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My first big "oh crap" moment.....

by newBum76
12 replies
This past week I've been really excited. Why? because I had discovered a "goldmine" of a niche (or so I thought). Using the google keyword tool, I found a keyword with 2,000 monthly searches, and ZERO competition with a search in quotes.

I found another like this. Then another. Then a lot more. One of them was even 10,000 monthly searches and only 9 competing sites! Over a few days I built up a list of about 75 keywords like this.....all with thousands of monthly searches but under 100 total competition.

I did the calculations and figured close to 100,000 visitors per month with these keywords that were mine for the taking. I was sure I had hit the jackpot and that I'd be one of those rare newbies that make 10k in their first month.

Then reality hit me. I re-read through one of my e-books (by Casey Gentles) and I saw something that I had apparently missed - the "match type" option in the google keyword tool is supposed to be set for "exact", whereas I had it at the default setting, "broad". I frantically rechecked all my goldmine keywords and to my dismay I discovered that most of them threw back "not enough data" for the monthly searches......and the ones that had any searches were mostly under 100, and a few in the 100-500 range.

Then I came to the good ol' WF to ask about it, and sure enough I was informed that doing a "broad" search brings unrealistic, inflated search results, and "exact" is more accurate.

CRAP!!!!!!! (and also a few other choice words that don't need repeating)

But you know what? I feel pretty lucky. Why? Because I learned a valuable lesson very early on in my IM career. I could have easily wasted time on several projects, then wonder months later why they didn't pull in any money.

I have several e-books outlining different article marketing strategies, and Casey Gentles is the only one that mentions doing the "exact" search in the keyword tool.

So thank you for that small but extremely important tip Casey, I'm positive you saved me a TON of grief. Time to get back to the drawing board!

Good luck to my fellow newbies out there, and thank you to the veterans for all the help you give us.

-Jon
#big #moment #oh crap
  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Devil's advocate here.

    On the other hand if you had proceeded with your plan to put up the pages and more importantly the order buttons, who knows what would have happened?



    George Wright
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    • Profile picture of the author newBum76
      Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

      Devil's advocate here.

      On the other hand if you had proceeded with your plan to put up the pages and more importantly the order buttons, who knows what would have happened?



      George Wright
      So you're saying I should proceed with those keywords anyway? Most of them are spitting back "not enough data" for monthly searches...which from my understanding means zip.
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      Now THIS is how to write a successful ebook in any niche..... even if you have ZERO writing experience!
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      • Profile picture of the author George Wright
        Originally Posted by newBum76 View Post

        So you're saying I should proceed with those keywords anyway? Most of them are spitting back "not enough data" for monthly searches...which from my understanding means zip.
        Hi,

        Actually I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is who knows what would have happened? Who knows what you would have learned? Who knows what you would have done next that might have been your goldmine that you won't do now because of your discovery.

        Just, who knows?

        Here is an example, After some eBay success and Classified ad success my first sale was my first refund.

        Here is what happened. I got a free ebook from my new host. I just wanted to practice so I put up a sales page with this ebook on it and even made my first paypal button with a price of $27.

        I forgot about this and in about 6 months I got an angry email requesting a refund. As I said I had been selling things on eBay and via classified ads so I assumed this sale was for something related to that.

        After investigation I discovered that someone from the UK had actually stumbled on my long abandoned page and purchased the eBook from my "practice page," and I had not even set up a download for the ebook. Naturally after several months of not getting the item they were angry.

        I sent the refund and an apology. But, I learned the value of an order button.

        I totally agree with Warriors like Bryan Kumer and Jason Mofatt who say, "When someone tells me they are not making money I ask them 'How many order buttons to you have up?' (loose quote)"

        That's all I'm saying. Who knows what would have happened with your pages?

        George Wright
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        "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book." Mickey Spillane
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  • Profile picture of the author Teresa Coppes
    I agree with George - you just never know that it wouldn't have been a goldmine for you. Maybe take one of those and still develop it, see where it might take you.

    Oh, and thanks for the tip myself. I need to pay more attention myself to make sure I'm doing an "exact" match as well. Thanks!

    Teresa
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    I can tell you what happened with me, way back when I first started and made this mistake.

    I spent months attempting to figure out why such AWESOME keyword phrases weren't bringing me any revenue! LOL

    D'oh! Live and learn, that's the name of the IM game! I agree - you're lucky you learned this early before you'd done a sh*t-ton of work on many sites...:p
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    Ooh, be careful here Jon!

    When using the Google Adwords Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - the matching options refer to when your Adwords ad would be triggered to show up. That's not the same as when you are at google.com and put in search terms with or without quotation marks.

    In other words, when trying to figure out which keywords are good for organic search results, you want to know how much competition you have for phrases when searched without quotation marks, because that's how the vast majority of searchers search. That's called a 'broad' search. An 'exact' search at google.com is when you put quotation marks around the phrase. That will tell you a bit more about how much competition you have in terms of other webmasters who have SEO'ed a page for that term, but it's not the search to use for figuring out how many people are actually searching for that phrase.

    I hope that makes sense. Basically, it appears you've confused when to apply 'broad' and 'exact' for paid Adwords keyword selection and when to apply them for picking keywords for an organic SEO purpose.

    John
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    • Profile picture of the author Darth Executor
      Originally Posted by Zeus66 View Post

      Ooh, be careful here Jon!

      When using the Google Adwords Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - the matching options refer to when your Adwords ad would be triggered to show up. That's not the same as when you are at google.com and put in search terms with or without quotation marks.

      In other words, when trying to figure out which keywords are good for organic search results, you want to know how much competition you have for phrases when searched without quotation marks, because that's how the vast majority of searchers search. That's called a 'broad' search. An 'exact' search at google.com is when you put quotation marks around the phrase. That will tell you a bit more about how much competition you have in terms of other webmasters who have SEO'ed a page for that term, but it's not the search to use for figuring out how many people are actually searching for that phrase.

      I hope that makes sense. Basically, it appears you've confused when to apply 'broad' and 'exact' for paid Adwords keyword selection and when to apply them for picking keywords for an organic SEO purpose.

      John
      I guess he's about to get his second big "oh crap" moment.
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    • Profile picture of the author newBum76
      Originally Posted by Zeus66 View Post

      Ooh, be careful here Jon!

      When using the Google Adwords Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - the matching options refer to when your Adwords ad would be triggered to show up. That's not the same as when you are at google.com and put in search terms with or without quotation marks.

      In other words, when trying to figure out which keywords are good for organic search results, you want to know how much competition you have for phrases when searched without quotation marks, because that's how the vast majority of searchers search. That's called a 'broad' search. An 'exact' search at google.com is when you put quotation marks around the phrase. That will tell you a bit more about how much competition you have in terms of other webmasters who have SEO'ed a page for that term, but it's not the search to use for figuring out how many people are actually searching for that phrase.

      I hope that makes sense. Basically, it appears you've confused when to apply 'broad' and 'exact' for paid Adwords keyword selection and when to apply them for picking keywords for an organic SEO purpose.

      John
      Hmm.....gotta admit, I'm a tad confused by this. Regardless of whether you're researching for adwords or SEO purposes, the google keyword tool shows how many times people search for a particular keyword in a month, (when searching in "exact" match type anyway), correct?

      Are you telling me that it IS useful to look up search volume using a "broad" match type? My purposes are finding good keywords to write articles on to drive traffic to my site.

      I really appreciate the help

      -Jon
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      Now THIS is how to write a successful ebook in any niche..... even if you have ZERO writing experience!
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  • Profile picture of the author Rueann42
    Welcome to my world! I have had a few of those moments, but keep on struggling, especially because of support from WF members. It is supposed to come together at some point. I believe it will as long as I focus and work hard. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author freudianslip27
    If you really want to get an exact feel for how many searches a term is getting and can blow a few bucks in the process, run an adwords campaign for that exact phrase and see how many impressions it gets

    Matt
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    From what I can gather, the key word tool is only a very rough estimate of the search volume. To know the real volume you need to do a trial ad buy and see how many impressions you get. And I am not sure this will always be exact as you don't know that you will get an impression with every search, especially if there are lots of competition for that ad phrase.

    I don't know all the details of how you do this, but it is explained elsewhere in the forum. I have read it a couple of times. No matter what you do, part of it is a leap of faith. You have to try a number of projects and dump the ones that don't work and run with those that do.
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