A guide to Keyword research when you think that there are no niches left!
- SEO |
I'm new to the Warrior forum and so don't know if this has been posted many times, but have seen at least a couple of comments from people saying they can't find a niche that hasn't been saturated.
I thought I'd see what I could come up with, off the bat so to speak and this is a quick guide to the steps I took and the results, all within the last couple of hours.
It is best to sign up for a Google Adwords account, so that you can get up to 800 results back from each search, rather than 100. But, you don't have to, don't let it delay your research.
Go to (not allowed to post link, as I've made too few posts) or just type 'google keyword tool' into google search and you'll find it.
If you aren't logged into an Adwords account, you will have a Captcha to fill in before you can get results.
First set the parameters you will work with, to get results quicker and to keep figures clear.
In 'Columns' at the right hand side of results table select 'Global Monthly' and 'Estimated Avg. CPC' only and click 'Save' then close box.
Press the + by 'Advanced Options' and under 'Locations and languages' select 'All Countries' and 'English' - this is assuming you are targeting global/English market, under 'Filter keywords' choose the 'Global Monthly searches' and greater than 500 or whatever you wish as your minimum. At the moment I go for 500, just in case I notice useful backup keywords to use even though the searches are a bit low. Click the - to close selection box.
Leave the keywords box blank and click 'Search', you'll get a no results found message, in the Left hand column, under Match Types, deselect 'Broad' and select 'Exact'.
You're now ready for action!
Enter your keyword in the 'word or phrase' box (in my example, the classic: dog training) and click Search.
With 'dog training' as my keyword I get 359 results. Download these to your desktop as a CSV file, using the little download button at top left of the results list. Give this file a relevant name (eg keyword_ideas_dog training.csv) so that you easily keep track of what's inside each file. This is the first tiny step in finding your keywords, so exciting!
You have 2 options now, you can leave the number of searches listed as the default (by relevance), or click the 'Global Monthly Searches' column heading to sort by volume high to low. It sometimes depends upon the niche topic as to which is the most appropriate and in fact you can do both ways, to lead you down quite different paths. For this example I'm going to head down the high to low listing, as I think it will provide a much broader insight into the possibilities.
I prefer to then open a new tab or window with the GKWT and repeat the setting up of parameters for my search, so that I can keep the original as a quick reference while I search. You can repeat this with following sets of results, if you wish to keep searching through the top results of multiple pages.
Now work your way through at least the top 10 or 20 of the results that show for 'dog training', using each keyword as a new search.
This can be repeated to whatever degree you wish, for each of the subsequent sets of results.
OK, so I did this and for the purpose of doing a quick example, only searched 10 sets of results. The total number of keywords returned was 4,297, many of which will be duplicates. As you can see, if I'd gone down multiple avenues I could literally find myself with 100,000+ results.
Now, here is where I cheat a little, because I've recently discovered Niche Refinery where I can upload the information and even as I type this it is processing the data for me, a few minutes and it has analysed almost 90% of the keywords - sometimes it takes several hours, supposedly can be up to 72 hours if a lot to do. I guess there are other alternatives doing a similar thing.
Anyway, it is showing that I have 2,536 unique keywords from that lot, about 60% of the total returned, which is fairly good I think.
The hard, but possible, way would be to go through all the Google data yourself in a spreadsheet. Find keywords that look promising and start checking the competition etc. That is another topic, don't want this to turn into a book!
It is less than an hour since I started this niche search, along with writing up the process as I go along and because I'm impatient, I'll check results so far and end this post for now.
If I filter the results (in Niche Refinery) to find which of the keywords from the top 4 results in Google have a maximum page rank PR2 (therefore probably easy to compete with) and minimum searches (remember these are exact) of 800/month, I get 118 results.
Looking through these I can see a few possible keywords to delve into. For example 'Long Haired German Shepherd' shows 2,400 searches and the .org and .net domains are available as I write (so, go get one, if it is a niche that interests you and that you will actually set up). The .com has been taken by one of those despicable speculators and is sitting for sale, long may it remain so!!!
For the sake of this example, I would then make further checks to see if it looks like a niche I wish to work upon. I'd go back to GKWT and check that the searches are coming from countries where I might expect to be able to monetise the site. So, I return to GKWT and enter my keyword, then select the 'Only show ideas ...' box just underneath and click Search. In the results table, click on the little magnifying glass to the right and a page opens to give you more info, here it shows that the US/UK are source of searches. Interestingly on results page, I can also see that 'long haired german shepherd puppies' gets 1,300 exact searches/month.
I now need to check more into the competition, I tend to look at the top 3 or 5 only, because I'd rather work on a site that is going to be in the top spot, not on bottom half of the front page. To do this, I use a free tool like SEOquake to check more regarding competitor backlinks etc, again too much to cover in this post, which is already much longer than intended.
If you're not sure about monetising a site, see how many Adwords adverts show on Google (8 in the right hand side and 3 above the results is brilliant) when you search for your keyword. Look at similar sites, like another breed, and see what they are doing.
Blue Pitbulls has 18,100 searches and Blue Pitbull Puppies has 4,400, so would think there may be possibilities there. The .com/org/net are all taken, but badly used, so going for another domain suffix wouldn't place you at any disadvantage.
Have to stop here, but hope this is of use to those who think there are no niches left, as I've only scratched the surface (alright dug a little) into this one and it is in an already well researched subject (dog training) by others.
I thought I'd see what I could come up with, off the bat so to speak and this is a quick guide to the steps I took and the results, all within the last couple of hours.
It is best to sign up for a Google Adwords account, so that you can get up to 800 results back from each search, rather than 100. But, you don't have to, don't let it delay your research.
Go to (not allowed to post link, as I've made too few posts) or just type 'google keyword tool' into google search and you'll find it.
If you aren't logged into an Adwords account, you will have a Captcha to fill in before you can get results.
First set the parameters you will work with, to get results quicker and to keep figures clear.
In 'Columns' at the right hand side of results table select 'Global Monthly' and 'Estimated Avg. CPC' only and click 'Save' then close box.
Press the + by 'Advanced Options' and under 'Locations and languages' select 'All Countries' and 'English' - this is assuming you are targeting global/English market, under 'Filter keywords' choose the 'Global Monthly searches' and greater than 500 or whatever you wish as your minimum. At the moment I go for 500, just in case I notice useful backup keywords to use even though the searches are a bit low. Click the - to close selection box.
Leave the keywords box blank and click 'Search', you'll get a no results found message, in the Left hand column, under Match Types, deselect 'Broad' and select 'Exact'.
You're now ready for action!
Enter your keyword in the 'word or phrase' box (in my example, the classic: dog training) and click Search.
With 'dog training' as my keyword I get 359 results. Download these to your desktop as a CSV file, using the little download button at top left of the results list. Give this file a relevant name (eg keyword_ideas_dog training.csv) so that you easily keep track of what's inside each file. This is the first tiny step in finding your keywords, so exciting!
You have 2 options now, you can leave the number of searches listed as the default (by relevance), or click the 'Global Monthly Searches' column heading to sort by volume high to low. It sometimes depends upon the niche topic as to which is the most appropriate and in fact you can do both ways, to lead you down quite different paths. For this example I'm going to head down the high to low listing, as I think it will provide a much broader insight into the possibilities.
I prefer to then open a new tab or window with the GKWT and repeat the setting up of parameters for my search, so that I can keep the original as a quick reference while I search. You can repeat this with following sets of results, if you wish to keep searching through the top results of multiple pages.
Now work your way through at least the top 10 or 20 of the results that show for 'dog training', using each keyword as a new search.
This can be repeated to whatever degree you wish, for each of the subsequent sets of results.
OK, so I did this and for the purpose of doing a quick example, only searched 10 sets of results. The total number of keywords returned was 4,297, many of which will be duplicates. As you can see, if I'd gone down multiple avenues I could literally find myself with 100,000+ results.
Now, here is where I cheat a little, because I've recently discovered Niche Refinery where I can upload the information and even as I type this it is processing the data for me, a few minutes and it has analysed almost 90% of the keywords - sometimes it takes several hours, supposedly can be up to 72 hours if a lot to do. I guess there are other alternatives doing a similar thing.
Anyway, it is showing that I have 2,536 unique keywords from that lot, about 60% of the total returned, which is fairly good I think.
The hard, but possible, way would be to go through all the Google data yourself in a spreadsheet. Find keywords that look promising and start checking the competition etc. That is another topic, don't want this to turn into a book!
It is less than an hour since I started this niche search, along with writing up the process as I go along and because I'm impatient, I'll check results so far and end this post for now.
If I filter the results (in Niche Refinery) to find which of the keywords from the top 4 results in Google have a maximum page rank PR2 (therefore probably easy to compete with) and minimum searches (remember these are exact) of 800/month, I get 118 results.
Looking through these I can see a few possible keywords to delve into. For example 'Long Haired German Shepherd' shows 2,400 searches and the .org and .net domains are available as I write (so, go get one, if it is a niche that interests you and that you will actually set up). The .com has been taken by one of those despicable speculators and is sitting for sale, long may it remain so!!!
For the sake of this example, I would then make further checks to see if it looks like a niche I wish to work upon. I'd go back to GKWT and check that the searches are coming from countries where I might expect to be able to monetise the site. So, I return to GKWT and enter my keyword, then select the 'Only show ideas ...' box just underneath and click Search. In the results table, click on the little magnifying glass to the right and a page opens to give you more info, here it shows that the US/UK are source of searches. Interestingly on results page, I can also see that 'long haired german shepherd puppies' gets 1,300 exact searches/month.
I now need to check more into the competition, I tend to look at the top 3 or 5 only, because I'd rather work on a site that is going to be in the top spot, not on bottom half of the front page. To do this, I use a free tool like SEOquake to check more regarding competitor backlinks etc, again too much to cover in this post, which is already much longer than intended.
If you're not sure about monetising a site, see how many Adwords adverts show on Google (8 in the right hand side and 3 above the results is brilliant) when you search for your keyword. Look at similar sites, like another breed, and see what they are doing.
Blue Pitbulls has 18,100 searches and Blue Pitbull Puppies has 4,400, so would think there may be possibilities there. The .com/org/net are all taken, but badly used, so going for another domain suffix wouldn't place you at any disadvantage.
Have to stop here, but hope this is of use to those who think there are no niches left, as I've only scratched the surface (alright dug a little) into this one and it is in an already well researched subject (dog training) by others.
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kezan98 -
Thanks
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Heimir Finnson -
Thanks - 1 reply
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Key Largo -
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wingman7 -
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