Golden Rule #1: How to Find Relevant Keywords
Video Transcript
In this lesson we’ll be exploring the process of Keyword Research. Specifically we’ll be looking at:
(1) Understanding the keyword research process
(2) The Four Golden Rules of keyword research
(3) How to use Market Samurai to generate a list of relevant keywords
Understanding the keyword research process
A great way to understand the process of keyword research is to compare it with the process of panning for gold. In the days of the Gold Rush, prospectors would take their gold pans down to a river and scoop up a collection of rocks, dirt, and sand.
Initially they would discard the large rocks that were clearly not relevant and then they would swirl their pan to separate out the heavy gold from the lighter sediment. At the end of this filtering process, they would hopefully be left with a few nuggets of gold at the bottom of their pan.
The process of keyword research is very similar. You begin by selecting a niche to explore which is the equivalent of choosing a river to prospect.
You then generate a large number of keywords relating to your niche which is like scooping up a collection of rocks, dirt and sand.
Then you can use a tool such as Market Samurai to filter out the good keywords from the bad.
At the end of this process you will hopefully be left with a few ‘gold nugget’ keywords.
The obvious question then becomes - What are the characteristics of a gold nugget keyword?
Our analysis has led us to develop four golden rules for identifying the best keywords to target in your online business.
The Four Golden Rules of Keyword Research
The four golden rules are:
(1) Relevance
(2) Traffic
(3) Competition
(4) Commerciality
A gold nugget keyword is highly relevant to the content on your website, it has a good level of traffic, it has acceptable levels of competition and has a high level of commerciality.
We’ll be exploring each of these in more detail, but for now, let’s take a look at the first golden rule - Relevance.
The First Golden Rule - Relevance
Relevance is something that many people often overlook in their excitement to get their business up and running as quickly as possible.
The fact of the matter is that if you target irrelevant keywords you may obtain a top ranking in google and you may even generate a lot of traffic to your website.
However, if the content of your website is not relevant to the keywords you’ve targeted, then the people who visit your site will probably not be interested in what they find.
In this scenario, you may end up with a lot of traffic and a big bill from your hosting company but very few sales.
It’s important to realize that the secret to online success is not just ‘Traffic’
The real secret is ‘Targeted Traffic’
So, according to the first golden rule of keyword research, you should always start by identifying the keywords that are most relevant to the content on your website.
Let’s take a moment now to see how this works in the real world using Market Samurai.
Create project
In this example I’d like to show you how to generate a list of keywords relating to a niche and how to refine your list to make it as relevant as possible to the content on your website.
To begin I’ll create a new project and I’ll use the well worn Internet marketing example of ‘dog training’
Select Keyword Research module
Now because I want to generate a list of keywords relating to my niche I’ll select the Keyword Research module.
Click Generate Keywords button
And to generate my initial list of keywords, all I have to do is come over here and click the ‘Generate Keywords’ button.
Enter CAPTCHA
I enter a captcha, and click the submit button.
Review keyword list
Market Samurai then generates a list of keywords relating to my seed keyword ‘dog training’. Going back to out prospecting analogy, this is the equivalent of scooping up a pan containing rocks, dirt, sand and hopefully some gold nugget keywords.
Now as I mentioned, the first golden rule of keyword research is relevance.
Market Samurai provides you with several ways to improve the relevance of your keyword list.
Remove irrelevant keywords
The simplest way to eliminate irrelevant keywords is to scroll through the list and if there is a keyword that is clearly not relevant to you, just click on the cross icon to remove it from your phrase list.
For example the phrase ‘crate training’ is probably not going to be relevant to my dog training website so I’ll click the cross and eliminate that keyword.
Negative keywords
You can also use negative keywords to eliminate all phrases containing a particular word that you’re not interested in.
For example, let’s imagine that I’m not interested in dog collars. All I have to do is
(1) Click on the word ‘collar’ (You’ll notice that the program underlines the word to show that it’s selected)
(2) Click on the cross icon
The word ‘collar’ is now listed in the negative keyword area and all keyword phrases that include the word ‘collar’ have been filtered out of my list. In this case 4 extra phrases have been removed.
One thing I should point out is that if you want to eliminate the words ‘collar’ and ‘collars’ with an ‘s’, you will need to add them as two separate negative keywords.
Show Removed
If you ever want to see the phrases that have been removed, you can come down here and click the Show Removed option.
Positive keywords
The second way to improve the relevance of your keyword list is to identify positive keyword phrases.
This will eliminate all phrases except those containing a particular word.
For example, imagine that I was only interested in keyword phrases containing the word behavior.
All I have to do is
(1) Select the keyword ‘behavior’
(2) Click the tick icon.
The word ‘behavior’ is added to my positive keyword list and you can see that Market Samurai has now filtered out all of the keyword phrases except those that contain the keyword behavior.
Clearing filters
Now I don’t actually want to use these filters at the moment so I’ll just click the ‘Clear’ button here and here to remove my positive and negative keyword filters.
Manually adding keywords
The next way I can modify my keyword list is to add keywords manually.
To add a keyword, all I have to do is type it into the Add Keywords area and click the ‘Add Keywords’ button.
Phrase length filter
Now the next way to improve the relevance of my keyword list is to use the phrase length filter.
Let’s say for example that I’m only interested in targeting phrases that contain three or more keywords.
All I have to do is change the phrase length filter from 1 to 3 and you can now see that I’ve filtered out 32 keywords and all my phrases now contain at least 3 keywords.
For the sake of this example, I’ll just reset this to 1 for now.
Click the Analyze Keywords button
Having generated a list of keywords and eliminated the keywords that are not specifically relevant to my website, I can now come down here and click the ‘Analyze Keywords’ button.
Access the Analysis panel
This takes me to the Analysis panel. If I ever want to return to the generate keywords screen, all i have to do is click the Modify Keywords button.
Phrase to Broad Match Ratio
We’ll be exploring this panel in much more detail in future videos but for now I want to focus on the final aspect of Relevance which is the Phrase To Broad Match ratio or PBR.
Example of misleading keyword phrase
Google generally does a pretty good job in returning keywords that are relevant to our original seed keyword. However, occasionally Google returns the words in the wrong order. If I scroll down towards the bottom of this list you’ll see here that Google has returned the phrase ‘dog train’. In reality, it is much more likely that people are searching for the phrase ‘train dog’ rather than ‘dog train’
When Google returns misleading keyword phrases, the big problem is that sometimes, people can find these types of phrases and think they have found an untapped niche.
They then build an entire business focusing on a phrase like ‘dog train’ only to find that they do not obtain the results they were expecting because very few people are actually typing ‘dog train’ into the search engines.
To overcome this problem, we developed the concept of the Phrase To Broad match ratio. In a future video we’ll go into the detail of how PBR is calculated, but for now, the important thing to understand is that PBR is a way to eliminate those misleading and dangerous keyword phrases that Google can sometimes return.
Click Phrase to Broad Checkbox
So the first thing I’ll do is come up here and click the phrase to broad match checkbox.
The lower the PBR, the more likely it is that a phrase contains words in the wrong order.
As you can see here, the term ‘dog train’ has a PBR of 6% which means that it is not really a phrase that people are typing into the search engines.
Set PBR to 15%
In our experience, we’ve found that setting a PBR filter of 15% is a great way to eliminate any misleading keyword phrases. So I’ll just:
(1) Click on the plus sign next to Phrase-to-Broad
(2) Enter 15
(3) Click the ‘Refresh Filters’ button.
This should now eliminate any misleading phrases and leaves us with a high quality list of keywords which we can then analyze in detail.
Summary
So, just to recap,
In this lesson we introduced the 4 golden rules of keyword research and identified that gold nugget keywords have the following characteristics: They are relevant, they have good levels of traffic, acceptable levels of competition and high levels of commerciality.
We then looked at the 1st golden rule which was relevance and found that once you’ve generated your initial list of keywords, Market Samurai provides you with several ways to improve the relevance of your keyword list.
These include:
(1) Removing irrelevant keywords
(2) Using negative keywords
(3) Using positive keywords
(4) Adding keywords manually
(5) Using the phrase length filter
And finally on the Analysis panel - Setting a Phrase to Broad match filter of 15 to eliminate any misleading keyword phrases from Google.
As you can see, using these tools within Market Samurai you can generate a list of targeted keywords that are highly relevant to the market or niche that you’re exploring.
Search
More Keyword Research Lessons
- Introduction to Keyword Research
- Golden Rule #1: How to Find Relevant Keywords
- Golden Rule #2: How to Find High Traffic Keywords
- Golden Rule #3: How to Assess Market Competition
- Golden Rule #4: How to Assess Commerciality
- Golden Rules Case Study
- Finding Long Tail Keywords
- Understanding Match Type Data
- How to Avoid Targeting the Wrong Keywords
I am constantly amazed at how much this software will do and how much that I am learning about how to properly use it. These videos are exactly what is needed to learn to use the software properly I feel. Thank You!
Ok.. Now we have the Keywords. What is the best layout of the site with the keywords that we now have.. Can you show that from start to finish. Idea to end. Just a thought i want to make sure i am doing it right. I have a site that I am having a hard time getting on the frot page with the home page..
Very nice! I'm looking forward to some of the more indepth training modules.
Thanks,
Jim
p.s. your team has always provided outstanding training.
Good start to the training - I'm looking forward to some further explanation on what criteria to use to identify a profitable niche. As a newbie, who has already made some basic errors,I think this is the key area in actually making any money out of internet marketing.
I have also already spent money on 'helpful' products but Market Samurai is the most value for money I've found - can't wait to get to know how to use it properly!
Absolutely solid teaching! It couldn't be any clearer!
They really needed you to do the teaching.
Great Job Anthony!!
Thank you for this additional training. Dr. Anthony is a fantastic presenter and makes everything so clear and easy to follow.
I have been using MS since for about as long as it has been in existence and I still learned new material from this video. There is always more to learn with this wonderful tool.
I am stoked about these training videos from Dr. Anthony, I can't hardly wait for the next one to come out.
And thank you for the PDF.
Julie
Good video. Easy to follow.
Wow! Great video. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up the great work.
Siddique
http://www.trcb.net
Loved this new video. It's very simple and easy to follow. I have 3 sites I'm working on and it's funny but I wanted to go thru this again:) I also wanted to see if anything has changed.
Another great piece of instruction. I feel as though I now know the reason behind the PBR ratio. I have been using it without really knowing why. The example of Dog Train as compared to Train Dog was really helpful in explaining this
http://www.onesherpa.com
Hello have a nice day.
Hildebrand'm from Brazil, I know the mining literally.
I found a brilliant comparison, congratulations.
I am very excited and look forward to the next topic.
Another superb training video. Good work!
Excellent presentation all the way around! Looking forward to #2. Thank you!
Excellent training! The video transcript means that you can work through the screen shots & PPT slides as you go; rather than downloading, playing and pausing the video.
Thanks Anthony.
Great job.
I use MS all the time and I had no idea that I could back to the generate keywords screen by clicking on the Modify keywords button.
That little "gold nugget" will help me quite a bit.
Don
I had the chance to go through this information before but now I have absolutely clear picture what to do and how to do this step correctly. Thank you, your training is awesome.
Great video guys!
Very nicely done and helpful.
Thanks so much for the tutorial. The PdF is a great enhancement.
As ever, Market Samurai provides crystal clear extremely well executed unambiguous training and an in-depth insight into the functions of its program. Well done and thank-you! Here at http://www.keywordcatcher.com we are unconditional fans!
This is a great start to your series. Knowing what a software product can do VS knowing how it should be used makes all the difference in Market Samurai.
Keep up the good work!
Excellent and highly relevant training in a concise video that doesn't go on for too long. Most impressive.
It was great how you underlined the importance of PBR - I never knew about that before, and I'm truly glad that I found out about it.
I like it! Explaining the seemingly complicated in a simple way. I particularly like the video transcript - I could linger longer on what I wasn't so sure of and speed through other slides that I grasped quickly.
Not only are you leading the way with your keyword research tool, I think your also leading the way with online education & instruction.
Thanks again!
Awesome video intro to keyword research. I didn't previously understand the relevance that phrase to broad match. Obviously you guys have put a ton of thought into this program. Thanks.
This is a very good lesson. You've not only given us good information on the different functions of this screen, but you've explained why we use these different options. That helps build on our level of understanding. Thank you.
You have now taught all your competition how to be successful. Great product! Great customer service and training! And at affordable pricing.
But I wouldn't worry too much about the competition... they'll never do what you do. Congratulations and continued success!
absolutely easy to understand!... Briliantly illustrated! keep up the good work!
From
Emeka
Good job. I learned a good bit more about how to use the product effectively.
I just bought Market Samurai a few days ago and together with Micro Niche Finder ( I get my niche research through this) then go to MS and look for the right keyword pharse. Its cutting down heaps of time for me and in future I should be able to increase my sites every month. Thanks Claude from http://www.your-internet-tools.com/
I like it! Explaining the seemingly complicated in a simple way. I particularly like the video transcript - I could linger longer on what I wasn't so sure of and speed through other slides that I grasped quickly.
Not only are you leading the way with your keyword research tool, I think your also leading the way with online education & instruction.
Thanks again!
What can I say? You just keep getting better and better. MS is the best keyword research tool by miles, and now this training program is shaping up to be the same.
Keep up the fantastic work :o)
Cheers, Gary.
A brilliant & well laid out training module.
Thank-you.
Excellent video!
I learnt more today about using MS than in the past year of using it!
Great post! I use the Phrase Broad Match feature to help me cut out a lot of the needless keywords that would have consumed a lot of my time. In this manner I just use the remaining keywords to optimize my on-page. Thanks for the training, Carl from http://howtodunkhigher.com
Not only brilliant training format, but a great refresher style. I am able to skim thru to the parts I just needed again. Thanks so much.
Great job. Very well explained!
Great training guys as usual. I have to say that out of all the tools and schools I\'ve purchased for my internet business I have gotten an enormous amount of value of Market Samurai and it just keeps getting better so thanks a million and Happy Holidays.
How can I send you guys some more money? That's the only way I can think of to express my over-whelming enthusiam for your product and your approach. Fresh and on-target training with obvious genuine concern and appreciation for your audience. Thanks again.
Thanks for a great video, I brought Market Samurai last year, have forgotten how to use some of the features, also thankyou for the PDF, I will be able to go and check it out without going online, It is a great tool to have, saves a lot of time searching for that right phrase.
Simple and step by step,just what training videos should be.Reading a golf book doesn't make you a good golfer but at least you know you are doing the right things.Boosted my already well used site http://www.moneypumpguide.com.Thanks and keep up the good work.
Super.... step by step - logical.
Please keep it up for the training on other features
David from http://www.repaircorruptfile.com
The PBR helped me, I use MS almost daily as an SEO, plus I'm a turnkey website builder and need to fully understand all features, but by far it out ranks anything I've used to date:o I've dug up some nice nuggets and have client websites ranking in top 10 already!
SE Optimizer
Thankss, Dave
Nice explanation here. Keep the good stuff coming. I know it always varies but it would be nice to have a repeatable strategy for keyword research. Does anyone have one that works?
Great training video....many thanks.
I look forward to being able to use Market Samurai to it\'s fullest.
cheers
Steve
Excellent training! My only question is, when are we going to get training like this for all the modules???
Keep up the good work and let Anthony loose, he's awesome! We need more of this...
Well done again. Great analogy to mining gold. Looking forward to next 3 lessons.
Dr. Anthony,
Amongst all the accolades you are receiving, i want to pat you and the whole Market Samurai (MS ) team for listening to your users. Fantastic job in explaining the functionality of each option. Most trainers stop at: here is the button, click it and move on. You explained what the button does, it's functionality and purpose. Well done.
Market Samurai has so many functions, i have not found any training material as useful as this has been.
A lot of people are using your software without really knowing how to, or realizing it's true potential (present company included). Think of Microsoft Word or Excel or Outlook...probably some of the most widely used software programs on the planet! How many of us actually use more 10-15% of it's capability? or even know what the heck all the buttons do?
I kind of feel the same way about Market Samurai, i am Anxious and hungry to learn how to properly use this software and use it to my advantage. Please continue to provide similar videos of this caliber and format to teach us the true "way of the Market Samurai".
In my humble opinion... after seeing and reading the comments on here, the Market Samurai brass should acquire Dr. Anthony's time to solely put out more videos like this on a ramped up schedule. Delegate any other responsibilities away from Dr. Anthony, so he can focus on providing more training like this.
*** I have one request... please please provide a module on "Localized market research". How does one do proper keyword research for a small, city or town or area. ***
If anyone at Market Samurai can offer a resource or training material addressing this, i would be forever grateful. (If at all possible a reply to my email address acknowledging my request would be greatly appreciated) I'm sure many people could benefit along side myself from such material.
Once again, Dr. Anthony, props to you! keep up the good work.
If any others reading my comments agree, kindly voice your opinion and it may offer a little more weight to my request.
With warmest regards,
Kam
That is probably the best training video I've seen. Clear, relevant :), thorough.
I know I have barely tapped the potential of market samurai.
Lori
Thank you DR. Anthony.
I appreciate your clarification of the PBR feature!
Victoria
Analogy of gold nugget gave me a very clear understanding of the importance of relevent keywords.
Perfect bite of information presented clearly and
at a perfect pace.
Thank you
Great video! Glad to see a clear tutorial on how to use Market Samurai.
BTW, "crate training" IS highly relevant to "dog training." It's an important aspect of training a dog--getting them to accept being intheir crate or pen. You may want to filter it out if you want to focus on other aspects of dog training, but I would leave it in most times.
You need to learn some of the basics of a prospective niche in order to judge what is relevant or not,.
Don :)
Just Brilliant! (I thought I knew the ins and outs of filtering relevant keywords with Market Samurai but of course- I learned a few new tips.) Thanks again, MS- you offer wonderful services
This is one of the best software programs so far that I've found for discovering niches. Thx! From Sally at http://www.meta-bee.com
I was the one who trapped into missleading keyword phrase. But this article give me much information to get relevant keywords.
Thanks a lot and good luck Dojo :)
GREAT seo tool ,Excellent training! i have purchase it.
thanks.I am very interested in the article that you write on the blog . I would come back to read your post again next time.Great job ,Thanks
Cari Uang Di Internet
Loved the Gold Panning analogy.
Also enjoyed your explanation of Phrase to Broad Match.
The 1st how to we need to concentrate on, makes the dashboard far less daunting for a beginner.
Thanks again!
Anthony,
I really appreciate your solid and simple training!
You make me even more glad I got Market Samurai!
Thanks to Dr. Fernando for the clarity and precision of his presentation. And to the Noble Samurai team for a first rate product and client support.
One item remains unclear, however. In the initial "Generate Keywords" step, why is the 'Google Search Keywords' box left unchecked?
Thanks again.
I notice that this selection method of keywords is a bit different than the process Anthony outlined in the 30-day challenge. Would this be a good addition to that 30dc process or do you think this is a shorter and more to-the-point way of finding the keywords for our niche?
I finally understood what PBR is and why it is important! Thanks Doctor Fernando. In spite of my Glaucoma troubling me, I want to press on and follow your teachings to my best ability and win.
I really can't understand why no-one else has ever thought of presenting the information in this way. It's fantastic. Very clear and easy to follow.
More, please!
I discovered MS software as a first time 30 DC-er. I am now getting to really know this software as I had a sneaky suspicion that it is much more powerful than I first thought.
This training is excellent and Dr Anthony is clear, concise, even paced and explains things simply.
Congratulations for having the foresight in providing this training and Dr Anthony!
More, please!
Yet another great post.
Sucha useful piece of software.
This was a great analogy to understand what I am looking for and this enables me to begin applying Golden Rule #1 in my research and find relevant terms to my business.
Excellent training! You guys rock!
Good training! Clear and language, easy to hear and listen to. Great directions and examples.
Thanks
Thanks a million for the transcript. I have very little patience with slow loading videos (I have broadband, but it is slow and capped). I was able to read through the whole transcript in the time it would have taken the video to load. Thank you so MUCH!!
Louise
Yes good analogy!
Wouldn't it make more sense to build a website based on your keyword terms rather than build keyword terms around your website?
Stephan Bevan
Search Engine Optimization Strategist
Great explanation, way faster then the video for me!