Let’s take a look at keyword research for SEO, and how you can find money-making keywords!
Now, when you think about it, SEO is really all about finding the right keywords.
I mean, you could do everything else right. But none of it’s gonna matter if you focus on the wrong keywords, right?
Like, suppose I have a blog that teaches people how to sing, (which is actually something I’m actually really good at. And something I’m gonna cover in a future)… and I want people to buy my course
…If I focus on the wrong keywords…
…It won’t matter how many links I build,
content I produce,
how well I rank,
even ohw nicely designed my site is…
I’m just not gonna reach the right people, or enough people.
And, at the end of the day, no ones gonna buy my singing course. And I’m gonna have to do SEO work forever.
So yeah, focusing on the right, money-making keywords, is really really important.
Get this wrong, and you might as well say goodbye to your SEO hopes and dreams.
Okay, that’s fair enough — but now you’re probably wondering what counts as the “right” keyword?
Well, that’s a pretty big topic, but it’s basically what this article is about.
Throughout this article, we’re gonna cover a number of tactics that’ll help you find the right keywords for your website.
You don’t really need to spend a lot of money her. And in fact, the tactic we’re gonna cover in section 2, is actually a really good way to identify amazing keywords without having to spend any money at all!
Of course, if you wanna spend some money, that’s fine too. As we’re also gonna cover some premium tools that’ll help you spot amazing keywords in a matter of minutes.
Anyhow, make sure you stick around till the end. So that you can learn everything you need to know about finding the best money-making keywords.
Let’s get started!
Some Basic Things You Need to Understand About Keywords!
Right, so to begin with, let’s just cover a few basic things you need to understand when it comes to keyword research.
It’s important you understand these concepts. Because they’re essentially gonna be the things that’ll help you separate the “good” keywords from the “bad.”
In fact, once you understand these concepts, you’ll actually understand the fundamentals of keyword research…
And you’ll then be able to come up with your own tactics to find money-making search terms.
This will then help you take things to the next level.
The Different Keyword Categories
Ok, so the first thing I wanna touch on here, is that keywords can essentially be split into two categories
- Informational keywords
- Buyer keywords.
Now, it’s fair to say that you could probably drill things down a bit more here. And some people like to include many other categories here.
However, I’m trying to keep things as simple. So everything is easy to understand, and I don’t want to get into the weeds too much…
Therefore, if I just split keywords into these two groups, we should be fine.
What are the actual differences between these two kinds of keywords?
Informational keywords, are basically search terms people type into Google, whenever they’re looking for some information on a certain topic.
These keywords might start with words like:
- “How”
- “Why”
- “Best”
- “Tips”
- “Guide”
If you have a pet store, a relevant informational keyword might be something like — “how to keep my aquarium clean.”
These kinds of keywords attract a lot of search volume. And you’ll actually see examples of these keywords later.
Anyhow, for the most part, the people using these keywords aren’t actively looking to buy something.
Because of this, if you’re running an ecommerce store, or something like that, you don’t wanna focus on these keywords too much, as people aren’t really using these keywords to find products to buy.
However, if you’re running an affiliate site, or a site powered by Ads, ranking for informational keywords can actually be really lucrative.
That’s generally because you’re just trying to get lots of relevant people to visit your site. So that they can click on your ads/links — and informational keywords are great for this kinda thing.
For example, one of my sites, chipperbirds.com generates thousands in affiliate and ad income.
It can do this because it ranks highly for lots of informational keywords that have high search volume.
Some people like to say informational keywords don’t really drive a ton of revenue. But as shown here, it all really depends on how you’re monetizing your site!
(By the way, one of the reasons this site actually managed to get a lot of traffic is because I managed to build some really good links to it.
If you’d like some advice on how you can build links to your site, book a free consultation call with me at juliangoldie.com!
…Anyway, as mentioned, buyer keywords are the other kind of keyword you can focus on.
As you might’ve guessed, buyer keywords are basically the keywords people use when they’re actively looking to buy something.
And…Surprise, surprise, a lot of the time most of these keywords start with the word “buy.”
If we take the pet store example from earlier, a buyer keyword might be something like “buy aquarium” or “buy filter for aquarium.”
If you’re running a site that actually sells something, these keywords can be really lucrative.
It’s worth mentioning there can be other variations too when it comes to buyer keywords. And some of these variations can also be very specific.
For example, when typing in buyer keywords, people might include the name of a certain product, alongside some specific requirements.
So, in the aquarium filter example I just mentioned, someone might use the keyword “buy fluval (which is just a filter brand) aquarium filter for a small coldwater tank.”
On top of that, buyer keywords could also include something like the word “discount”
Anyway, that’s a quick overview of the two different kinds of keywords you’ll likely come across.
You’ll generally want a good mix of the two if you want your SEO strategy to be effective.
Does Search Volume Matter?
The second thing I just wanna touch on here is the topic of search volume.
A lot of people tend to think search volume is the end all be all.
I mean, if a keyword has a really high search volume, it has to be good right?
Well, while it’s true that search volume is important — you could definitely say that it’s not the most important thing.
I mean the most important thing would probably be relevance.
After all, if you have a website that sells aquarium supplies, it’s not gonna do you much good if you’re driving a lot of traffic with a keyword related to horse supplies.
Aside from relevance, intent is another factor you could rate as more important than search volume.
After all, in many cases, buyer keywords can drive more revenue than informational keywords.
Now, a lot of the time, these buyer keywords don’t have a really high search volume. Especially when compared to informational keywords.
Therefore, if you prioritize high search volume keywords, over keywords that have a lot of buyer intent. You’re probably not gonna focus on the kinds of keywords that’ll generate the most money.
But, of course, like all things in SEO, there are exceptions.
So like, as mentioned earlier, if you’re running a site powered by ads, or something like that. You could argue that it’s better to focus on informational keywords that drive lots of traffic.
…But, either way.. that’s kind of another point altogether…
Anyway, this can all be a little bit complicated…
But the main point I’m trying to make here is that you shouldn’t make search volume the main thing you focus on.
There are a couple of other things like intent, and relevance you might wanna focus on, before you should start prioritizing search volume.
If you just skip ahead and go straight to search volume, you’re gonna be in trouble.
So, make sure you figure out the other stuff first!
Strategy #1 — Google Keyword Planner
The first strategy I’m gonna cover here is based on the Google Keyword Planner.
If you don’t know about this tool, it’s a tool designed for people that wanna run AdWords ads on Google, but it’s actually a really nice SEO research tool.
This tool throws out a ton of data, but the main things we’re gonna look at are keyword suggestions, search volume data, and CPC data.
Now, you might be wondering why CPC data is helpful when it comes to identifying money-making keywords.
Well, the CPC data tells AdWords advertisers how much it’ll cost for them to target a keyword.
However, when it comes to SEO, CPC data is really helpful.
That’s because, the higher the CPC is for a keyword, the more likely it is that it’ll produce good results.
After all, if this wasn’t the case, advertisers wouldn’t be willing to spend so much money targeting a certain keyword.
So, yeah, if you want a quick way to identify high ROI keywords. Look for the ones with a high CPC on the Google Keyword Planner.
Of course, there are some exceptions here and there, but for the most part, this tends to be true!
Right, so let’s cover how you can find some keywords using this tool.
Let’s suppose I own a store that sells “wedding dresses.”
First, let’s try to come up with some “informational search terms.”
So, remember, informational keywords might include something like the word “tips” alongside my “core keyword.”
So, in this example, I’m just gonna type in “wedding dress tips” into the keyword planner, to see what comes up.
Okay, so as you can see, there’s some pretty interesting examples here.
If I scroll down a little bit, I can see even more examples.
Now, it’s fair to say that most of the search volumes here aren’t that massive.
I mean the estimates for a lot of these keywords are 10-100 average monthly searches.
However, a lot of the time, these estimates can be a bit conservative.
Plus, in some niches, you’ll generally just find that informational terms don’t generate a huge amount of traffic.
That’s just how it goes sometimes.
That said, I’d say that these keywords are really relevant, as most of them are pretty specific to this niche.
So, if you can rank for them, you’re gonna be attracting some high quality traffic. And that’s gonna be really helpful if you wanna convert some of this traffic into customers later on.
Anyway, let’s see what we can come up with when we type in a “buyer” keyword.
Let’s go with the obvious example of “buy wedding dress.”
So, as you can see, we’re once more presented with a bunch of search queries based on our initial suggestion.
What I’m gonna do now, is I’m just gonna sort these keywords. So that the ones with the highest CPC are shown at the top.
Right, after doing this, I can see some of the “best” buyer keywords in this niche.
If I can target some of these keywords with an SEO campaign. There’s a really good chance I’ll be able to build a profitable website.
Now, one of the really cool things about Google Keyword Planner, is that I’m able to sort search terms into “groups.”
I can do that by going into the “Grouped view” section.
If I do that, I can then see lots of different categories for when it comes to potential buyer keywords.
For example, if I click on the “buy cheap” category…
I’m shown a list of buyer keywords that’d be relevant if I wanted to reach people interested in “buying cheap wedding dresses.”
Again, if I can rank for these keywords, I’m sure I’d be able to achieve some amazing results.
(By the way, I just wanna mention that you can also use this tactic when looking for informational terms too.)
Now, sorting keywords by “groups” is just one of the cool tricks you can use with the keyword planner. And everyone tends to have their own little set of tricks that helps them find interesting search queries with this tool.
The Google Keyword Planner, can be a brilliant way to uncover keywords that’d be a good fit for your SEO campaign.
Of course, the search terms you can actually go with, will depend on what you’re actually willing to cater in your business.
For instance, if you’re trying to sell “premium wedding dresses company,” you might not find much value in ranking for the term “cheap wedding dresses”. No matter how good the search volume and CPC metrics are for this keyword.
Because of this, you should always review your capabilities as a busines. When searching for and selecting keywords for your SEO campaigns.
If you don’t verify how relevant a keyword is to your actual capabilities as a business. You might end up putting too much energy into terms that don’t really have an impact on your business either way.
So that’s basically how you can find good keywords with the help of the Google Keyword Planner.
Now, you might be thinking this tool is nice…
…but you might want some more information on how difficult it is to rank for these keywords.
After all, if you use this method, there isn’t really any data here in terms of how competitive any of these queries actually are.
Luckily, premium SEO tools like Ahrefs can come to the rescue here
In the next section, we’re gonna look at how you can use Ahrefs to take your keyword research to the next level.
Tool #2 — Ahrefs
Ahrefs is basically a premium SEO tool that can help you do tons of different things when it comes to SEO.
This article is mainly about keyword research, and so for now, we’re just gonna focus on how we can use the keyword research features in this product.
As mentioned earlier, Google Keyword Planner is a good way to find keywords…
But it doesn’t really help you that much when it comes to competitor research.
I mean if you have some experience with SEO, you could probably take a keyword. And just work out how competitive it is without having to spend money on tools.
However, if you’re new to SEO, you might need a little bit of help here.
Luckily, Ahrefs can help you with this. It actually provides you with a “keyword difficulty score” and this can make it really easy for you to quickly work out how competitive a certain keyword is.
(Later on we’re actually gonna look at how you can find good keywords using this score. )
But, that’s not the only good thing about Ahrefs…
Another really cool thing about this tool is that it has a massive keyword database.
So if you type a keyword into this tool, it’ll actually provide you with tons of relevant suggestions that you can use as part of your SEO campaign.
This can be really helpful if you’re trying to develop a comprehensive SEO strategy that really covers a lot of ground.
Ok, with that said, let’s take our “wedding dress” example from earlier. And review how Ahrefs can help us out here.
If I go to Ahrefs, and type in “wedding dress” I’m essentially presented with a dashboard that provides some insight into this keyword.
So, you can see a keyword difficulty score, but you can also see search volume data too.
If you look near the bottom, you’ll also see some keyword ideas too.
Now, there’s tons of things to sort through here, so let’s just quickly touch on a few key points.
Firstly, you’ll notice there’s a questions section on this dashboard.
If we click on this, we can actually see a list of “question keywords” associated with our initial keyword.
A lot of these keywords are generally “informational terms.”
However, some of these “question keywords” are actually a good combination of both informational intent and buyer intent.
For example, someone typing in “how much is a wedding dress” is probably very keen on buying a wedding dress in the near future.
And so it’d be a good idea to rank for a keyword like this.
Anyhow, there’s a keyword difficulty score next to each of these queries, as well as some volume on search data.
This information can be really helpful if we’re trying to figure out which keywords we should focus on.
After all, we can’t really target all of these keywords, so we need to ID the ones that’d be worth our time and attention.
If we’re dealing with a new site, this generally includes keywords with a relatively low keyword difficulty score.
So, if we’re just starting out, we might wanna focus on the search terms that have a difficulty score that’s under 20.
Fortunately, Ahrefs makes it really easy for us to find keywords that are in our “keyword difficulty range,” as I can just adjust the filter settings so that only certain kinds of keywords are shown.
For instance, here’s an example of what happens when I set the max keyword difficulty score to 20.
I can then just go through these results to find keywords that look as though they’d be a good fit for my campaign.
By the way, if I wanna find some general informational search terms, I just need to click the “All” button under the “Matching terms” header.
This will then show me all of the keywords associated with my initial “wedding dresses” keyword.
If I want to find general informational keywords here, I then just need to refine this list so that it includes the kinds of words that are associated with informational searches.
For example, I might adjust the settings so that I’m only shown keywords that include the word “guide.”
I can also use this approach to find highly relevant “buyer” searches too.
Again, I can just do that by refining the search so that it includes the word “buy.”
Okay, so that’s kinda just a rough crash course on how you can use Ahrefs to find keywords.
There’s lots of other little tricks you can use here to find keywords in Ahrefs, and to be fair, there’s just tons of little features/settings you can mess around with to find search terms.
Because of this, I really recommend you just spend some time with this tool just so you can figure out what’s possible.
Of course, if you have any experience with this tool when it comes to keyword research, let me know in the comments — It’d be cool to hear about how you’re using this to get results!
Conclusion
Hopefully, you now understand how you can do some keyword research for your website.
Keyword research is one of the most important parts of SEO, so you should really try to get your head around everything we’ve covered.
Of course, if you’re confused by anything here, feel free to leave a question in the comments section, and I’d be happy to help you out.
