Research Before You Start
Before you write an article, you should determine whether or not there is potential to receive traffic, how much competition you are up against, and which keywords to optimize to get maximum results. There are several ways you can search for keyword niches.
Analyzing Competition With Google
In order to determine whether or not a keyword is competitive or not, you should go to Google and check out how many search results come up under any particular keyword. You do this by typing in your search using "..." (quotes) as this will grab the results for the EXACT search phrase.
Here is an example search:
"wealthy affiliate university"
At the time when we wrote this, there were 689 results retrieved from this search in Google. A good rule of thumb is to aim for keywords where the results are less than 5000. This will make it easier to get your keywords listed as you will have much less competition to deal with. A keyword like "make money" has over 39,000,000 results. What do you think your chances are of getting your "make money" optimized article listed under this search term? Not very good! So, focus on lower competition keywords.
The next thing you will want to do is take a look at the top ranked natural listings under the search term. If the sites on the first page of natural listings have a lower page rank than the article site you are going to submit to, you have a very good chance of getting listed on the first page. To determine page rank you can either download the Google Toolbar at:
Or you can use this tool:
Analyzing traffic with the WA Keyword Research Tool
If you want to perform some keyword research, you should take advantage of the Keyword Research tool that we offer right here at Wealthy Affiliate. You can access this tool from the icon at the top of your Wealthy Affiliate dashboard. The keyword tool grabs search results from Google and will outline the competition and the keyword traffic volume, as well as allowing you to dig down and find more targeted, less competitive keywords.
Some keywords like "make money" are way too broad to create an article around. This is because it's an extremely popular keyword and thousands of sites are already listed under it. Instead, you should focus on writing articles for more relevant keywords that are not as competitive. For example, you will be able to achieve top rankings if you promote under the term "how to make money as an affiliate" as there are just over 800 results!
Without having to do a TON of research, you can find terms that are high volume but have limited competition if you look for keywords that pertain to brand new products.
For instance, when we have launched any of our products in the past (Who Loves Money, Beating Adwords, etc) it has been very easy for members here at WA to get their articles naturally listed pre- and post- launch because there was limited competition within the search engines. With a new product, you can literally get an article listed in a number of days under the product keywords.
This is VERY powerful information and can lead to a flurry of sales for a new product. This is explained in further detail on the next page.
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