I wrote a post about outsourcing and referred to article writing.

Since then I have had a couple emails and a reply from Betty inquiring about keywords and keyword research, so I thought I would post: How Alan Does Keyword Research.

There are to many ways to research keywords to mention here, and in my opinion every last method has its merit.

I have heard some seasoned Internet marketers say they still stand by the “Throw it at the wall and let it stick” method and I’ve also read a couple of articles referring to keyword research and honest to God I still don’t know what they said – way over my head.

Here’s my method (This is no secret btw) and I know it works for low hanging fruit (Keywords that get searches and have little competition).

I love boating, don’t get to do it like I use to. Man what a feeling when it’s 90 degrees out and and the waters splashing on you… oh, sorry daydreaming again.

Boating, now I’m doing this without any narrow niche in mind. You see boating is a broad term and means many things such as boat motors, sailboats,boat seats,etc, etc, etc

Let’s see what I come up with? I take my keyword and put it into Google’s keyword tool and a ton of results come up.

I click Global Monthly Search Volume to get the monthly searches from highest to lowest.

Take a look at the keyword – boats. It has 55,600,000; we’re not getting on the first page for the term boats. Time to move on.

I usually go for keywords that have a about 1000 searches a month and then I will break them down to see if I can get on the first page of Google, I don’t want the second page, I want the first page.

So, let’s check out – boating marinas. This keyword has 1000 searches a month. Lets break it down and investigate to see if I can get a good ranking.

First off I go to Google.com and put boating marinas in quotes like this – “boating marinas” and then click search. I get back 24,300 results, this is loosely based on using the keyword in the article and maybe in the title. Might be a little high, I like to stay around 10,000 or lower to have a good chance, but lets see where this goes.

Now I put boating marinas into Google.com with quotes around it right after allinanchor: so it looks like this – allinanchor:”boating marinas”

The reason I include allinanchor: and then boating marinas with parenthesis is I want to know how many competitors for my keyword (boating marinas) have incoming links with the anchor text – boating marinas.

I believe this is where my competition is, in knowing how many other links have boating marinas that point back to them. Anchor text , this is an example of an anchor text. This is what the link is labeled as. I might send you to yahoo.com through click here. The anchor text or label is – click here. So, we will soon see there are only 139 sites that have an anchor text with boating marinas as its label.

Just because Boating marinas is in the title or in the article doesn’t mean they are serious competition.

This is not complicated and takes minutes.

So allinanchor:”boating marinas” (If you were interested in army ants it would be allinanchor:”army ants”) returns 20,500 competing pages.

Next to search where you put your keyword into Google there is a link called  – Advanced search, click on it.

When the page comes up, follow down to Need more tools? Just below that you will see Results per page, change that to 100 and click advance search.

Now, we have a page with 100 results instead of 10. Go to bottom of your page and  and you will see there are two pages total. There might be 5, 7, or 100 anyway click on the last page possible. In this case page 2.

Take a look at Results which is near the top of the page and you will see 101-139 results for allinanchor: “boating marinas”.

Anything under 225 and I’m getting excited.

Now just because the results show only 139 competing anchor text for boating marinas does not mean we are done yet.

Take a look to the right side of the page, are there ads over there? These are people who are paying to have their ad placed on these pages (Google adwords). This is another indicator this is a good keyword; people are paying money to be here and hopefully we will be there for free.

Now here is a major indicator of whether I can get on the first page of Google for my chosen keyword. Are there any authority sites?

What is an authority site. An authority site is a site that has been established, is very well known, has many out going links as well as incoming links. Heres an example: Google.com or alans-schearchengine.com. Who’s the authority site here. Google authority sites if you want to know more.

Now looking under allinanchor:”boating marinas” at the results there are no authority sites, cool. Even if there was 1 or maybe two I would consider this, but to many authority sites and hit the road you will lose.

I believe boating marinas is a keyword I could get a first page ranking on.

So here’s my formula in as clear and easy terms as I can say it:

Let’s say my niche is about wind energy.

#1 – Google: Wind energy. I see it has 38,400,000 results and has AdWords ads along the right side meaning people are paying to have their products on that page. I think this is a popular keyword and people are talking about it.

I Googled Wind energy forums and there are a bunch, this is a popular niche.

#2 – Is this my product, or is there one I can sell available. Go to Clickbank, Commission Junction or sometimes I Google: the niche keyword products (In this case, Wind energy products, could be frog cleaning products or whatever) and find one from there to be an affiliate for.)

So I do have a product I believe in and would be proud to represent. Good, moving on.

#3 – Google: Wind energy with allinanchor: like this -  allinanchor:”wind energy”. I see the results on the last page are 601-608 to high for that keyword. Don’t worry we will find one.

#4 – Lets go back to our Google keyword tool and type wind energy. Click Global Monthly Search Volume to put searches in order.

Look for a 1000 searches or so a month. I see -  wind energy products, it has 1000 searches a month.

#5 – Put “wind energy products” in Google.com and it shows 12,000 results. Cool, close to our 10,000 competition target.

#6 – Put allinanchor:”wind energy products” in Google.com. Last page results are 248 allinanchor competition. Alright!

There are paying ads on the right side of the page, man I think I am good to go!

If I write a quality article and submit it to ezinearticles with an author box that has a click-able link to my product/product I am representing, I think I will get on the first page of Google for the keyword wind energy products.

People, I have articles using this formula that are two years old and last month I made $37 off a product I wrote an article on 11 months ago! Did nothing else with that article after I wrote it!

This works.

The downside for me, I hate writing.

I believe this is all some people do and are making money. I think this is a viable way to make money, I think this is a lot of work, and there are easier ways to make money.

I believe if someone could write 10 well written articles a week, with quality products that he or she could see some nice returns down the road.

I think in my next post I will show the one keyword tool I use and how I use it to expand on my niche and grab a wider targeted audience.

Anyway, this is How Alan Does Keyword Research.