Jaaxy v Long Tail Pro - Let the fight begin!
Since being here at WA I have always used Jaxxy as my keyword tool of choice but this morning I decided to cancel it.
Before I go any further, I'd just like to point out to people that don't know me that I am by no means an expert. I've been here at WA for over a year in total and messed around with a different couple of niches and local marketing before finally settling on Bootcamp. I've been progressing through Bootcamp for about 6 weeks now and probably have around 6 pages and 8 posts on my site.
I used Jaaxy to find to find keywords for this content and already I have rankings on pages 1, 2, 3 and 4 on Google for various search terms, some of which are related search terms that don't receive much traffic but hey, my site is very young and I have next to no content in the grand scheme of things.
Long Tail Pro
For anyone who's never heard of Long tail Pro (or LTP for short) it's a keyword tool that uses different metrics to Jaaxy or the WA keyword tool.
Instead of using QSR as a competition metric, it will use data such as the authority of the website, the page authority of the actual page that's ranking on page 1 for the chosen keyword and a few other metrics such as whether the keyword is in the site's title and URL etc. Jaaxy mainly focuses on the number of competing pages for a given search term.
So Why did I change to LTP?
I actually purchased LTP before joining WA and never really used it. Recently, I've noticed that a few members here at WA that I follow and respect actually use Long Tail Pro to conduct keyword research because of the metrics I mention above so I thought I'd give it a try.
How it went
My website is a 'beginners guide to website marketing' for complete newbies and small business owners who are looking to build a site and get found online.
A lot of the material I'll be covering will obviously be quite competitive and thought I LTP would make life a little easier.
It's now 11:58 am here in the UK, I turned my laptop on over three and a half hours ago to do some keyword research before writing my next posts and fired up LTP. So far I haven't written a single word.
Why is this?
Simple, I have spent the whole morning worrying that my keywords are too competitive based on Long Tail Pro's results and been digging into the search results and attempting to analyse the results. The lower competition keywords are spitting back virtually no search volume.
Jaaxy results show that these are a lot easier to rank for than what LTP is showing me.
So what's answer?
Many of the more experienced members here may say that the LTP results are what should be payed attention to and to keep digging to find the right traffic / competition balance.
What I will actually be doing is going back to Jaaxy, begging for forgiveness, and pleading with them to take me back.
No, I'm not crazy, I intend to build out this one website for the foreseeable future and it will be my only focus. Over time I hope to develop some kind of authority in the search engines.
If I continue to use Long tail pro then I'll never write any new content, I'll be for too busy worrying about my competition and too scared to go up against them.
I can definitely see the attraction of Long Tail Pro especially for smaller niche sites but It's not for me.
By going back to Jaaxy, I'll use my keyword findings to create 3 (soon to be 4) high quality, in depth posts per week,I'll be combining keyword phrases and using related search terms as I've done previously to build on my early ranking successes.
"Watch out competition, it may not be today, or even tomorrow, but one day I'm coming for you"
Let the keyword competition debate begin!
Recent Comments
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Have you made a referral yet within these 6 weeks? I've been also completing Boot camp and I am close to you in progression?
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Hi Lee,
A couple things I wanted to mention.
1) Site competition
Jaaxy DOES have a site competition feature called ‘Search Analytics’ and it gives you in-depth detail all the top listing within the SERPs.
2) LTP Relies on Google Keyword Planner
For the software to get its results, you need to login to your Google Adwords account which tends to skew the results based on your own search history
3) Proof that Jaaxy is accurate
Here is a video I did a while ago showing you that the numbers inside Jaaxy are accurate. Proof that Jaaxy Works Case Study Anyways, I hope this helps.
Thanks Jay, more re-enforcement of of how simple, yet powerful Jaaxy really is, I'll be sure to check out the video.
Hi Lee,
First of all, I want to say what a great post this is. Normally when a post is kind of long, like yours, I just scan over it to see if anything is of interest to me. In this case the whole thing caught my attention. In fact I found myself going back a couple times to make sure I understood what you said. Great post.
Now, I just want to make sure I got the correct gist of your post. It sounds like you really think LTP is technically better than Jaaxy but it makes you over think about selecting the correct keywords or phrases. Consequently, you never get any content written. So you go back to the less accurate Jaaxy, which has a track record, for you anyway, to get high ranking positions with Google. Now you get content written and relatively high ranking positions in Google. So you are going to "eat crow" and subscribe to Jaaxy again. :-).
Before you dump LTP and go back to Jaaxy I was wondering if you had actually written any posts, blog or page, based strictly on LPT derived keywords. If yes, what were the rankings? Also, which keywords give the best traffic, LTP or Jaaxy derived.
Seems like you really do have a great opportunity to do an intensive comparison. Let's faces it, isn't traffic the metric that is the most important?
Just a thought. :-).
Again Lee, this is a great post.
Hi Larry, I didn't mean it to come across as LTP is technically better, it's just a different way of doing keyword research.
I've read before somewhere (may have been here at WA) that if you are building a small niche site, then you need to have a much better understanding of your competition to be in with a chance of getting ranked.
If you're going to be building somewhat of an authority site over time, continually adding quality content on a regular basis as we're taught here, then the websites age and authority aren't as important to us as our quality content will be able to outrank them, if not just yet then in the future as our site trust grows with Google.
Plus I can process the information a little easier with Jaaxy as it's a little more visual.
That's the way I see it anyway, but as I said, I'm far from an expert. i just know what works for me, at the moment anyway.
If you want the best of both worlds, to use Jaaxy and be able to gain a deeper understanding of your competition then I'd highly recommend a training that Jay recorded a while back if you haven't seen it already. Keyword Competition Analysis Interesting stuff, Jay shows us how to research the 1st page websites manually and assess the competition, the same criteria that LTP looks at.
Thanks Lee, I must have missed Jay's training on Keyword Competition Analysis. I have wondered if there was a good way to analyze the websites that are high on page one to determine how to make best use of keywords or phrases. It always blows my mind when I see sites ranked higher than mine that really don't use the keyword phrases as defined in Jaaxy. I'll have to check it out.
Thanks and again, this is a great post.
Thanks Larry, I think that particular training video from Jay, just reinforces the fact that we do have everything we need here at WA.
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Hi Lee. i really like the way you've written this post. It had me having a little giggle when you said you would be going back to Jaaxy and asking for forgiveness. It was really great to hear of your experience with both keyword tools. Thanks for sharing.
No problem Ange, I just find Jaaxy so much more user friendly than any of the other keyword tools that I've tried.
I would recommend using Jaaxy in conjunction with Jay's training on Keyword competition analysis, especially if your site is quite new.
You can find it here; Keyword Competition Analysis Hope that helps.
Thanks. I'll definitely check it out.