It’s great to be kept up to date with what is happening on the net. It is a face changing world online and your blogs is always enlightening.

Thanks

I never believed ‘more is best’ for keywords, however I do believe in having a main keyword and several secondary keyword-phrases (usually long-tail or LSI) on each page. Any suggestions for selecting these?

Great and useful post. It is so easy to think that more is better and get lost in lack of clarity.
You’re so right that there is lots of work that needs to be done under the ice berg

Hi guys. I have to say your product is amazing. I found Market through the 30DC and haven’t looked back. I know much of the research can be done manually but how amazing to be able to do it at the touch of a button and so clear to understand.

With the research I have done through Market Samurai I have a few sites now on the first page of Google and getting great hits.

Thanks for the reminders in this article and for a great product.

What can I say, another super quality article.

I love the analogy of the ice-burg and concentrating more on quality rather than quantity of KW.

Cheers

Good post and advice, I rate Market Samurai as the best tool for Online Marketing in my im toolkit

[...] result they never follow through to create a complete and profitable business. Read the full post: The More Keywords The Better!? | Noble Samurai . __________________ GARRY DUFRESNE My Personal Mission Statement:…

But what do you do when your niche is too competitive and there are no other keywords that relate to your company? Just work on those 5 keywords, regardless?

On October 24th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
John Bruin replied:

Not to sound crass but find a new niche or sub area of the bigger niche.

Veronica, there’s an earlier post called “A Blueprint for SEO Competition Analysis” just a few posts down from this one which should explain what you’re looking for. It’s probably the part of MS I’m getting the most value from of late.

Here’s the URL:

http://www.noblesamurai.com/blog/seo-analysis/blueprint-seo-analysis-1047

I’m lazy, can you make it a video so I don’t have to read?

thanks

steve

To be honest, if you are not laser targeting your keywords, then you are not focusing your business on your niche correctly (thinking in a blogging format).

You really need to be picking up on a particular subject(s) regularly in some cases so your readership/customer comes to expect that you are the authority…and that subject should be your laser guided, awesome, low competition, decent traffic, nice PCI keyword

Stuart

Now just to work out the sum below, I hated maths at school ;(

All this talk of keywords has me thinking of reorganising mine now :S

Totally Agree. Most of the traffic you get will be searching for your main 2-3 keywords anyway.

I absolutely agree, you need to focus. And when it comes to competition I think you need to pay as much attention to the quality of the competition as to the quantity.

I think that there is more to it than SEO. A wide range of keywords means that there is no focused nich there – you are trying to get anything and everything. Marketers much wiser than myslef concluded long ago that this way you get nothing and no one. The keyword concentration should be the result of focusing on your specific nich, your competitive advantage, not a technical decision concerning SEO and site building effort.

If you DO have hundreds of relevant keywords in your nich, than there is perfect sense in trying to get them all – you will make more money! The effort is then irrelevant – hire the help you need, it will pay off.

Great post but what about the future of keyword research. Will your own research still be viable in the near future?
Paul

I love MS and was just wondering about this since I am new to KY stuff.

As always, great info from the folks at Market Samurai!

This is a superb posting; simple and to the point. I used to get overwhelmed with keywords and thought I needed a ton of them to make it online. I’ve come to find out in my past finding and with confirmation from this article that this is not true.

I agree. Things has changed to the iceberg approach.

And yes, with MS we can find those keywords according to the criterias, what I am concerning about is how to do a good On-page/Off-page SEO and building backlinks?

If you can further elaborate about that it will be very good.

Anyway, thanks for this article.

Great article – simple and to the point. If only everything was this easy.

Keep ‘em coming.

Regards to all at M S.

PS The best Tool in the business.

Very good information. I think I am still in the shotgun era, trying to stay afloat on the tip of the iceberg but its melting.

Awesome content, just reconfirms what I am doing now. And your software makes it that much easier.

Excelente artículo, un enfoque para poner en práctica ahora mismo.

Market Samurai es excelente, siguiendo sus estrategias posicioné mi página y palabra principal en primer lugar en menos de dos meses.

Gracias, muchos éxitos.

Erik

monthly traffic > 3000
competing websites < 30000
Badly optimised top 10 sites
Got it, thank you!

Excelente Article. How about an example done with MS? And how can MS help to create an LSI-optimized template and LSI-optimized content?

A video with an example would be very helpful.

thanks to Ed and 30DC for introducing to noble samurai. I found so many marketing online that I looked at using these techniques for Google local search for local business’s with a website and no traffic.

Is there a separate strategy for choosing SEO keywords Vs. PPC keywords? I would love to see a future article about that…

Thanks,

Justin Eckrich

Interesting post. I think I agree with it having tried the paralysis by analysis route. Only to find that many of the “excess” keywords don’t result in PPC clicks for example.

The difficulty with the 5-10 keyword approach is finding the right ones. e.g. it’s not just about traffic or their competitiveness it’s also about whether they include some form of “intent”.

I think MS is generally superb by the way. However, I do think it could be improved in terms of the long tail keywords. Other than using Analytics to see what people actually search on (Surprising!) I have yet to find anything really good for the long tail keyword. Any suggestions?

More to think about; more to learn; another great article from you lot. Keep it up!!!

One problematic idea that I keep seeing repeated over and over is the the idea of finding keywords that have descent traffic and low competing pages…with numbers given out that are somewhere less than 50,000 on a phrase match search.

The problem is that these terms are becoming less and less available as time goes on and marketers try desperately to hunt for them. The problem becomes even more of an issue if you are targeting any type of “product” keyword…which just so happens to be the kind of keyword you need to rank for if you are going to setup an online store or an ebay affiliate store.

“Info” keywords can be found easy enough for those that want to develop a blog-style site and sling traffic to Adsense or other affiliate programs…but how long will that last?

The “low competition” keywords are not infinite…and the days of hunting for them are soon over.

In three or four years people are still going to be pushing this idea…but by then the only “low hanging fruit” left will only be available to those who are willing to learn a different language and mine keywords and build sites targeted at other language groups.

Like always…Great Info and Great Product. Market Samurai has saved us hundreds of hours of research time. Can’t say thanks enough!

I love your image and concept of the iceberg principle. You make it so easy to see and understand.

I think most people are scared because of the WORK that you have to do but the real gold is in the follow up.

Once you run with a small group of targeted keywords your analytics will give you the real gold and then you enter the area of KEYWORD PIMPIN’.

It’s just like the recent FTC scare. All the people who aren’t willing to step-it-up will have to step aside and allow more room for us.

You guys at MS know your stuff and provide some great insights. Thanks

Great post! The Iceberg Principle is a great analogy of how the traffic generation part of online business should be viewed.

Do you agree that optimizing for 2nd tier keywords first before optimizing for the more competitive keywords will actually give the webmaster an easier time optimizing for the more competitive keywords when once the site is optimized for its 2nd tier keywords?

Thanks for the article which is spot on, I love the iceberg diagram as well. Keywords and seo competition are usually paid lip service but with your tool there is really no excuse for not getting it 100% right first time. Love the product, thanks.

The one thing that constantly amazes me is the fear of keywords that have lots of competition. I see it stressed almost everywhere and by almost everyone. Sheesh, it’s really not that big a deal.

Lol, you should try some adult searches where there are keywords with over a BILLION websites. 30K competition isn’t really any competition at all. I suppose that’s the point for newbies so it probably makes my amazement a moot point.

With minimal effort you should be able to kick butt even with 100K competition. Even A million isn’t all that tough. Most sites are put up by amateurs and they have no clue if they are ranked or why.

Not that what you wrotedoesn’t work, it will. I believe we scare people by telling them how tough the competition is and keep them from trying for more or worse yet teach them to fear anything with over 30K competition.

On October 23rd, 2009 at 6:52 am
Ciscko replied:

Amen brother ( or sister)!

Everybody says 30,000 but as somebody else mention, it is for the lazy one who don’t want to put up the effort.

Now days it is possible to rank for more “competitive” keywords.
A little research can have you in page one or two with little effort.

I agree – it would definately NOT be possible to do ALL those tasks for too many keywords. Excellent article.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions on market research and Market Samurai tips. Your keyword tool is the best, a real time saver. Wish I would have gotten MS sooner.

Mike

This is a great AND valuable article!Which proclaims a functional mind set ….. the mind set being!

Get 5-10 keywords PHRASES that have the following :

(1) Highly relevant to the niche.

(2) Traffic eg. 100/200 visitors a day

(3) They have competition about 30000/5oooo competing web pages
in phrase match – “dog training tricks”; not- dog training tricks -

(4) They have low strength of competition ie. The top 10 sites in

Google are not well optimized eg weak back-links [ THIS FACILITY in m/s is just beyond great.]
well as we have all spoken” really thanx” you didn’t have too put this post here ,but you did ,,,looking to-wards your adword release.

What? does it mean my strategy is not working anymore???

seriously, thanks for the update and a great reminder too.

Nice article, all is to be applied.

Hum…. I’m just wondering if your iceberg is upside down.

I know it’s not so important, but turn it the right way and it should likely illustrate a better way your article.

Continue on guys, I’m a fan of yours and a happy Market Samurai User !

Yes, so many forget about the off page SEO and that you need to get anchor text links to your site.

Love the graphic of the iceburg as that really shows that most of the work is below the surface.

Great article

More on this please: “Once you have identified and selected your target keywords, redirect your focus to the on-page and off-page SEO tasks . . .

Every little helps and days of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks are gone. Havent done adwords for a while and focus more on MSNads. I have noticed some movements in my ranking in the SERPS when I implemented some on page optimisation.

Thanks for sharing

Great article and we are starting to see some result for targeting specific keywords, super competitive market but doing what you have listed above we are slowly getting there.

Ah, for the good old days of 2003.
I have to smile remembering back in 2000 reading articles entitled “Is it too late for Newbies?”
I nearly gave up then.

The game certainly has changed. In my experience listening to the experts and what Google are up to can lead to success. In some markets though, the theory of 300,000 or less competing pages I feel isn’t always rule of thumb. I’ve found within my industry some competitors under certain keywords have a website that is just ridiculous, is NOT well optimized and should be in the #1 spot out of 4 million competing pages. But they are!
Some markets will never show fewer then 300,000 competing pages with keywords that are considered “the sweet spot” vs the amount of searches the keyword gets.
But I do agree with what this article is saying. Have a point of reference is better then going in blind.

Thanks for that – quality information. I had never actually thought of it that way. I have got some work to do now.

[...] a nicely crafted article that explains the new reality regarding keyword strategy and research. Bye for [...]

Thanks for sharing excellent content! I love the visual of the iceberg.

Totally agree with this. Having managed large AdWords campaigns, the 80/20 rule applies. 20% of keywords generate 80% of traffic. Focus on the 20% with PPC and SEO and you’ll profit long term.

Very good, the article was very clear an concise, thanks for the good work.

Novelltrade

Excellent written and explained. I could not have said it better! Google wants webmasters to put more effort in their websites so they can deliver better search results… and make more money! But hey; 5 years ago we had to put so much more time in creating a website. Now that we have WordPress and other Content Management Systems, we can easily spend some more time on optimizing keywords. I, for my part, love better search results!

The thing is, and this is another way of looking at it – each keyword brings in some traffic from the search engines. So, doesn’t this mean that the more keywords you have, which bring in small numbers of vistors, the more your visitor count will go up to higher levels?

Yes, I know we have heard about the iceberg princilple in many other subjects 20%/80% rule,etc etc they all quote the same kind of reasons, but no matter, each keyword you have will bring in some traffic and so build up your visitor count.

200 keywords at 1 or 2 vistitors per day will bring in more than just one keyword at 80 visitors per day, and by the way, not many people get to number 1 in Google to see that traffic of 80 per day.

Any responses to that alternative viewpoint?

Thanks for the great article. This certainly opened my eyes.

Thanks for the article, you guys are great not only is market samurai a great tool to use but you guys even write very useful blog posts.

When I first started out, I felt that the more keywords the better. I did this not really understanding how Search Engines work. Thanks to years of trial and error I seem to be getting better. Thanks mainly to sites like this one and some courses I’ve purchased along the way.

I have a question for you Anthony. There’s a mixture of ideas and statements here divided between SEO traffic projects and PPC landing pages, which are two different purposes, strategies, and indeed different Google algorithms measuring each.

If I take your overall message to mean… choose only a few higher traffic keywords(>100 daily) with doable competition(10 daily) whereby we treat each long tail keyword as a “main keyword” with its own page.

This is where I ask for more info. Quote:
“In the early days of Internet marketing, if you placed a large number of related keywords on a page or included them in Meta and Alt tags you could often get rankings that led to traffic.”

Assuming this statement refers to SEO traffic where the page owner hopes for “free” traffic from searches, are you referring here to targeting a single page for many different Main keywords? If so, that’s something we shouldn’t do anyway, at least in my own experience… one main keyword-one page is the strategy of choice, along with adding related keywords to each page.

Are you really suggesting that SEO projects restrict a domain/site to only pages focused on keywords that offer >100 searches daily?

Having said all this, I’m hoping for a reply. I currently have quite a few long tail pages that still do quite nicely with SEO traffic in very low competition areas. It’s a numbers game of course, but small starts to matter when the multiplier effect compounds the total annual return on all those long tail pages combined.

I don’t ignore the ideal goal for SEO should be targeted traffic that leads to monetization either. But, in my experience, all pages that are rewarded with traffic drives up the overall domain ranking and trust factor. So, even when the visitor isn’t going to add to my bank account, there is benefit overall from building that low-traffic long tail page. And you can often get lateral click-thrus to another domain page with monetization potential… quite often actually if you design your page properly.

I completely agree that every keyword for SEO is a footrace that only 10 people can win by attaining the first page. I completely agree that there are many, many onpage SEO factors too… some experts estimate over 500 in the total SEO algorithm. But I’ve found that very low competition also means that those people in the race with you do little or no onpage seo, so the battle is easier won with that type of competition.

“tiny blue lefthand widgets”

…exists in its own universe for searches and also in the Google index. That is a single footrace for the annual searches for that phrase. In my experience, with an aged domain/site with a good trust factor… a page focused on that phrase exclusively very often beats out the pages for “lefthand widgets” even on the high authority domains for widgets. Because Google still seems to reward the exact phrase optimized in tag and other onpage SEO factors much higher than the “lefthand widgets” pages in the index. They will typically show in the SERPS below any pages optimized with the exact phrase

If I target that keyword on a single page for SEO, I’m ignoring the searches for blue widgets, or lefthand widgets, and even tiny pink lefthand widgets. And if the investment is low and the page can produce some monetization, that’s Okay in a long tail strategy as long as the investment is low.

I’m not advocating “page sculpting” for long tails at all. Just do a lot of them knowing there is almost nil competition.

And I suspect that is the message you wish to convey… to choose higher traffic and page sculpting to a degree on all levels, which is an excellent strategy as well. Just depends on which horse you want to ride.

Finally, since I signed on with Market Samurai on the very first day you launched… I will gladly say that MS is my tool of choice and I own 23 of them. MS works for my SEO strategies and my PPC strategies by analysing the google data better and faster than anyone else.

I strongly recommend that anyone give MS a try if you aren’t using it, and don’t forget to begin each keyword session with a single purpose in mind to serve the strategy you have chosen. its very easy to get lost in the numbers, calculations, and the myriad streams of advice you get.

Just remember that Google does everything with the single goal to deliver the most relevant results to every searcher, SEO or PPC. The money follows Google because most of the world goes to Google to search expecting to get fast relevant results… and they do that consistently using Google.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have learned from you guys and I really appreciate it. I love my Market Samurai and it has made a huge difference in my business. thank you

Great article and some good advice, I have done exactly this with my most successful website and can say that this method does work. However once you have succeeded with these core keywords, it is then important to look towards other keywords to continue grow your business.

Great post. It is remarkable how the Internet is an ever changing animal. In fact I think that is one of the major problems for newbies.
What worked once, no longer has the same impact now. In this world of information overload it is really important to find a valuable source of up to date info that you can trust.

Andy Beveridge

This, as always from you guys, is really good stuff. I find though that more and more I am pushing strength of competition to the top of my list. After all it doesn’t matter that much, imho, if you have 1,000 or 1,000,000 competing pages if the top 10 spots are really well optimised or absolute garbage.
In other words I find my keywords first then check out the top 10 and don’t really worry about the number of competing pages.
Seems to be working for me.

Thanks
Sandra

I am mainly active as internet marketing specialist in the Dutch market. Here still lots of companies do not even use meta tags of any kind. Then a big part of the pie is using ‘keyword stuffing’-techniques… A small part is doing SEM the right way.

Nice article. Thanks

“Once you have identified and selected your target keywords, redirect your focus to the on-page and off-page SEO tasks necessary to transform your keywords into genuine traffic-generating assets for your business.”

Can you submit some more information – in as much detail as possible – on your blog explaining and showing the way to set about on-page and off-page SEO tasks?

I experienced that 1 to 3 keywords is not enough, maybe (also) because of the way people are searching. Finding the right keywords one should think about: Who should be visiting my website or blog? What might they be looking for? What words and phrases might they use?
This is why a few keywords is better than too few or too many.

I agree with you and the group about the analysis of niche keywords. working on hundreds or thousands of keywords are very tiring and boring and eventually tend to not focus and decrease struggling spirit. I also add about your laser theory of internal/external linking are important as well. But not the PPC yet…

I have the MS for 2 months now and think it is great. keep up the good work.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for sharing…I think targeting specific keywords is the go and I’ve had great success doing so for my clients…another valuable tip I have is to use the same phrase in title and h1

Great post. I have been told that five keywords are the max that you should target on any single webpage. That SE’s penalise pages with any more than that. Does that fit with your thinking?

An awesome read. You’ve isolated exactly what works in keyword research in one post!

I have viewed the video on how to set up the keyword searches in MS, but wish they would give a more intensive video on what each selection means and why and what values should be given to each selection (i.e., pbr, seoc).

Maybe I am the only one, but I still find doing keywords searches in MS overwhelming, although I like the product a lot I still get the feeling I am not fully utilizing it to its maximum capabilities.

For instance one place says SEOC competition 100,000, then I read 50,000 and now 30,000. Similar to PBR; the video I watched said put in 15 but I have no clue as to why I am using this value.

I would love a webinar so that we can build keyword lists and ask specific questions while doing it and know how to figure out if the results I am getting for a specific keyword is a “go” or “no go.”

If there are any MS experts out there that can patiently help me make sense of this please, please contact me. info(at sign)vitalityrich(dot)com!

Thanks

Stacey

I love the Market Samurai. I have been using it for a couple of months now and it is great!
I totally agree about the keywords. I much rather find 5 great longtail keywords to work with and concentrate on getting traffic with. That is also even more effective when it comes to Local Marketing and Local Search. You can find goldmines! Just look at “atlanta hotel reservations” has an exact search of 110,000 per month according to the google keyword tool. 3 words might not be all that longtail, but with a search that high I would not say no to it if i were in the hotel niche:)
Anyway, thanks for a great article and a great tool to use!
Jan Riley

Thank you for your great, useful, very important information! I love Market Samurai!

I’ve seen things change, as you said, over the past few years. I wish it hadn’t changed. It was easier back then. But no matter how much I wish, that does not change reality. So iceberg approach, it is. Thank you for MS which helps us a great deal with that. Your work and updated information is greatly appreciated.

Great outline on what works in keyword application today. This is no small matter from the folks whom I consider to have devloped the best keyword support and research tool on the market! Keep up the good work.

Great infos and very helpfull article greetings from Greece drossos cheap hand made carpets

Samurai team thanks for the info. I love this software and they updated info you keep providing us. I still learn but light years ahead of my competition.

I wish I could get my clients to understand this principal!
You couldn’t be more right.