our 8, 9, and 10 year old daughters from Russia, Tina homeschooled the girls. Probably in the first few weeks, Tina was writing words on the whiteboard. Suddenly, back turned, without warning, Tina told one of the girls (who stood up and was goofing off) to sit down and pay attention! For months, the girls were convinced that Mom had eyes on the back of her head. In reality, Tina saw her reflection and shadow on the whiteboard!
Do you really know your competition? Have you been able to track their movements? What do you think are other tools that make sense to attach to your tool belt? Let’s discuss this.