by: AskPat 321 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody. Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 321 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
All right, here's today's question from Toni.
Toni: Hello Mr. Flynn. My name is Toni Timothy. This is a question from Trinidad and Tobago. I'll be starting two websites. Twice daily deals and CurryBuy.com. I also have another website for books I still have to write.
I'm calling concerning the software recommendation you had for researching keywords. Do those softwares, do they also work for Amazon when you're searching Kindle books, or should I get a separate. . . should I use those keywords or should I use that for Kindle as well as information finding keywords for targeting Kindle books, like titles and so forth, right? Thank you. Bye.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Toni. What's up? Thank you so much for the question today. This is a very common question, because a lot of people see these keyword research tools that are primarily built for Google Search. Tools that I'm talking about are the Google Keyword Planner, which is obviously for Google and how many people are searching for certain terms and how often, in Google. Then there is Long Tail Pro, which is my favorite. Long Tail Pro by Spencer Haws over at Niche Pursuits. It's a great one. I recommend it for everybody. AskPat.com/longtailpro. There's actually a discount there for you if you want to check it out. And also Market Samurai is one that I've recommended for years. That is done really well too. But again, those are all for Google Keyword terms and search volumes and CPAs and CPMs and the ad clicks and cost per clicks and all that stuff, CPCs. That's the one I was searching for.
But you know, when it comes to Amazon. Amazon is a totally different game, and you can't rely on those Google Keyword tools for Amazon. I mean, it might give you an inkling of a thought or some help on maybe which terms are more popular. But again, it's a completely different search engine. And it's a search engine where people are going and looking to buy things, which is really important. That's why Amazon should be considered a search engine, but it should also be considered different than Google.
Now, I'm going to recommend you check out this podcast episode of a podcast called Self Publishing Questions with Steve Scott. Steve Scott is somebody who was on my podcast actually, and he was great. He's done really, really well with Kindle books and in episode 19, you'll find the link at AskPat.com. Again this is episode 321 of AskPat, and you'll find the link clickable there for you. But, if you go to SelfPublishingQuestions.com/keywords-tools, or look up Self Publishing Questions with Steve Scott Episode 19. The title of this podcast episode is, “Why keyword tools don't sell Kindle books.” And the main gist here, because the person is asking about, just like you, they're asking about keyword tools to help with getting keywords for titles on Amazon and getting more sales that way.
The biggest takeaway is, and this is from Steve, if you focus on using keyword tools, you're not focused on creating high quality content. So, you know, I know there's a lot of debate here. And there's somebody in my mastermind group, his name is Todd Tresidder from FinancialMentor.com, I think he would disagree with this a little bit, because he does definitely use keywords in his titles of his books and he's doing really, really well. He knows that a lot of people are finding them through search. For instance, “retirement planning,” I believe, is one of the keywords that he's targeting for one of his personal finance related books and it's doing really, really well and he did that purposefully.
However, Steve is coming at it, and I like this approach as well, because you know there's a lot of keyword tools out there, but they aren't very good because they tell you keywords are the secret to Kindle gold. You know, keywords will help but they are a small piece of the puzzle. Good keywords do not necessarily result in more results. And Steve gives a lot of examples of that in his article here on the show notes. He mentions a couple of books that rank number one and number two for the term “make money online,” which you might expect that when you're ranking that high for a very popular keyword like that, you're going to get a lot of sales, but those sales rankings are between 200,000 and 250,000 which means they're only selling one copy per day, so that's not good.
A book ranking well for “lose weight,” which is again a super popular keyword, had an Amazon sales rank of 11,000 which means it's selling about 10 copies per day. But that's again not good. So, if you focus on the results of the keyword tools, you're not focused on creating high quality, unique content.
Again, I'm pulling this out of Steve's post here. Again, it's SPQ, or Self Publishing Questions, episode 19. And I have to agree with him for that, because a lot of times you'll see these books and maybe the keyword is right on. Maybe the keyword is spot on with what people are searching for but then the book does not deliver. Now, hopefully you would combine both absolutely obviously, and you want the book to obviously reveal and talk about in the title what it is people are going to get and what hopefully people are searching for answers about and you're there providing that solution.
But again, these keyword tools are only going to tell you a part of the puzzle. And it's the same thing for Google Search and building niche sites. Sure, maybe a lot of people are searching for these keywords and there's a lot of search volume, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good keyword as well. And with Amazon different than Google, there are no tools that will tell you how many times a keyword has been searched for. Basically, the numbers that they're going to give you are the rankings in a particular category, for example, or the Amazon sales rankings, which you can sort of deduce the number of sales per day there as well, and I will highly recommend checking out Steve's site, SelfPublishingQuestions.com.
I mean, there are some keyword tools out there that look promising. There's even one that you can check out that helps give you some long-tail keywords related to Amazon. If you go to KeywordToolDominator.com/k/amazon-keyword-tool, or you can just look up “keyword tool dominator Amazon” on Google. You'll find one where you can enter a product name, a product category, or a keyword and click the search button and it's going to give you a bunch of long-tail keywords directly from Amazon. So for example, I typed in my book, “Let Go,” here and I found Let Go, Let Go by Pat Flynn, Let Go bracelet, Let Go book, Let Go Avril Lavigne, which is a song that she wrote, Let Go DVD, Let Go fishing, and all these other things. So, that could be helpful for you for figuring out other things related to different topics that are out there already.
But again, I wouldn't worry too much about the keywords. I would worry about who your audience is, what they're looking for, and a compelling title that will help them realize that this is a book that they should be reading as well. And also, reading the other books that are out there. Or at least checking out the reviews of books out there in the same niche you're getting into so that you can see what's missing, and you can bring those to the book you're going to provide. You know, read those reviews, and see how you can be there to be that solution that other people are searching for.
So, I hope that answers your question, Toni, at least in some way, shape, or form. Thank you so much for the question today. An AskPat t-shirt is going to be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. It sounds like it's going overseas to you, which is great. I love that.
For those of you listing, if you have a question you'd like featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.
Thank you so much ,and here's a quote to end the day with from Derek Sivers. He says, “You can't please everyone, so proudly exclude people.”
Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks guys.
