best way to find out what people are searching for?

[allen080105]

I know quality content is king when building a website, but you also want to align your keywords, titles, tags etc. with what people are searching for right? I just want to know what the best way(s) to find out what people are searching for.

[jpmcgrew]

Using a keyword tool is a good start.

Sign up for Google Adwords. They have a free keyword tool that will show you an estimate of how much traffic each keyword receives in google each month and how competitive the keyword is. It's definitely a good place to start (and free).

[allen080105]

thanks jpmcgrew. I tried the keyword tool and it looks like it would be very helpful. I guess that leads me to another question. If words/phrases are competitive then should you stay away from those words/phrases?

[Chris Cade]

Originally Posted by allen080105

thanks jpmcgrew. I tried the keyword tool and it looks like it would be very helpful. I guess that leads me to another question. If words/phrases are competitive then should you stay away from those words/phrases?

Not necessarily. That also shows you where the money is... which could be very profitable if you are able to take page one rankings.

What's the point of being the #1 ranking website for a 10-word phrase that gets 2 searches per year?

If you're going to go after a big keyword, be ready for the long-haul (1-2 years) and be diligent. In many cases, you can reach that spot but you'll also have to be building a significantly sized content-site, adding content every day, and building backlinks / etc.

For example, StevePavlina.com ranks #2 for the broad match keyword phrase "personal development" - but 4 years ago he started out with NOTHING.

There's over 85 MILLION pages out there about personal development... and Steve is at the top of that. Why? Because he committed to it.

Similarly, I've committed myself to being among the top "spiritual stories" websites... and I am. I also created a new website for Christmas stories (note, for broad match there is nearly 5 million other pages) and I am progressively building that up... I WILL get onto Page 1 for my keywords, regardless of the 5 million.... simply because I'm committing more resources to the effort than other people are. I've already taken over page 1 for some of my longer keywords.

Lastly, don't discount the power of the long-tail keyword. For example, when you search for "Christmas stories" it may take a while to dig through to find my site right now. But most of the time people who are really searching will get more specific... and the more specific they are, the more likely they are to click on your site.

Think about it. Would you rather people find your site by searching for "cell phones" or "Nokia 3160 cell phone"? Probably the latter... because that usually indicates a person who knows what they want and is probably ready to buy.

So in my case, if you instead of searching for "Christmas stories" look for "short funny Christmas stories"... yeah there's only 500,000 other pages, but my website is already on page 1 after only 1 month.

And when I look at my logs, I see a lot of traffic for those and similar keywords. Sure I get some from "Christmas stories" but almost all of my traffic is from the long 3-5 word phrases as people get more specific.

And you'll notice that in my long phrases, I still include my primary phrase "Christmas stories." This is how I know that eventually I will take over page 1 for that phrase as well... not within days or weeks like I can with long-tail keywords, but it's only a matter of time before my site is the largest, most well-known, highest-traffic Christmas stories website on the internet.

Christmas Stories of All Kinds - Inspirational, Funny, Short, Childrens, and more!

Long story short: Competitive keywords can be profitable, so don't discount them. But when you go for them, make sure you're also building a large content site that will help you get traffic from longer phrase keywords.

and do something like

[allen080105]

great info. Thank you Chris