A story about picking “Peaches”...
Today I want to tell you a story.
A story about an ambitious boy named Johnny who got a job in the orchard picking peaches.
He got paid by the pound of peaches that he picked.The peach orchard was big and Johnny definitely was not the first one to get to a lot of the trees. They had been picked on. The trees were typically comprised of low hanging fruit, which was often very small and it took much more fruit to.
Then they had mid range fruit that was still quite accessible, the peaches are nice size, but they are typically always the first ones to be picked (and there weren’t many there by the time Johny got to them).
The high hanging fruit (the stuff that required a ladder and some great balance) was nice, big and juicy peaches. Each one must have weight a pound.
The problem with the high hanging fruit is that you could not really see how much fruit there was until you got up there and at that, it was much slower to pick the fruit.
This is really a story about keyword research.
Johnny is YOU.
The Peaches are the Keywords.
This analogy is my version of the keyword selection process.
When choosing keywords that you want to get ranked under you have your choice between:
the low competition keywords (the low hanging fruit) that get a smaller amount of monthly traffic
the medium competition, yet moderate traffic keywords
the hard to get keywords that get lots of traffic yet have lots of competition (the fruit you need the ladder to get to).
Personally, when it comes to rankings, the choice is obvious to me. I like to walk around and pick fruit of the tree with ease (plus I don’t like being up on ladders) and I don’t like to be battling it out with everyone that is just going for the “easiest option”, the mid range search terms.
There are also way MORE of these low hanging fruit, long tail keywords than the broad keywords out there. In fact, there are MILLIONS of these types of keywords.
When there are millions of keywords and I can benefit from them with relative ease, I am a happy camper.
Let’s look at some low hanging fruit in the “photo” niche, which I don’t know much about (my research is powerfed by Jaaxy.com):
sell your photos online free, 53 competing pages
share digital photo album , 23 competing pages
how to watermark a photo, 185 competing pages
photoshop layers tutorial, 186 competing pages
adobe photoshop tutorials beginners, 35 competing pages
photoshop for mac web design tutorial, 27 competing pages
android photo sharing apps, 85 competing pages
photo gallery apps android, 45 competing pages
These are just some examples and these are all keywords that you could easily get ranked on the 1st page of Google with. That means FREE traffic.
I can pull these sorts of keywords “at will” with Jaaxy and so can you. Unlike any other keyword tool, it gives you instant access to the REAL competition in Google.
This means, it will tell you the EXACT number of pages that you are competing with in Google. If this number is under 100, I know that I am going to be able to get a 1st page ranking in a Google.
This is all I care about. I will settle for the “small peaches” any day of the week and I will be more than happy to fill my basket with them while others are duking it out for the “big peaches’ at the top of the tree. I am not into fighting while up on a ladder.
Look at it this way.
What would you rather have, rankings on the 1st page in Google under 100 low hanging fruit keywords that get you 10 searches per day or be on the 2nd or 3rd page of Google under 100 keywords that get 1000 searches per day (hint: people don’t click to the 2nd page, let alone the 3rd).
The low hanging fruit will give you 1,000’s per day.
See what I am getting at. Go for the low hanging fruit. It ranks. it pays, and it will fill your basket full of traffic generating keywords.
Recent Comments
43
When we look at a market, we need to understand what it will cost us to reach that market. That is just as important as understanding what the market actually wants. Research with JAAXY is great if we apply it to a good understanding of the market we are studying. It can help us determine if there really is a group of eager buyers and where they are hiding. So we need to look at what the competition is doing and JAAXY helps us to do exactly that. John
I agree with what you are saying. This comes down to understanding your niche, which is a critical component of the marketing aspect and can lead to revelation of a much wider ranging of keywords. Thanks for your feedback.
That's great Kyle, thanks a lot! I've drafted a .xls form that I print out to help me document promising keywords as I hunt for them. After printing out a blank form, I hand write into the blanks as I research, documenting criteria that I've heard people say are critical for assessing keywords. I've found that this criteria has evolved since I've joined WA. I'm always trying to make sure I'm following the current pertinent criteria, and eliminate activities that I don't need to do.
What I'm wondering, is any of the criteria I'm using no longer pertinent, or is it, in your eyes, incorrect? Also, am I not documenting an important metric that others and yourself are looking at?
The criteria that I'm scrutinizing are:
- Global Search (exact only) 1000+/ Mo., Local Search (exact only) 100+/Mo.,
- QSR (Last Page on Google) less than 300, preferably less than 100,
- intitle:"kw" inanchor:"kw" less than 10 is easy, 100+ is hard to rank for,
- allintitle: "kw" less than 1,000 (check Last Page on Google),
- Google the keyword and find out how many backlinks the top sites has for that kw (to see how difficult it would be to get a first page listing, to assess if it's worth to bother with it).
Can you, or others let me know what is important to you, please? Thank you very much! -John
Dude, you are being far too analytical...this is holding you back in a serious way.
Here is what I look at when doing keyword research:
(1) Competition, Under 300 QSR in Jaaxy.com
(2) Traffic, must get some traffic...usually aim for over 50 searches per month in Jaaxy
(3) The keyword must make sense
That is it. When competition is your main focus, backlinks and all the extra "research" activities don't matter...in fact, backlinks don't mean a thing these days in terms of "why" a site is ranked. Content quality and where your content is being submitted makes all the difference.
I used to be like you, over analytical with keywords - jdeHaan001.
Here is what i do.
I go to the Google adwords keyword tool, sign in to an adwords account (don't worry, its free to sign up without paying). I type in the broad keyword like: make money online, weight loss, Online business.
Then i pick low competition on the filter options. Then click search.
The next thing i do, which i find no-one else teaching - literally no-one else teaching.
I then click the competition column, to filter it. Hover over the low part, in the column for the first column, and you'll see a number. Make sure you got the lowest numbers at the top by getting the column to filter the low number to the top.
Then feed each of those keywords, that have a low competition, into the keyword tool in WA. That is where the magic starts the happen.
I have only noticed this the last couple of days. I am only researching my niche at the moment. Getting the keywords, then writting the articles in a bit, because i have a load to work with now.
Whether or not i get traffic, i'll see in a few days.
You can skip the Google Adwords tool part and just use the WA tool....go to the competition (View Result) and if it is under 300 results, you have an awesome keyword on your hands. You can go for under 400, but under 300 and the closer you get to 0 makes the keyword that much better.
Ok, so if I get the right tool ( like a cherry picker) I can pick the big ones as fast as the lower ones. How could I relate this analogy to keywords?
Yeah, I'm greedy, I want the whole enchilada.
Actually, I guess Jaaxy is the cherry picker. :)
The big ones are too competitive...the low hanging ones are the ones that nobody picks...and that few people know about. They are looked over because everybody is on the relentless pursuit of the middle, obvious fruit.
Pick those little peaches that add up to some serious poundage!
Great analogy..'Will definitely start aiming for low hanging peaches too.:)..Getting keywords that can get you ranked is getting harder and harder.. Thanks Kyle..
Yeah, it helps even more if you like peaches. ;)
It is actually easy to find keywords that you can get rankings under...and it is not getting harder by any means. There are millions of keywords out there and that is what I was getting at.
Yup. It matters that you get some visitors... Of course, it would be nice to rank for a keyword with 1,600,000 exact monthly too. Ah, why can't I have both worlds with 1 hour of work?
I just wanted to add: some keywords are such low fruit that Google's keyword tool (and others) don't even list them. One of them has been sending me 4 visitors a month, like clockwork for over 12 months (no, I did not aim for it... But I look at my analytics).
Also, on every site I have, I get a bunch of visitors from the keywords I aimed for and hundreds more via keywords I did not even dream of. But, as I said, I check my analytics. If I see a keyword that doesn't 'exist' sending me 3 visitors a month, I write a post for it... and then (unless I was accidentally #1 for it) it sends me more.
But I've also noticed that of the hundreds of keywords I did not dream of, 20 or 30 have the same root... So, I write an article for the better represented keyword and use the root in the article too...
Example of what I mean. On one site I get a lot of variations of
is product x good
the variations are
product x good or bad
is product x good or bad
is product x good
is product x bad
is product x any good
is product x worth it
or
best way to do x
what's the best company to do x with
best company to x with
best company for x'ing with
what's the best company for x'ing with
Then there are the misspellings. Those I leave alone (unless they get tons of traffic... then I add them in the alt tag.. find some clever way to do it... On the lines of
you say potato, I say potatoe
My point, long tail keywords are amazing in their abundance and lots of them are as easy to rank for as it is to write a post with them in the title and url.
Hello DABK, Thanks for taking the time to expand on your keyword research experience. I see that you will write articles with the keywords that you've discovered, but what do you mean by "write a post"? What are posts, and what do you do with them? When you use your keywords in articles, do you mostly post them on your site(s), or mostly on an article directories?
See his comment above as to what he was referring to as a post. Basically the content could be anywhere and this strategy would be on point.
These little keywords that deliver 4 clicks per month add up and by creating more content you are going to get rankings under terms that you never anticipated as well. I have a Steve Jobs article that is ranking for over 100 keywords and gets traffic from over a100 keywords. Pretty impressive.
Once you have these low hanging fruit keywords, it is just a matter of writing the content and scaling.
Thanks for the feedback, brother Kyle, I surely appreciate it. I realized DABK meant 'blog post'. It's not an activity that I usually do. But I see what you're saying, the content could be submitted anywhere, and the strategy will be beneficial. Awesome!
Thanks for your feedback above. Yeah, I guess I've been over analyzing keyword research a bit *grin*!
Live and learn...we all do it on occasion, the good old paralysis through analysis. It truly does lead to lowered productivity, so just focus on what makes a difference as I indicated.
Like you said before, it's all about competition, it's really far easier to multiplicate a model that generates you less traffic but a guaranteed high ranking than to expect huge swarms of clicks on the 2nd page.
Exactly...if you understand how to get 1st page rankings, regardless of the traffic numbers (just has to be "some" traffic), then it all comes down to scaling a campaign. It takes all of the hope and praying out of your marketing campaigns.
Things become much more predictable when you focus on low competition keywords and MUCH more exciting!
This really makes a bunch of sense, and they seem to be fairly easy to find also! Thanks for the info.
Glad I could help Wayne, sometimes it takes a good old analogy to solidify ideas. I have been aiming for the low hanging peaches for years...there is way more of them and they are much easier to get rankings under.
Good analogy...and works for success as well...just keep pickin' away and climbing higher and it'll be right in front of your face before you know it
Yeah, it is incremental but very cumulative. If you are ranked under 100 keywords, you have a business...and this is quite easy to do when you aim for the easy keywords like I have outlined here.
See more comments
Kyle, what do you suggest would be a good criteria when choosing keywords for picking domain names using jaxxy?
Here is what I look at when doing keyword research:
(1) Competition, Under 400 QSR in Jaaxy.com
(2) Traffic, I would aim for terms with at least 500
(3) The keyword must make sense