What is a keyword?

It is a word or a phrase that someone types into a search engine. People use words or phrases to find things they are looking for online and there are BILLIONS of keywords out there.

As an affiliate marketer and here within Wealthy Affiliate, you are going to become an expert with keyword research and coming up with search terms that people type into search engines.

Here is a birds eye view of the process of SEO, from keyword to the money.

Importance of Keywords to Your Business

Keywords are instrumental in your business, they are the starting point of all of your rankings & traffic. Whether you are attempting to rank in search engines for FREE (through search engine optimization) or paying for traffic through pay-per-click, keywords are YOUR WAY of capturing highly relevant and engaged visitors to your website.

As an example, let's say that I am looking for the best affiliate marketing training online. I would most likely type in:

You could, in theory, target this very keyword with a page/post on your website and then rank for it in Google. When you get ranked in Google, your post will show up within the natural search results.

These are natural, SEO rankings. This would lead to traffic (people coming to your website) and then you could make such recommendations, like Wealthy Affiliate and earn commissions as a result.

That is how search engine optimization works, initially we are going to be teaching you how to get ranked through SEO (for FREE) but down the road in bootcamp you are going to learn how you can drive traffic to your website through paid avenues, like PPC and Facebook Ads.

What Tools Do You Need to Find Keywords

There are many keyword and research tools on the market. I have used pretty much all of them over the years, from Google's in house keyword tool to expensive keyword research platforms out there. None of them provided the data that I needed!

I found that most ended up providing useless, and often times, very inaccurate information.

Introducing Jaaxy, an Affiliate and Internet Marketers dream research platform. Not only does it capture the data you need about a keyword, it does it in a very efficient manner.

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DISCUSS VIDEO: Keyword Mastery, Keywords Are the Foundation of Your Success

Task 1: Research and Find 5 Keywords Relating to Your Niche

When you get a grasp for keyword research, you are truly going to be in a position where you have TOO MANY keywords and not enough time. That is a good position to be in.

When starting out though, it might feel as though there is some sort of keyword scarcity. This feeling usually dissipates when you sit down to start performing some keyword research within your given target audience.

Again, each post you publish on your website is going to target a specific keyword. Then as you build out content targeting that keyword, you will start to get rankings, which leads to traffic and ultimately the driving force of your revenue.

START BROAD, Narrow Down.

My tendency is to start broad, and narrow down to something more specific. For example, I can search a term like "affiliate" in Google, and come up with a lot of ideas before I even commence my research in a keyword tool like Jaaxy.

When you type any term into Google, they offer you "Google Instant" results meaning that they will show you predictive results based on what you are typing. This is an incredible way to find new keywords.

Let's quickly look at the "affiliate" example. If you type this phrase into Google, it is going to give you a bunch of instant, predictions.

One search, I already have FOUR new ideas that I could plug into Jaaxy.

• affiliate marketing
• affiliate programs
• affiliate definition
• affiliate marketing canada

I can then continue typing and I will get more Google Instant predictive results.

I have another FOUR ideas, that I could now plug into Jaaxy. These terms are getting more narrow, and more targeted which is what we are after here.

I can then keep going. In this case, I am going to type out "affiliate marketing training". Here are the results in Google.

As you can see, another FOUR terms.

By typing literally THREE words into Google, I have come up with 12 brand new keyword ideas. These are keywords that I can then plug into Jaaxy and completely my keyword research.

To complete your research and derive AWESOME keywords, it is important though that you understand what type of keywords you are after here.

The 3 Criterion Your Keywords Must Meet

There are 3 qualifying factors for SEO when it comes to keyword research in Jaaxy or using the WA Keyword Tool. It isn't overly complex, so don't overthink these by any means.

You are going to be looking at traffic, competition and whether or not the keyword actually makes grammatical sense.

1. Keyword must get SOME traffic. Ideally you will choose a keyword that gets over monthly searches.
2. Under 100 QSR (Competition). This is ideal for a newer website, but as you start to build out your site it is completely fine to target keywords that are under 200 QSR.
3. The keyword must make sense. If the keyword phrase could not be used in a proper sentence, then chances are you shouldn't use it. It must be grammatically correct.

There is a quick search feature available to you right within the Jaaxy menu. You simply click on the menu and it will hope up the submenu, with the search available right within it.

You can see I have entered "affiliate marketing training" into the search (as shown below).

As you can see, one simple search has yielded many keywords that fit this criteria.

If you do a search and you don't see the full data, you simply need to click the "Get QSR" link and it will fetch the data for you. You will see that if that particular keyword has never been searched before.

You are going to be creating all of your posts moving forward based on the premise of keywords. Each page or post on your website will be targeting a brand new keyword and through time and as you build out your website, this can lead to an incredible amount of traffic and revenue.