Discuss Your Keyword Research Here

[Chris Simeral]

Hi Gang,

Now that we're into actually getting our hands dirty, I thought I'd start posting specific places for everyone to comment on the various aspects of the training. Please also use these forum topics to ask questions, and "mastermind" with each other to share things you're learning, roadblocks you're encountering, or just offer a fellow author a little bit of advice.

Sometimes the best and most insightful comments come from people who know NOTHING about your market, but can maybe see something you're overlooking.

This is the place to post anything and everything about KEYWORDS and keyword research. I look forward to the feedback.

Chris

[Donna L. Pikula]

Hi Chris!

My book is a health book -- After the Diagnosis: How to Look Out for Yourself or a Loved One. I have done as you suggested and came up with a list of specific "How to phrases" for the book. I understand the more specific we are the better Google will understand our pages and send people to them that have an interest in our particular niches.

However, I have been working on the keyword searches and have realized that the specific number of words searched for makes a huge difference. For example:

Health = 48,305 searches
Care = 37,404 searches
Tips = 38,759 searches

Health Care = 11,573 searches
Health Care Tips = 18 searches

Next week will you be giving us some guidelines as to the number of words to combine or how to get specific without loosing drastic numbers of potential searches?

Thank you!

Donna Pikula

[Chris Simeral]

Hi Donna,

Short answer is yes.

However, let me point something out...

"Specific" doesn't just mean more words. It means specifically what someone is searching for. Think about it. Who is going to search for "health care tips?" I'm surprised the searches for that are as low as you've found, but it does bring up a great point, which is that a phrase like that doesn't really seem to answer anyone's question. Here's an example.

If I'm diagnosed with diabetes, I'm not going to go searching for "health care tips." I'm going to search for "how to live with diabetes," "recipes for diabetics," "how to cure diabetes," etc. Those may be bad examples, but you get the idea.

What kind of "health care tips" do you offer?

Low fat recipes, how to lose weight (bad niche because it's VERY competitive, but it's an example), how to fight cancer (and then the specific types of cancer), recovering from hip replacement surgery are all examples of searches people might do.

Think about the way YOU use the Internet. You go online looking for a specific answer to a specific question.

We'll talk more about this is Week 2, but that's an introduction. :)

[Donna L. Pikula]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for the quick response. Your point is well taken and health care tips was just an easy example to use for my question.

In answer to your question about what "health care tips" I offer, here are some of the "How to statements" for After the Diagnosis:

How to choose a patient advocate.
How to avoid medical errors.
How to read medical prescriptions.
How to read medical test results.
How to seek second opinions.
How to organize your medical records.
How to ask your doctor medical questions.
How to find top hospitals.
How to find top doctors for specific diseases.
How to understand medical terms.
Etc.

My book though is meant to help patients and their families with any diagnosis, not a specific disease like cancer or diabetes. Are these the types of "How to questions" I should be generating or do you have suggestions on how to make them more specific?

Thank you!

Donna Pikula

[Chris Simeral]

Hi Donna,

Yes, that list in more in line with the kind of thing I'd suggest.

However, to determine if those are worth your time to go after, we'd need to know some more about them -- namely how many people are searching for those things as well as the competition (i.e. how many other sites are going after those keywords and how strong those sites are).

We're going to cover all of that in Week 2.

One other thing you may want to keep in mind as it applies to a niche like this one specifically...

My hunch is that anything "medical" is going to be very condition-specific. I could be wrong, but that's the sense I get.

So, in other words, although your book doesn't talk about diabetes, or cancer, or chronic heartburn, or [insert name of condition here], you may want to think about common health problems people have and what those people would be searching for.

Just as an aside, my wife is an Oncology Nurse Practitioner, and I've spoken with doctors from her practice about optimizing their site for the search engines. I've briefly looked into the healthcare niche and found it dominated by sites Google "respects" a lot (we'll cover how to recognize that later on).

But back to your keywords...

I doubt that many people will search for a general phrase like how to avoid medical errors, or how to seek second opinions. Usually (tell me if you disagree) no one really thinks about this kind of stuff until they've been diagnosed with something.

I'll give you an example -- about a year ago I considered getting into the identity theft niche (not as a thief, as someone who could make money supplying leads to companies that protect against it). But after a little research I realized that identity theft isn't something people really think about until after it happens. So it's much easier to sell a "recover from identity theft" product than a "protect yourself from identity theft" product. That may have changed, but that's the sense I got when I researched it.

Anyway, I'll look into your list and see what pops up. And thanks for sharing your research!

[Donna L. Pikula]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your comments . . . I look forward to week 2!

Donna Pikula

[Knighton Warbeck]

"recovery from identity theft" vs "identity theft"

This is a very good point about servicing an industry or client base AFTER DISASTER STRIKES.

This point here Chris has given me a whole new way of looking at what it is I offer.

My niche virtually doesn't exist in Western Society but thrives in Eastern Culture hence my relocation to Singapore in August. What I have been attempting to do is reach a deaf audience. The market I have been attempting to penetrate sees no need for my writings because all is well. The openness just hasn't been there but when the storm has blown through then the market is ready, willing and able.

I never looked at it like this.

Thanks Donna and thanks Chris.

[JaWar]

Good information. Thank you for the discussion.

GOJAWAR.COM

[Dr. Sheppard B. Kominars]

Dear Chris: While there is overlap between my two major markets -- people in crisis in recovery from cancer, and people who just want to get started or develop their ability to get more out of life through journal writing -- I'm having difficulty getting my research done on key words even for EACH group!

"Alternative Medicine" is a major category I discovered last week in my research with a huge number of hits. My book is a book about helping people to understand that journal writing is like yoga, acupuncture, etc. in helping to enhance whatever they are doing by using "the writing cure." It is NOT about writing. It is about healing. For those who are well, it is about enhancing performance and having more fun in life.

I don't want to go off on a tangent that will have little if any results after all my research.

I found my book identified on the Google Trend history as Number "C" on the graph page. I also tried putting in my website and the result was that there are too few hits for any record to be made. [www.writeforlifeccp.com and www.journaldoctor.com]

I'm very enthusiastic about applying the iformation and tools that you are presenting. Many of the key words on the list you copied us with for Toni's book have applicability for me as well. And, as well, the other list because with improving performance (through journal writing) also comes management success.

I'm hoping you can offer some helpful direction in my process of trying to develop a web strategy that will get the word out to a huge market that does not now know of this book. Thanks, Sheppard

[Chris Simeral]

Hi Sheppard,

There are some suggestions I can make, but I had a few questions first:

-- I'm not sure what you mean by your book being "identified on the Google Trend history as Number "C" on the graph page." Are you saying there was a news story about it? That really has nothing to do with search history. If you can explain further I can try and help here.

-- There's almost no possibility that putting in your URL will bring up anything in Google Trends. Trends shows how many people search for whatever word or phrase you're entering. Since no one is searching for your URL, that's not going to return any results.

Unless what you're referring to is the latest video -- "Tunnelvision." The tool I'm using to get keyword ideas from domains is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Let me know if this answers at least some of your questions.