KGR Keywords - A Slight Twist On Jaaxy's Method
Over the past year or so, I've been talking a lot on my blog (not my WA one in case you go looking for it) about KGR keywords, or "Keyword Golden Ratio" keywords. I also interviewed Doug Cunnington a couple of times on my podcast, and he's the one who introduced it to us.
Since then, a lot of my customers and audience members have had some success with KGR keywords, and I have also with my own sites.
Before I go into details on how KGR keywords work and how they're different from the Jaaxy method, I wanted to point out that they are acutally very similar to what K+C teach, there's just a slight twist that makes them even more precise.
Both methods are considered "Old school" within the keyword industry these days, but that's a good thing, because you can find a ton of keywords others are ignoring.
If I had a batch of say, 10 articles to my website, all of which are KGR compliant, then I can usually expect something like this:
- 2-3 articles will hit page 1 within a week or two.
- 3-5 articles will hit page 1 later on.
- The rest may reach page 1 or may not. It depends on how strong the site is, how long I've been adding articles for, and things like that.
This is a pretty good ratio. Other keyword research methods might not be as accurate, so I wanted to share it all with you.
I also want to point out that this is a method for finding LONG TAIL keywords only. And by that, I'm not talking about the length of the keyword, but the fact it only has 250 or fewer searches. (Remember my post about long-tail keywords where I point that the the "long tail" refers to the popularity of the keyword, not the length).
The Keyword Golden Ratio is this:
- Only applies to keywords with 250 searches or less. (When the volume is higher, it's easier to get the golden ratio even in competitive keywords, so it doesn't work).
- Find the "allintitle: keyword" number for the keyword. (Will show examples below)
- Divide the allintitle number by the search volume. If this leaves a score of 0.25 or lower, then you've found a golden ratio. Typically these keywords are much easier to rank for.
So for example...let's say you find a keyword and it has 100 searches. You go to google.com and type "allintitle: whatever your keyword is here" (you can do it with or without quotes)
Google will show something like "showing 1 to 10 of 58 results".
So, you know the allintitle number is 58.
Now you take 58 and divide it by 100 (the search volume for this keyword). You get a score of 0.58 which is not bad, but is not a KGR keyword. Usually I will accept anything between 0.25-0.5 even though 0.25 and below is better.
Hold On - Isn't This The Same As How Jaaxy Works?
No, it's a very similar process, but with one detail different.
"Allintitle" searches for websites that have the keywords in the title in any order. They could also have other words in the title as well.
Jaaxy uses "QSR" which is Quoted Search Results. This means they only find websites where the keyword is in the title EXACTLY as you've searched for it.
"Allintitle" is better, because it's much harder to find keywords where fewer sites have the keyword in the title in any order, so therefore, when you find these ones, that means there is less competition.
Here's an example:
Maybe your keyword is "how to make money online".
Using Jaaxy and QSR, you get a result of around 300, because according to Google, only 300 websites have that exact keyword.
Using KGR though, you get a result of 191,000 results.
This means that only 300 sites have "how to make money online" as their exact title, but nearly 200,000 sites have those words somewhere in the title.
Now, in 2018, Google doesn't rank websites based on whether they exactly match the keyword anymore. Look at page 1 in Google and you'll see that none of the top 10 actually have "how to make money online" as their exact title.
So when you use Jaaxy and target something that has a low QSR, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to rank, because there could be a ton of different ways of writing that keyword or there could be a bunch of websites that don't have the exact keyword, but they have those words in a different order.
But with KGR keywords, it's much harder to find ones where only a few sites have keywords anywhere in the title.
So that means when you DO find a keyword that has a low KGR score, it means this:
- Not only are there very few sites with the exact title (low QSR)
- There are also very few sites that have those keywords AT ALL.
So that just means the keyword is even less competitive than using QSR.
I hope this logic makes sense. It took me a while to get my head around when I first started looking for KGR keywords, but it totally makes sense to me now, and the results I get have demonstrated this.
So what I'm saying is, if you don't quite get the point or the difference, let me know in the comments and I'll try to clarify more.
How To Research These Keywords
So, you can still use Jaaxy to generate lists of keywords, to get ideas, and to learn the search volume, but you should also take the extra step of manually searching in Google.
Just use the search string: allintitle: keyword and look for the final number. (You don't need to click through to the final page of Google like you do with QSR by the way)
Here's a screenshot: 
In this case, "dovo straight razor review" has 35 allintitle results. If the search volume for this keyword is more than 140 (I haven't checked) then you'll have a KGR of 0.25 (35 divided by 140).
So this is way less competitive. It means on the whole internet, there are only 35 sites that have the words "dovo straight razor review" anywhere in their title, doesn't matter if there are other words or if the words are in a different order.
And because KGR keywords have fewer than 250 searches, not everybody is targeting them.
So you have low volume keywords that people aren't targeting, and very few sites optimized for them, which means any site that has some decent age and trust that targets them is going to stand a very good chance of ranking for them. Time and time again people in my Facebook group are saying KGR keywords are working like gangbusters for them.
Since "Keyword Research" is my team's training theme for this month, I figured I'd come to WA and share some of it with you all too.
Try the KGR method for yourself and let me know your results, they'll be even better than using just Jaaxy.
P.S I'm not trying to bash Jaaxy or the methods K+C teach. Jaaxy works well, but this is an even more accurate (albiet more time consuming) method.
Recent Comments
79
Hi Dom,
I didn't quite understand KGR methoding, but I do tend to play around with words a lot. Especially titles...putting words in different order even though they mean the same thing.
I don't really use Jaaxy that much, but tend to rank high posts even though...
It seems I have stumbled on KGR by mistake! I use "play on" words in Bing ads and FBook Ads when tweaking PPC Ad Groups... When I find the best performing ad, I scale up...
Do you do this as well?
To Your Success,
Stella
I sometimes run Google ads, and I do FB ads too, but they're nothing to do with KGR keywords really.
I see....I am a bit puzzled why I rank quickly without really trying..
I followed Perry Marshall's training on Google Adwords way back in 2006.
It seems some of his training stuck..I find when I make things too complicated I don't rank as well. There is a secret sauce in all of this!
It looks like KGR is the mathematical formula of what I am doing...
All said, have a brilliant 2019! Thanks for being an inspiration to us here at WA...
I think what you are suggesting is only slightly more meaningful than QSR and it is far from good enough. Here is why, and how it can be better done.
1. This "allintitle" number still does not give the true competitors. So why care how many posts are out there that have the words in the title, even in random order? Those are not your only competitors, there are many more. You still have no idea what Google can pull out in SERPs as relevant for such a key-phrase. This is why it is similar to QSR and not good enough.
I would rather focus on the true competition and this is USR - unquoted search result. So put the key-phrase in Google tab and what you get is an exact number and a complete list of competitors. No guessing, no estimates, no possibility for a misinterpretation. Then you can see clearly who is on the top page and you will know if you can rank or not.
This USR is typically only 3 - 5 times bigger than QSR, although Google may give thousands or millions as a number, but when you scroll through SERPs you realize that there are far less. So it is indeed possible to check your true competitors and make an accurate estimate of your chances to rank.
2. Now, when you have the true competition USR, you can make a similar KGR by using the number for searches and you can then decide about the top limit above which you would not go. A bit of statistical analysis will give you this value easily. It will likely be of the order of 2 or somewhere around it.
I almost always have a look at USR. Blogged about it many times here at WA. My ranking is more than 90% of posts on the top page, at least in one site. Lost the track recently as Serplab is not free any longer.
Ok cool I will have to take a look at some of this then. To answer your other question, the reason I care about allintitle is because it's based on data. It's an easy way to find long tail keywords that get searches, but don't require a ton of time analyzing keywords. When it comes to the bigger search volume keywords I only care about manual analysis.
I know you have a team and I thought they might make some reasonable estimate similar to what you suggest in KGR, but using the USR instead of allintitle. Usually, there is no need to go deep through all USR pages, the most important competitors are already on the top 2 pages or so, dependent on the competitiveness of the keyword. But the point is, in general, they are different from what we get in QSR and allintitle, and they are more numerous of course
So if you manage to make some reasonable empirical result similar to the KGR above, please let us know. I did not make any formal estimate of that type.
On your profile I can only see questions, training and blogs are blank. Can you link to somewhere you've talked about USR?
No, I deleted all of them, over 370 blogs and trainings in total. Cannot show anything now, sorry.
Ah ok interesting. I feel you though, have been tempted to do the same in the past :)
So with USR, do you have any numbers you go for?
Do not have any empirical formula. When I was blogging about it I used to make a comparison between QSR SERPs and USR SERPs for some particular cases, to demonstrate the differences and to show how misleading it is to rely on QSR.
Currently, I simply inspect a few top USR pages incognito to get some feeling about competitors, similar to what you described in your blogs about competitors like ecommerce sites, forums, Pinterest, etc. So when I see many ecommerce, then I tend to choose a keyword or just the title that would stand out e.g. by adding the word 'review' as this is normally not available in the titles of ecommerce sites' posts.
Since this is about long tail keywords, the number of really important USR top pages is usually not big. So it is not time-consuming to inspect a few pages in SERPs.
But this discussion with you might push me to do something. It should be possible to make a reasonable threshold similar to the KGR which you described.
Yeah maybe we can write a bunch of posts on a website and see their USR scores and see if there's a sweet spot.
This is absolutely a gem. Thank you so much Dom. I thought that for some of my KWs it cannot be true that it is that easy to rank for and now with your method, it makes perfect sense. Thanks so much again.
We just had a super typhoon holiday, so I had time to create a spreadsheet will all 30 of my posts comparing Jaaxy and KGR. All of them fit the WA training model, but only one post fit the Golden Keyword Ratio. Another 9 posts could be slightly modified to match GKR. They were not doing well in SEO, so I made the adjustments and re-submitted them to Google. We will see what happens.
PS. No damage from Typhoon Mara, thankfully.
Hi Dom,
You are touching on something very important in the gist of this article, and that is google is getting much better a keyword synonyms and hence the war on over optimization It is now becoming more important not to be so rigid with the exact keyword use and to use variants of it.
In your example "How to make money online" Google would understand and recognize that "How to earn money online" and "How do I Make money online" as being synonymous with the keyword phrase.
Although keyword are still important (and always will be in my opinion) just not so much a need for over optimization Title, URL, H1, First sentence and last sentence is enough with remainder just natural writing no focus on the keyword at all, (density ,,max 1% in my own view) also use variants where possible.
I also can't help but notice the timing of your post here on Keywords and KGR and Your email campaign and the 10% discount sale going on at HPD...one asks and wonders does WA form part of your marketing campaign? (even though it is not mentioned!). Just curious, that is all.
What do I do with a long tail keyword, 5 words, 30+thousand searches and an alintitle: 165. (QSR 37, SEO, 88)
Is this worth a try?
If it has 30,000 searches it’s 1.) not a long tail keyword and 2.) not a kgr keyword, so these rules don’t apply.
Ah ok sorry. In this case I can’t analyze it because for keywords with volume of that size, things like allintitle or QSR aren’t sufficient means of judging the competition strength. I would have to look at the existing sites ranking for the keyword and see how strong they are,
For example, are they large sites? Strong sites? Are they the big players in the niche or just affiliate marketers like me? How optimized for the keyword are they?
What types of site are they? Info sites, ecommerce sites and so on. There are a ton of things to look at when dealing with bigger keywords unfortunately.
Thanks a lot for this layout. I try to check some of these attributes my self but I already started with the post and I have a plus, there are no numbered posts for this keyword yet. Maybe that helps :)
All the best, Stefan :)
Yeah don’t forget sometimes you can write an article even if you won’t rank for it. You can link to it from other articles or share on social. If it’s relevant to helping people in your niche it just makes sense
Can Take the KGR a step further and analyze the competition in a more powerful tool than Jaaxy, say Ahrefs or similar and check out the top 5 posts that are ranking for that keyword and seeing how many backlinks they have as an average number. Fewer backlinks..wow..easier to rank in at the top 5.
I checked and the top 5-6 are paid ads. I guess they will be hard to beat lol. But you never know for which other keywords a post will rank.
As a side topic, there is stuff that you can do with your KGR keywords (or any keyword for that matter) to optimize ad rankings and in short rank higher and pay less than the competitors below you. Adsense is not an auction where higher paying clicks get a higher position.. assuming of course you wish to use PPC and those keywords to trigger your ad.
That is for another post altogether,
Great article and very helpful to try out and find better keywords, thanks a lot, I will make use of it for sure.
Stefan, ToLiNoLi
This is one of the most useful posts in here. It's prefect for getting noticed with a newer site and will allow you to start climbing organic rankings fairly quickly while you focus on longer more competitive keywords as well.
I'd also recommend installing Keywords Everywhere. It's free and tells you just how many monthly searches are being conducted each month directly in the search results: https://keywordseverywhere.com/
Hi Steve, I actually have this on my browser as well. The volume and the CPC I understand but I'm not sure about the competition factor? Please can you give me some clarity on this.
Thanks,
Brian
From the KE website:
Competition: The competition is a gauge of the number of advertisers that are running ads on Google adwords for this specific keyword. The number goes from 0 to 1, with lower values signifying less number of advertisers and higher values signifying more advertisers.
That is a fab tool! I actually prefer it to jaaxy!
Just to add when I start out a site I strictly stick to max competition of 50! not so focused on how many searches or traffic as naturally I will rank for a lot more LSI keywords. That is for the first 100 posts.
Second 100 posts Max comp of 75,
Third set of 100 posts Max Comp of 100
Then I'll continue like that slowly increasing the comp as site grows in content and domain authority.
Fair enough. Too much for me, but if you are into writing content and don't mind, then yeah 10 months is nothing.
Thanks. How do you use the info in that tool? I see vol, cpc and comp. What should I look for in the numbers?
Hey Dom, you're the bomb! Thanks for this excellent advice. I do have to read through this a few times to get my thinking in line but I can see that this is well worth the effort.
Thank you,
Brian
See more comments
Omg yesss this is what I was looking for and needed to read!
Thank you so much for explaining this. I did do a couple of manual searches on Google when I first started out, and hundreds of thousands of results came up - I was a little confused at the results as I'm fairly new to this, but carried on as normal as I had faith Jaaxy knew what it was doing - I didn't know any better.
This explains everything and I totally get it now - thank you! I shall be doing this every time!
Kelly :)