Are You Making This MASSIVE Keyword Research Mistake?
Okay, no mucking about it, let’s get straight into this.
This is something I have spoken about on many occasions, but it's a mistake that I still see a lot of people making.
And that’s - ALWAYS check Google Page One for your competition before deciding whether you should target a specific keyword.
So, what I thought I’d do is to show EXACTLY what I mean by this.
Let’s Pick a “GREAT” Keyword According to Jaaxy
Right, I’m currently mulling over whether to start a new website.
The website would be in the Exercise & Fitness niche, much the same as the one in my profile.
However, I’m thinking about focusing on just one specific body part, namely the biceps.
So, if anyone wants to go up against me, please be my guest. I do love a bit of competition (but stop stealing my keywords - yes, I SEE YOU, my research skills are pretty much on-point, so I KNOW).
Anyway, so I found the following keyword in Jaaxy:
“The 10 Best Bicep Exercises”
According to Jaaxy it as the following results:
So, average search volume of 64, traffic of 11 (this will vary depending on where you rank), QSR of 10, and an SEO score of 99.
I would hazard a guess that most people would see these results and think it’s a FANTASTIC keyword.
Once you’d found this keyword, you’d get all excited, start researching ideas to write the article, imagine that you’re going to rank number one on Google in the next 37 minutes, and be a millionaire by next week.
Okay, sorry, perhaps I exaggerate somewhat, but you get my meaning.
Basically, you’d see these results and immediately set about writing the article because Jaaxy has just given you an awesome keyword!!
Hold Your Horses Cowboy - Check the Competition
I’m going to go through the results on page one of Google now to show why exactly this is a TERRIBLE keyword to target, especially if your website is less than a couple of years old.
Firstly, you’ll notice from my images that I have lots of figures and stats that you don’t normally see.
I have a couple of chrome extensions installed which provide these figures.
They are:
And
Right, let’s look at the featured snippet first.
The top result is bodybuilding(dot)com.
I know that this is a huge authority website and one of the biggest in this niche.
According to the stats:
The website has a domain authority of 89 - Huge
It has over 72,000 domains pointing to it with a total of 2,290,000 backlinks - Huge
This article alone receives 1,110 visitors a month (this proves that ONE article can rank for LOTS of keywords, as Jaaxy states that it only has a traffic value of 64. And it shows that this article ranks for 46 different keywords)
And the website receives 949,900 visitors PER MONTH (I actually know this is inaccurate, as the site receives around 5,000,000 visitors PER MONTH - I’ve done my research).
Now interestingly, I also have the stats that the article is 3,348 words, BUT the phrase:
The 10 Best Bicep Exercises
Has been used a total of ZERO times in this article.
Confused??
So, whereas everyone else claims that you have to include your keyword in your article.
You have to use the EXACT words in your Meta Title, You have to use the EXACT words in your Meta Description, you have to include the EXACT words at certain places in your article, etc.
Bodybuilding(dot)com doesn’t have the exact phrase anywhere in the article.
Okay admittedly, the title does have “10 Best Bicep Exercises”, but it is missing the word “the”.
Funnily enough, I was part of a number of replies to a question earlier in the week, and of course my reply differed from everyone else’s (well, it’s me, I haven’t to be different and create a bit of scandal!!)
Here’s the question, and you’ll find my reply among others (plus, I'd also like to point out something totally unrelated that does occasionally annoy me about the platfrom. I've gone into great detail in my answer, and received 3 Likes, and yet the one reply I received to my answer, which simply THANKS ME has received 4 likes - why would someone receive more likes than me simply for thanking me??? Mmmm, obviously the Wealhy Affiliate platform has become a popularity contest... and I'm not very popular. Do I care? NOPE!!!).
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/keyword-niche-and-market-res...
Basically, it seems that everyone is convinced that you have to use the EXACT words in the EXACT order so you can rank for a specific keyword.
NOPE!!!
As long as your article satisfies the searcher’s intent and you can get across to Google what your article is about, you have the ability to rank for that keyword.
Here’s the results on page one of Google showing the articles that are ranking 1 and 2.
So, another article by bodybuilding(dot)com, but this time the title says “The 10 Highest Rated Biceps Exercise”.
Still NOT using the EXACT keyword, but managing to rank at number ONE.
Number 2 is Men’s Health Magazine, again another huge authority site.
Their title is “15 Best Bicep Exercises to Build Muscle”
So, they haven’t even used the number 10 in the title and yet they rank number 2 on Google.
The article ranked at number 3 didn't use the exact keyword, although it has focused on 10 exercises.
However, the articles ranking at 4 and 5 produce some intersting results.
Ranked at Number 4 is another authority website (Domain Authority 65) and their title is “13 Best Bicep Exercise For Men” - so not including the number 10.
Ranked at Number is another authority website and their title includes the number 16 and yet again, not 10.
I have gone through the top 10 results, and they are ALL Authority websites.
And NONE OF THE WEBSITES have included the EXACT phrase “The 10 Best Bicep Exercises” in their Meta Title, Meta Description, or ANYWHERE in their article.
Plus, according to Jaaxy this is a fantastic keyword to target.
Here’s what I think…
If you believe in your wildest dreams that you will outrank any of the websites on page one for the term, “The 10 Best Bicep Exercises” then I have to tell you you’re sadly mistaken.
Always, Always, Always, check your competition on Page One.
PLUS, SEO has changed drastically over the last few years.
In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that most of the people I follow, and some that I regularly speak to, don’t use SEO plugins.
Remember my blog post - Allow Me to Blow Your SEO MInd
The days of meta title, meta description, and exact match keywords have come to an end.
Actually, that’s not totally true - as a RANKING FACTOR they NO LONGER matter, but you can still use these to help both Google and your website visitors determine what your article is about.
I'm not going to put the links here, but there are many articles on SearchEngineLand and SearchEngineJournal with feedback from Google's John Mueller that states this.
In fact, did you know that Google ignores 68% of meta descriptions on Desktop and 71% on Mobile?
Basically, they will use another part of your article that they believe is more relevant.
So, is there really any point in me writing a meta description if Google is going to use something else more than two-thirds of the time?
BUT don’t forget - Write for Humans not machines.
Final Thoughts
Short and Sweet today.
I just wanted to get across the value of checking page one of Google.
Plus, I’ve also introduced you to a couple of Chrome extensions I use. Btw the Keyword Surfer extension has a FREE content editor attached to it.
If you click on that it will produce an AI (Artificial Intelligence) outline of an article you could potentially use.
Basically, it will provide subheadings you can focus on within your article.
Use if you want, or do what I do, and use it as additional research and an idea generator.
Finally, as I’ve always said, don’t believe everything that a keyword tool tells you.
You MUST check page one of Google yourself to determine whether this is a good keyword or not.
For me, a proper longtail keyword that you should target will have user generated content (Forums, Social Media, Quora, Reddit) ranking on page one.
Not 10 Large Authority Websites, as was the case for the keyword that I have pulled apart above.
One final thing…. Call this a telling off.
Diane (Old Fluff) has recently published a couple of posts about <10.
The crux being that this doesn’t always mean that there isn’t traffic available for a specific keyword, it’s just that the keyword tool doesn’t have enough data to provide a figure.
I was a little surprised by the number of respondents to the blog who claimed that they weren’t aware of this, especially from those of you who I KNOW regularly read my content.
I’ve been saying this for YEARS.
Are you not paying attention to anything I say??
Naughty Naughty!!
Thank You For Reading
Partha
Recent Comments
55
Thanks, Partha, for providing more info on selecting keywords. I still haven't managed to get any traffic. I have written 12 articles since March 2, but I guess it takes a lot longer than 2 months to start getting traffic.
Do you post your articles on social media sites? I haven't tried doing that yet and I wonder if that would help me to get some traffic. What do you think? Do you think I should just keep writing articles for my site and not do anything on social media yet?
Thanks again for your help,
Barbara
You could absolutely, however the sensible thing is to know where your audience hangouts i.e. which social media platforms so that you can focus your efforts on those channels.
The more you know your audience, the better.
I would keep updating my website with informational posts, the recommendation is to keep updating blog 2 - 3 post a week, a niche a site and that's for the foreseeable future. Absolutely!
I hope this helps.
Hey Barbara.
Here's I view things, which is the same principles I apply to my sites, and of which I often speak about.
I've mentioned before that for any business, online or offline, mental, creative, physical, or technical - find the ONE thing that will drive your business forward, then spend 90% of your time doing that one thing.
You have identified that this ONE THING is what will bring you most success, so don't get overly DISTRACTED by the "other 10%"
You are learning blogging & SEO, otherwise known as, "Writing articles that rank in the search engines", so don't get distracted and spend 90% of your time doing that.
The point being, and the crux of this blog post, if you find the right keywords with little to no competition, you won't ever actually need anything else.
I mentioned on Diane and my site review that all we've done is write articles, nothing else.
Yes, the majority of our traffic comes from Google (that was the aim), but we still receive traffic from other sources (social media and forums) because our readers have deemed our content "shareable").
I know there are many successful people out there's whose "90%" is actually being on social media. But that's what they believe is where their skillset lies, and what will drive their business forward.
Find YOUR 90% and concentrate on that.
Okay, as for your lack of traffic, firstly too little done, too early to tell.
As I mentioned in the Partha/Diane blog update, you have to initially gain traction in the search engines - we wrote 54 articles in 54 days.
Secondly, I have never (that I can recall) had more than a thousand visitors to a new website in the first 2-3 months (and I have front-loaded a website with over 200 articles on Day 1 previously, and it still had to wait 4-5 months to get "decent" traffic).
I've spoken before about approx. 87% of new websites being abandoned within the first 12 months.
Trust me, Google pays attention to this.
So, you can't blame Google for being sceptical when yet another new website appears (billions of blog posts are published daily).
Google sits back and says herself, "Hmmm, here's Barbara, 2 months in and only 12 articles. Will she still be here tomorrow, next week, next month? I'm not sure yet. No rankings or traffic for you Barbara, I need to know you're serious about this. I have literally millions of people like you every year who spoil me, titilate me, entertain me, show me love for a few months, and then completely abandon me. I may be just plain old Google in your eyes, bug I also have a heart and feelings. So, I'm going to sit back Barbara and see whether you make it worth my while in sending you back any Google love, rankings, and traffic."
2 months and 12 articles are not enough for Google to make this decision.
I typically say that an article on a new website requires 8-9 months to reach its true traffic potential. All my articles increase in views month-after-month. So, month 1 may only be 5 views, month 2 is 40 views, and by the time I'm hitting month 8-9, I would want that one article to be receiving a minimum of 500 views (but in the 8-9 months while I was "waiting" I also wrote and published another 200 articles - blogging never stops).
Remember that every single niche you can think of will have websites that are 15-20 years old with a few thousand articles on them.
This is also why it makes sense NOT to compete with them when you're first starting (find keywords they haven't targeted).
I'm not saying that social media isn't a viable option, but you need to find YOUR 90%, plus you still have to prove to Google that you're not another less than 12 month abandoner statistic.
Partha
Hi Partha,
I promise you I will stop whining about my lack of traffic. You must be getting sick of hearing it by now. I will focus on selecting keywords that don't have authoritarian websites ranking for them. There are so many of those websites in the dog niche. It takes a lot of time to find a keyword that doesn't have all those big-time websites on pages 1 and 2. This is what takes the most time.
Also, according to Yoast, I have too many sentences longer than 20 words, and the worst on too many passive sentences instead of active ones. I know you don't use an SEO tool. Do you just naturally keep your sentence word count down and don't write passive sentences? Or does that really even matter?
Thanks again, Partha,
Barbara
Hi Abie,
I haven't even gotten on to Facebook for at least 2 years, but somehow I have gotten kicked off that platform. So Facebook is out. I have no idea how I could have been kicked off that site I never did much, some promotion of pupcorner 5 years ago. So you think I should get onto the various (other than Facebook) sites and look for a high concentration of dog lovers? Do all of the social media sites allow you to post informational posts on them?
Thanks again, Abie,
Barbara
Hey, Partha. I always pay attention to what you say. I am just a bit slow to put it into practice! People who know me would say that is because I have an innate stubbornness where I have to learn everything the hard way. :)
I think I might need to just ditch my SEO plugin altogether...
Thanks, my friend.
Craig
Another great post Prince🤴 P!
Oh yeah, and you gave me a great idea💡
Compete with you and steal all your keywords at the same time, what was the domain name of your new site by the way... just kidding... lol
For one thing, I think I would need to do a lot more exercising before I get into the exercise niche... Haha
Seriously though, thanks for the info and the links to the 2 chrome extensions :)
Your Loyal Royal Supporter👑
Zach "The Prosperous View"
I always check Page 1 of Google before writing except when I want to write a recipe. I haven't found a good way to do it and rank. Well, sometimes I can lump it in with a different article keyword, but not often. I've been in a writing slump lately so recipes are easy. I enjoy writing about my experience with making it too. I figure at least I'm showing Google consistency in my writing.
So, let me ask you...is there any value in writing and not ranking if it shows Google consistency?
Lynn
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Somebody put me onto your page and just from this one article alone - I am hooked. Thank you so much. I have been relying on jaxxy and have been blogging for about 6 months now with almost no traffic, let alone income. This is incredibly valuable information that everyone should know!!!!!!