Nothing moves until something is sold, they say. In the same fashion it relates to sales, searchers can only find what is available on websites via keywords/phrases. Nothing is found online without proper keyword to content strategy applied. And that’s often the most challenging part of internet marketing.

Not trying to be cute here, but I come across this conundrum often with clients. Almost all webmasters want to optimize their sites for keywords they “think” or “guess” they should use, and I learn that it’s because most don’t have a way to:

• Find out what they should be using in the first place and what actually works.
• Discover what keywords to apply, since competitive data doesn’t exist.

OK, how to find out the secrets?

Start by looking at this overview article, and then come back and read the steps below. It should make a pretty complete starter pack of competitive keyword research for both organic and mostly paid advertising, pay per click (which is reflected below).

Steps to keyword domination in your space:

STEP 1:
Head over to keycompete.com. It has more than 130 million websites and keywords collected.

I typed “web hosting” and got these results:

At this point, it’s really just up for the pickin’… Locate your top competitors (top domains are ranked by: A. Coverage [Adwords, Yahoo!, MSN], and B. How high they are ranked).

STEP 2:
I selected my favorite hosting company, godaddy, and received further drill-down of keywords at time of writing:

Best of all, I can export all the keywords (More than 1,000 of them) to Excel and analyze further. I could add columns of notes and additional research data points (for example, how many times per month they are searched for), etc. The rankings show how they are performing for each keyword.

From a quick five- to 10-minute session, I now have the top keywords Godaddy is using for its paid search campaigns. Pretty neat.

You can try the service for a day at $19, monthly for $39 or yearly (my choice) at $299.

It could mean a big boost to strategic keyword decisions, and competitive edge for PPC keyword bidding and branding opportunities in 2008.

STEP 3:
Godaddy’s watch lists are really cool. They act as a keyword alert system (think ticker symbol watches for the stock market) by “watching” rising, falling, new, top and dropped keywords over time. Quite useful, and you don’t have to worry about it: Godaddy takes care of it for you. You also can continue clicking on the keywords, and the system will cross-reference to see who else is “owning” terms in paid search and drill down further. Awesome.

What is a niche?

Niche is defined as a focused, targetable portion of a market sector. You may be positioned to present products and services in a health-care sector for example, and your niche drill-down is specifically targeting seniors and assisted living services.

On the Internet, how can you find the niches for your marketplace – for FREE?

Step 1 – Use Google (power tool)
Click here to access the keyword tool without going through Google Adwords. Once there, make sure to select the 2nd tab – “Site-Related Keywords”.

Step 2 – Select area of interest (research)
I entered ‘http://finance.google.com’ as a targeted site, since I’m interested in that sector. Leave all checkboxes and settings as is for now.

Step 3 – Review keyword groups and properties (competiveness)
The results are showing keywords grouped by these top tier groupings/terms:
stock market (27), stock quote (4), stock trading (6), stock chart (1), stock (27), financial (6), finance (2), fund (5), Miscellaneous keywords (6)

What you want to look for is where you see the following:
a) healthy competition (almost full green bar)
b) solid search volume (at least 1/2 the green bar)
c) not ‘too generic’ a keyword (thinking long tail here)

‘Stock Market Software’ looks like an interesting niche keyword. Let’s use that.

Step 4 – Review bid pricing (Traffic/Pricing)
Change the “Choose columns to display” to include Avg Bid Position & Cost. That will allow the display to render updated info in the same tool, same screen. Set Max CPC to 10.00 or higher, to capture what the Max CPC might be for keywords in the list. Alternatively go to this tool and check keywords for traffic and pricing and geo targets. Enter the keywords using Phrase and Exact matching types (see descriptions next to the input panel). Use “” and [] to denote differences. Exclude Broad match at this time.

Review the results for many more keywords, and keep going back to Step 4 to discover more profitable keywords and traffic, clicks (daily) and overall ranges for bid position. Because of no performance history and other factors, these are only indicators, but good ones – directly from inside Google.

This detailed research should give you good insight to goldmine niche markets. If you can supply visitors with quality products and services via a compelling website and driving traffic to it, you are on your way.

P.S.
I didn’t take the ’stock market software’ keyword phrase to the next level, which includes more keyword research and drilldown + related phrases, but you get the drift… You may want to use this under-valued keyword tool to see good potential Adsense keywords, including trends (Google) for your keywords: Keywordcountry (great for Adsense)

If you answered yes to to any of the above, you are not alone. There are many more questions of course, but so many bypass the most important factor for search engine optimization and resulting success.

What would you do to sit next to a trusted source and
look over his/her keyboard and to listen to how they do it?

The resource and the “secrets” lie in this 52-page guide and keyword research.

You can learn as top marketers show you step-by-step how they do it. It’s a great guide, and the best part is – there is no charge.

Download the special guide now and try the free keyword research (aff) area.