If you’re new to making money online, it’s important to understand a concept called keyword research.
The reason for this is the way people search for information on sites like Google and Bing.
What do you do when you search for information? If it’s typical, write a short phrase like “how to fix a toaster,” “NFL scores,” or “best natural supplements.”
The search engine then goes to work and finds articles that match the keyword you’ve entered into the search box. So if you type in the phrase “how to fix a toaster”, you should find articles related to toaster repair.
It is important to understand this concept of how people search for information because this translates into keywords that can make you good money.
The best domain names
The best domain names are those that are absolutely identical to the keyword you have chosen for your niche. For example, if you have chosen the niche “best natural supplements”, your main keyword should be best natural supplements and your domain name should be bestnaturalsupplements.com, .net, etc.
However, before coming to this conclusion, it is good to do some research. A great free tool for this type of research is Google’s External Keyword Tool. To access it, simply type Google’s external keyword tool into your search engine’s search box.
the big secret
When the External Keyword Tool opens, you’ll see a box where you can type a search term. In this case, you can write the best natural supplements. However, and here’s the big secret, you shouldn’t do this. Instead, note this location and then type “best natural supplements” into your search box.
The search engine, in this case Google, will display a list of the pages most closely related to your term: “best natural supplements”. You can ignore the first two listings because they are paid listings. In other words, advertisers have paid to be at the top of the results page.
Look at the third or fourth listing instead and copy its URL. If you did a search for “best natural supplements,” the third list might be “best naturalOrganic Products and supplements”.
If this is the case, copy the URL, for example – www.bestnatural.com then go back to the External Keyword Tool and type that URL into the box labeled Website.
Click Search and Google will show you all the keywords associated with that site. It will also show you how many times each keyword is searched for monthly and how much competition there is for it.
As you go through the list of keywords, you will see that there are some with less competition than others. For example, the term “vitamin and mineral supplements” has 1,900 monthly searches but less competition than, say, “herbal supplement.” This means that “vitamin and mineral supplements” might be a better keyword to build a site on, as the term is searched for and there is less competition, meaning you have a better chance of landing on that coveted first page of Google.
This investigation will not take much time and costs nothing. But it could pay big dividends by helping you find “money words” or keywords with big upsides and fewer downsides.