Mastering Keyword Research and SEO Competition

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Today, I thought I’d mix it up a bit and publish a video post. I really enjoy doing them, especially when I get to use my “electronic whiteboard”, as you’ll see.

In this 10 minute video, I talk about how I do keyword research when it comes to the blog posts that I write, the articles that I submit to article sites, and selecting potential profitable niche sites. I also show you exactly how I do a bit of SEO “espionage” to scope out exactly what I have to do to out rank my competition.

I’ve included a rough transcription below the video for your convenience.

(Watch Mastering Keyword Research and SEO on YouTube)

Market Samurai Free Trial: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/market-samurai

Transcription:

[Intro]

Hey everybody! What’s up?! This is Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income Blog.

Today I’m going to be talking about something really important for your blog or online business, and that is keyword research.

Whether you’re doing keywords research on your own using tools like the Google Keyword tool from Adwords, or you’re hiring out someone else to do it for you, you have to understand what the number one goal is behind all keyword research, and that’s to rank on the first page of Google. That’s what really matters.

If you’re on the second page, you might as well be on the 30th page, because everything happens on the first page. It’s super, super, super important that you understand this, because that’s your goal. So, whenever you’re doing keyword research, which I’m going to show you how to do in certain ways in a second, you gotta analyze who is on the first page and know how to beat them.

Now this goes if you’re going to write blog posts, and you’re looking for keywords for your blog posts. Or, if you’re looking to get into new niches, for niche sites. And, if you’re doing articles like on eHow, or Infobarrel, or Squidoo, or Hubpages, or whatever…

You want to be on that first page. That’s where all the money is – that’s where the traffic is. If you’re on a blog, that’s where the subscribers are, your rss readers – everything.

So, if you’re doing any of these things (blog posts, niche sites or articles), you have to remember that you want to rank on the first page of Google.

So how do you do this? How do you properly do keyword research?

First you have to understand searches. How many people are searching and for what keywords.

Secondly, you have to understand everything about your competition. Backlinks, Page Ranks, Indexed pages, Domain Age – everything, so that you know what you have to do to beat them – then rank on the first page, and then be all good!

So, what tools can you use to do proper keyword research?

Well, there’s a number of free ones that you can use – the Google Adwords Keyword tool – that’s one that a lot of people are using.

But, there’s a paid one out there that I use every single day – when I’m writing blog posts, when I’m writing articles, and I’m about to do niche sites as well and it’s been helping me out tremendously to filter out all the crappy keywords out there that have no searches or are too competitive to rank for – and that’s Market Samurai.

[Market Samurai Segment]

[03:40] – In Market Samurai, I type in my primary keyword for smartpassiveincome.com (passive income)

[03:52] – Click on SEO Competition and click on Generate Results to get list of top 10 ranked sites in Google for the keyword. Each of the listings show relevant SEO data, including Domain Age, Page Ranking, Indexed Pages from Google, Page Back Links, Domain Back Links, Back Links from Educational and Government Sites, Directory Listings, Keyword in Title of the Page, Keyword in URL, Keyword in Description, and Keyword in Header.

[04:50] – I compare my site to the site above me, based on the above factors.

[05:30] – Market Samurai tells me that the reason I’m not ranking higher than some of the other sites is because my keyword is not in my header.

[06:15] – Page Rank Analysis – Market Samurai discovers all of the websites that backlink to my competitor’s website and their pageranks. Higher page ranks are worth more.

[06:45] – You can click on those backlinking websites and scope out where your competition is mentioned on those sites. On some sites, you can grab a link back to your own site as well. I go through a couple of examples – the first is a trackbank link, and the second is a comment on a dofollow blog.

[08:40] – You can use this technique to “catch-up” to your competition and eventually rank higher than them.

[09:15] – You can click on the link below to download your free trial of Market Samurai. If you don’t like it, no worries, but it’s a product that I highly, highly recommend that you try.

Market Samurai Free Trial: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/market-samurai

Thanks for your time everyone. Cheers!

Tagged as: keyword research, search engine optimization

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