Do You Have A Profitable Low Competition Keyword?

I have been asked over and over recently how to check if your keyword is easy to rank number 1 for.

I am going to show you how to:

• Find out if you have a money making keyword
• Add diversity to the SERPs for top ranking
• Find out if your keyword is easy to rank no. 1 in Google Search

I am going develop a keyword competition check list for you.

If you can tick any part of the check list then you have yourself a keyword that is not so easy to rank at the top of Google search.

Keyword selection is the most important part of any project.

Get it wrong and it can be incredibly frustrating.

Get it right and you will be smiling from ear to ear making a great passive revenue stream.

There is no point in spending 3 months trying to rank a particular keyword only to fail horribly.

You need to go into a project confident that you can rank number 1 for your selected keyword.

Do not miss any of these steps.

I am going to select a random keyword and then show you how to asses the competition.

Selected keyword to asses is: “best carry on backpack”

Number of USA Google monthly searches: 1,600

If you want to know how to find kewords using free tools just check out the videobelow:

Do You Have A Money Making Keyword?

We need to find out how much money we can make from our keyword.

There is no point in spending 3 months ranking a site no. 1 if you are going to make very little money from it.

Before we analyse the keyword competition we need to make sure that you are going to make some money when you rank no. 1 in Google search.

We know that my selected keyword gets 1600 searches, but what percentage of people searching for this keyword click on the top search result?

Well this all depends on your CTR, but to play this calculation on the safe side we are going to go with 33%.

According to searchenginewatch.com 33% of the traffic goes to the top Google listing, of course it could well be a whole lot higher for your site.

So lets calculate how many people will actually visit my site if I ranked no. 1:

1600 x 0.33 = 528

Now we can calculate how much money our keyword will make us each and every month.

You will know your conversion rate. My Amazon conversion is always over 5% no matter what time of year it is.

Of course how much money you make all depends on how you monetise your site.

For this example I will use Amazon, you can enter your own figures to determine the monetary value of your selected keyword.

Lets calculate how many people will make a sale:

528 x 0.05 = 26

Let’s calculate how much money we will make from these 26 sales.

Carry on backpacks cost roughly around $40. Of course there are much cheaper ones and much more expensive ones. You need to make an estimate here.

I know I will get at least 4% from Amazon for every sale. How much do I get per sale:

40 x 0.04 = 1.6

Here is the most important number. How much your keyword is worth on a monthly basis:

1.6 x 26 = $41.60

Of course this is a rough estimate.

This is a way to know if you really should chase a particular keyword top ranking.

Do this step before you analyse the keyword competition, saves you loads of time.

Now you need to decide if it is worth your time ranking a keyword for the monetary gains we have just calculated.

Only you can decide upon that. This will be different for evey one out there.

$41.60 is not enough for me, no matter how easy it was to rank for this keyword.

I would then bin this keyword and take a look at another.

If you can’t find a keyword that is going to make you a large profit from Amazon products then go ahead and try Click Bank.

Click Bank give you higher commission rates, you will make more money from less monthly searches this way.

Keep in mind, if the keyword is fairly easy to rank no. 1, it is going to take you 3 months to do using the web 2.0 backlinks no. 1 ranking strategy.

Using the expired web 2 backlinks strategy the first month is roughly about 4 hours backlink building work.

In the second month it is around 7 hours work.

In month three it is about 5 hours work.

Over 3 months to rank no. 1 for this particular keyword it is going to take roughly 16 to 20 hours work.

Ask yourself; is $41.60 every month worth 16 hours work?

When you find a keyword that will give you a good monetary return for your backlink time investment you can move onto the next step.

Now Google search your keyword.

Are You Adding Diversity To The SERPs?

After you Google your selected keyword ask yourself;

Can I add something new here?

For example, Google loves diversity in it’s results pages.

If any of the top ten sites have the exact match keyword in their TITLE, DESCRIPTION and URL then bin the keyword and move onto the next one.

You need to be the only site there with the exact match keyword in your title for diversity. This is why I always target long tail keywords, they make this step a whole lot easier.

Also, are you adding an affiliate review site. How many already exist in the top 10?

If you have 2 or more then bin the keyword.

Or consider adding something different in there, go for an e-commerce affiliate store using Prosociate. I have used this WordPress Plugin myself and I can vouch for it.

If you can’t add diversity to the SERPs then bin the keyword and start the process over again.

Yes it is time consuming, but it is well worth the effort.

When you find a keyword that makes $1500 a month and is easy to rank you are laughing.

So take your time to do it right.

The more research you do in the beginning the more confident you will be at making a success of your project.

Never go in there blind, you are asking to fail and in most cases will.

Some might be lucky, but you will never be able to do the same thing again.

This way you can rank sites over and over making money online with ease.

Well it’s not that easy, finding a good keyword can take days, but that time is well worth it.

Take it from me, doing your research first will save you a lot of stress and heart ache in the end.

It might seem like a long boring task, but if you keep focused on the money and what you want to achieve then you will get there.

So write down a figure that you would like to earn from a particular keyword and then get cracking finding one.

You should now have a profitable keyword.

Now let’s find out if your keyword is easy to rank no. 1 for.

This is what we need to be looking for.

You need to run this check list over the top ranking sites for your selected keyword.

Of course if you only run this check list over one site, do it on the no. 1 ranked site for your selected keyword.

Easy Keyword Checklist

#1 Does the exact match keyword appear anywhere in the URL (even sub domain).

#2 Is any part of the keyword at the beginning of the domain name.

#3 Is the exact keyword in the TITLE TAG. (it’s more powerful at the beginning)

#4 Is the exact keyword in the DESCRIPTION TAG.

#5 Is the exact keyword in the H1 TAG.

#6 Does the exact match keyword appear at least 3 times in the content.

#7 Does the exact match keyword appear in the first paragraph on the page.

#8 Do the sites have over 2000 words of content and is it useful.

#9 Do the sites have bullet points and numbered lists within their content.

#10 Do the sites have the exact match keyword in an image ALT TAG.

#11 Do the top sites link out to a related authority site in the niche.

#12 Do the top sites have lots of content. Easy to out rank think sites with a few pages on there.

#13 Do the top sites have 3 or more images within the content.

#14 Do the top sites have at least one video within the content.

#15 Do the top ranking sites have short URLs. Long URLs are not so good.

#16 If any sites have high DA and the content page is close to the homepage.

#17 Do the top sites have more than 20 backlinks from different C-CLASS IPs.

#18 Are the backlinks from niche related sites.

#19 Are the backlinks diverse e.g from comments, forums, guest posts etc.

#20 Are the backlinks from authority sites with quality content on them.

#21 Is the backlink from a page with the exact keyword in the H1.

#22 Do any of the top sites have backlinks from a high DA homepage.

#23 Do the sites have contextual backlinks from long 1000 word plus posts. Links from a side bar have less power.

#24 Do the contextual backlinks come at the top of the content. Is the content well written.

#25 Is the backlink anchor text mixed.

#26 Do any of the top sites have an SSL certificate. URL starts with HTTPS.

#27 Do the top sites have over 500 social signals from Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

#28 Do the top sites have lots of comments.

#29 Are the search engine results diverse. Google loves diversity, if there is already a site like yours then don’t bother.

I Will Run This Check list Over My Selected Keyword

Pop the keyword into Google Search (make sure it is for the country you are targeting eg Google.com or Google.co.uk) “best carry on backpack”

For this tutorial I am using Google.com.

#1 One site, the top ranked site has the exact match keyword in the URL. I would not pursue this keyword any further. But for the purpose of this tutorial I am going to finish all the steps for you.

#2 Not one of the sites have the keyword at the beginning of their domain name. If I was to go ahead with this keyword I have found a weakness that I could exploit to try and out rank the top sites. I would buy a domain like backpackcarry.com or carryonpackpack.com.

#3 Just the top ranking site has the exact match keyword in the TITLE TAG. If you start your TITLE TAG with your exact match keyword it is more powerful. I would not target this keyword because if I used the exact match keyword at the start of the TITLE TAG it would appear too much like the top ranked site, this would not add diversity to the search results. Keep the word “DIVERSITY” at the front of your mind when performing this step.

#4 Just one site (ranked no. 10) has the exact match keyword in the DESCRIPTION TAG. This is not a massive ranking factor, but you are much more certain to rank no. 1 if you are the only site that has the exact match keyword in the site description area.

Remember you are looking for a weakness in SERPs that you can exploit.

#5 Now it is time to visit some of the top ranking sites. Do they have the exact match keyword in their main heading. If no sites do, then you can be certain that you can rank no. 1 for your selected keyword. The top ranked site in this case does have the exact match keyword in the H1 TAG. I would not waste my time trying to outrank this guy when the monetary return is so low for this selected keyword.

#6 The top ranking site is well optimised for my selected keyword. It does have the keyword mentioned at the top of the content, somewhere in the middle and at the end too. I would have ditched this keyword ages ago, but I will continue with this process for you to see how simple it is to pick out easy to rank keywords.

#7 As you can see from the image above, the top ranking site has the exact match keyword near the top of the content. He has optimised the page perfectly for this keyword.

#8 The top ranking site has well over 2000 words on the page and would certainly take some beating. The content is not thin at all. We are looking for thin content, preferably under 1000 words. The site sitting in spot 2 has lots of quality content too, I would certainly not target this keyword.

#9 The top ranked site does have bullet points and lists within the content. I could outrank this site with fresh content, but it would take a lot of hard work and some very good powerful backlinks. I would most definitely not pick up this keyword, it would be a waste of my time.

#10 Take a look at the top ranked sites source code. If you are in Chrome, go to Tools and then View Source. Then look for the ALT Tag on the images, do they have the exact keyword in there? The top site does not have it on page anywhere, this is one small thing that this webmaster could improve on. It’s such a small ranking signal that it’s not something I would use to try and out rank him, although we have found a small weakness on the top site here.

#11 The top ranking site for my selected keyword does link out to an authority site with related content. It actually links out to a wikipedia page, which most SEOs do these days to add some authority to their content. You can certainly see why this site ranks no. 1, everything has been optimised to perfection, apart from the ALT Tags of course.

#12 The top ranking sites are loaded with content. We are not just talking about the page we are trying to out rank, I mean does the site have a lot of pages loaded with content on there? The top ranked site does for my keyword, it would take a while to catch up with this guy, it would not be a good time investment at all for me to take on.

#13 The top sites have loads of images within their content. This is something I would not be able to compete with.

#14 The top ranking site is well optimised with media, it has lots of images and useful videos on there.

#15 The top ranking sites have short and concise URLs, you know what the page is about even within the short URL. The top ranked site has been optimised really well for a top ranking spot. As you can see in the image below, the site sitting in spot no. 5 has long URL, this is what you are trying to avoid if you want to out rank them.

#16 The top ranking site does not have a really high DA, it is possible to achieve a DA 17 in a few months. The problem is that the page that sits in the top spot has a PA of 17 that is close to the DA 17 homepage. The site architecture has been cleverly thought out, keeping the content with the keywords that you want to rank no. 1 for close to the homepage, just one level up. You need MozBar to check a sites DA and PA.

#17 Now it’s time to check the top ranking sites backlinks. This part is very important, if I was going to out rank the top ranked site I would need to improve on the content and then would need more backlinks of greater quality,  preferably contextual backlinks.

MozBar shows that the top ranking site has just 3 backlinks, the site in spot no. 2 has zero backlinks. The problem with using MozBar alone is that it does not pick up on all backlinks. So I like to use SEO SpyGlass for the section too.

You can visit each of the sites that backlink to the top ranking site and check whether they have different C-CLASS IPs using this tool.

You could also use monitorbacklinks.com to check C-CLASS IPs, which is free to use too.

As we can see, the top ranking site has 127 backlinks from 24 domains and 17 C-CLASS IPs, which is not so good. I could out rank this site if I wanted to. But it’s not worth my time, I would look for an easier keyword.

We then need to take a look at the sites that backlink to the top ranking site.

#18 In MonitorBacklinks.com click on the sites that backlink to the top ranking site. Are the backlinks within the content, from comments or even in the side bar. Does the site look like a real site, or a PBN site? Use MozBar to check the links that point to the sites and also to check PA and DA, all of this passes on ranking juice.

If the site that backlinks to the site that you want to out rank has lots of backlinks too, these backlinks will all pass on ranking juice the top ranking site, improving their search ranking. You need to look at all the backlinks down the chain. The more backlinks that you find, the harder it is going to be for you to out rank them.

I can see right away that the backlinks are not very good, the anchor text used does not match the keyword. I could out rank this site with some decent free backlinks alone.

#19 Take a look at all the sites that backlink to the top ranking site, is there a diverse set of backlinks from comments, backlinks within content etc. The top ranking site does have contextual and backlinks from comments and other sources. It is possible to out rank this site, my do it yourself seo guide would see to that.

#20 Take a look at the content on the sites that backlink to the top sites. Is the content thin? Does the backlink come from within the top of the content or further down the page? The content on the sites that backlink to the top site for my selected keyword is very thin and the backlinks are at the bottom of the page. This could be out done for sure.

#21 Now you need to asses if the backlink comes from a page with related content to the top ranking site. Is the keyword in the main heading? A backlink from a page with the exact match keyword in the H1 Tag will be very powerful. The top site for my selected keyword does not have backlinks from any page with the keyword within the H1 Tag.

#22 Check the DA and PA of the sites that backlink to the top ranking sites. The top ranked site for my selected keyword has a backlink from a PA 16 and DA 40 with one backlink pointing to it. The backlink is contextual, it is a pretty good backlink. The question is – Can you beat the quality of the backlinks that point to the top ranking sites.

#23 The sites that backlink to the top ranking site for my selected keyword are contextual. It is possible to match and get more backlinks than this.

#24 The content where the backlinks sit is not that long. I would be able to get better backlinks from more C-Class Ip’s from related and longer articles for sure. Is this keyword worth my time, absolutely not.

#25 You can check the anchor text of the backlinks using SEO SpyGlass and Monitor Backlinks. Is it mixed up, if not you have found a weakness that you can exploit.

#26 Not one of the top ranking sites have an SSL certificate. It is a small ranking factor that will give you a boost up the SERPs if you have one.

#27 You can use MozBar again to check social signals of the top ranking sites. The top ranking site has zero Facebook and zero Google Plus social shares. I could certainly out do this little ranking factor with a simple SEO Clerks social signals gig. You could also use http://buttonspace.com/ to check a sites social signals quick and easy.

#28 The top ranking site has zero comments, this is something that I could improve on if I had decided to go ahead and choose to rank this keyword. A site with a lot of comments means visitors are engaging with the content, this is a small Google ranking factor.

#29 Take a look at every site. Are the Google SERPs diverse. Are you adding another Amazon affiliate site? The top ranking site for my selected keyword is an Amazon Affiliate site, I would not bother adding another. Diversity in the SERPs is what Google needs to achieve. Adding more affiliate sites to an already saturated market is a bad idea, you are certain to lose.

If you are going to add an affiliate site make sure there isn’t any already in the top 10 rankings. If there is, then go down another avenue, add something unique and new to the SERPs.

Do You Have An Easy To Rank Keyword?

That’s it, I know that it is a long drawn out process, but if you do this step the right way you are sure to find an easy to rank keyword.

Taking your time to find a good keyword is the key ingredient to online money making success.

Before you even look at the competition you need to roughly estimate how much money your keyword can earn you.

When you get a keyword that will give you a good monthly income, you can then move onto the next step.

Finding an easy to rank keyword that is profitable takes time, I can work on this for days and days.

The good news is that you will find one. If you complete these steps you will be confident that you can rank no. 1 for your selected keyword.

Always do your research before you begin a project and your chances of success are much higher, in most cases they are guaranteed.

Have fun ranking.

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