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Option 2: Harvest quality keywords in a matter of minutes

As I promised, here′s the simple and short way to get as many great keywords as you wish.

Rank Tracker box

There′s a tool called Rank Tracker that′s great for working with keywords. The module I particularly like is keyword suggestion. Rank Tracker also checks website positions by keywords with a lot of details, to see how they change over time — and does much more. But we′ll need that a little bit later. And right now, we′ll need the keyword suggestion feature the most

So here′s where you find Rank Tracker: http://www.link–assistant.com/rank–tracker/.

You can trust the software I recommend here 100%, for I not only used it thousands of times. I truly took part in its development, consulting the Link–Assistant.Com team all way through. So these tools are also products of my SEO experience. Hundreds of SEO companies and thousands of individuals all over the globe use this software. Many of my clients do part of the job themselves, with the tools I recommend. And believe me, these development guys know how to keep all their users happy!

First, download Rank Tracker and install it on your computer. What you′ll do now is:

Get a long list of keywords at a couple of mouseclicks

Run the tool and click the New button to create a new project. Rank Tracker will ask you to enter a URL, so enter your site′s URL.

Enter your website′s URL Enter your website′s URL

Then choose Search Engines to apply (in fact, you can click any, say Yahoo! — it doesn′t really matter for keyword research).

Select Search EnginesL Select Search Engines

Note that Google, Bing and Yahoo are selected by default. There′s also a filter in the upper right corner using which you may quicker select the preferred Search Engines.

Now you need to enter a keyword to start with. Rank Tracker, being a smart tool, has already found some ideas for me! To extend the list of pre–selected keywords (wedding planning, wedding websites, wedding registry), you should type in any keyword related to your business, l ike I typed in wedding ideas, and Rank Tracker will take a couple of seconds to check your site′s ranking for that word (but I′ll save talk about rankings for later).

Enter your major keywords Enter your major keywords

What you need to do right now is: select your keyword and click the Suggest button in the Keywords tab.

Check rankings button

You can enter a number of generic keywords related to your niche or business. Rank Tracker will use these terms to give you keyword suggestions.

List of "big" initial keywords

The tool will ask you to choose a keyword research method. Choose Google Suggest, and after Rank Tracker stops searching (it can take a while, on the number of keywords you′ve entered and the speed of your Internet connection), you can choose any of the keyword suggestions it offers. I′d recommend you to select all suggested words for now. And later Rank Tracker will let you easily single out the best–quality keywords.

Various keyword research methods Various keyword research methods

As soon as you make up your mind and click Finish, you will see the keywords you chose in the Keywords tab. Now, repeat the same procedure choosing all the necessary keyword research methods like Wordtracker, Yahoo! Search Assist and Ask TypeAhead Search Suggestions.

Your keyword list is getting longer, yeah?

Now let′s

Spy a bit more on your competitors, but now — with the help of Rank Tracker!

A great thing is to find out what keywords your competition is using (really useful, you know, as you can copy their strategy and improve on it!)

Use the Competition Research option for that. It harvests keywords from the meta tags of competing websites (as manual research requires extra time and effort, Rank Tracker will do it for you in a couple of clicks. )

Various keyword research methods Various keyword research methods

Localize the search

Now let′s add some regionally–marked keywords to your list. You′ve probably read above, it′s sometimes very useful to localize your keywords, as people often search for products or services exactly in their own area. So here′s what you need to do now: select some keywords from the list you already have (hold Shift or Ctrl buttons for multiple choice), then click the Suggest button of Rank Tracker and choose the Word Combination option. After that on the left you will see the list of keywords you′ve just selected.

Now your task is to add regional names to your list. Say, if you sell footwear in Michigan and Illinois, type in the names of these two states in the right–hand field. Enter one local name per line. Then click to proceed and after a few seconds you′ll have a list of fairly good regionally marked keywords.

Broaden your keyword list

Now I guess, you′ve gone through the Rank Tracker options and made a massive keyword list. But Rank Tracker still has to do some work for you.

Believe me, you still can add to the great keyword list you already have. Return to your list, look at the keywords and choose the ones that are thematically most relevant to what you offer. Select these terms (hold the Shift or Ctrl buttons for multiple choice), and hit the Suggest button once again

Now, if you repeat the procedures for finding keyword suggestions, you′ll add more straight–to–the–point keyphrases to you list. Thus you′ll have enough reasonably precise search terms to choose from.

DO IT NOW! Make a massive list of keywords and keyphrases for your website in Rank Tracker, and copy them all into a column in a spreadsheet (ex. Excel).

So what do we have at the moment? A huge list of keywords, all you could find. Well, you must be proud, thinking how big it is. Now here′s the confusing but funny thing: you won′t need most of this list! The time′s come to think of keywords′ quality. As a next step, we′ll shortlist your keyword suggestions.

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#2630 2012-01-12 09:21:57 Cacer Fighting Foods

Rank tracker is good stuff, absolutely.

Answer
#2543 2011-12-11 12:01:08 Michael Hartrich

Also, all of these projects are locally modified. That's the point of this project. Each guild is local. That modifier changes with each guild; SANTA CRUZ Construction Guild, MONTEREY Construction Guild etc. The actual page rank and keyword value is always specific to the local modifier.

Thanks!

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#2542 2011-12-11 11:52:56 Michael Hartrich

oops, I see that I left out part of a sentence. It should read:

"Should I put ALL of my keywords for ALL categories into ONE PROJECT ( there\'s over 189 categories and I will probably add a few more over time."

It's an issue because with 12 metacategories and 189 sub-categories the total keywords can easily exceed 1000. I want to keep the SEO architecture simple.

I am willing to pay you to consult with me on this. Thank you.

Answer
#2541 2011-12-11 11:49:16 Michael Hartrich

Hi, I downloaded the free test version of Rank Tracker and am using it as per instructions here.

I have a very specific use. My project focuses on residential construction. I set up rwelve meta-categories, 01 PLANNING, 02 GENERAL CONTRACTOR 03 ROUGH CONSTRUCTION etc
Each meta-category contains individual categories. 01 PLANNING has architecture, engineering, County Planning, zoning, legal contracts, etc The model is:

www.santacruzconstructionguild.com

I am expanding this successful model to adjacent areas. Each area is unique and local and run by a local. But the site architecture and SEO is systematized.

Should I put ALL of my keywords for ALL categories ( there\'s over 189 categories and I will probably add a few more over time.

OR

should I set up a project for each of the twelve meta-categories, such as: www.constructionguild.us/PLANNING, www.constructionguild.us/GENERAL CONTRACTOR, www.constructionguild.us/ROUGH CONSTRUCTION, etc

How would you organize RANK TRACKER for this project?

Thank you

Answer
#2631 2012-01-12 09:24:20 Dan Richmond

"should I set up a project for each of the twelve meta-categories, such as: www.constructionguild.us/PLANNING, www.constructionguild.us/GENERAL CONTRACTOR, www.constructionguild.us/ROUGH CONSTRUCTION, etc"

This seems to be a better way. OR you could add all your keywords into one project, but you'd have to sort them using tags or notes

Answer
#2498 2011-11-20 20:26:17 untwister how to make money

Hello! First of all I'd like to thank author for this excellent blog! I'm from Ukraine and with the help of this blog want to promote my site in american segment. I tried to use Rank Tracker - at first there was no probem - when I entered the keyword I got all the necessary information - for example KEI. But recently Rank Tracker stopped giving me any information:( I'm trying to determine KEI - but it gives me no data for all my keywords:( What can be the problem? Does anybody had something similar?

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#2482 2011-10-30 19:56:36 Dana Haenner

I hope you talk about narrowing down the large list and key more in the chapters to come..also do you agree googles search number are often off in low search local keywords? Just me experiience.

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#2437 2011-10-06 06:47:43 Jitesh Jani

Hi Dan,

I've bought enterprise version of SEO Powersuite and following you through first step but after doing the initial keyword research for my niche I ended up with 36926 keywords. Now the problem is that most of the keywords are not showing KEI data and if try to recheck it even on a VPS machine it shows more than 600 hours as expected time to complete the job.

Please advise me what should I do???

Answer
#2455 2011-10-11 11:02:56 Dan Richmond

First, you should remove the obvious junk keywords. Surely as you browse the list you will see ones having little relevance for your site — so delete them and once you get to some 2000 keywords, update KEI for all of them, narrowing down the list afterwards.

Answer
#2361 2011-08-14 16:27:08 Joy LastName

In the text it says, "DO IT NOW! Make a massive list of keywords and keyphrases for your website in Rank Tracker, and copy them all into a column in a spreadsheet (ex. Excel)."

But you don't say how to get the keywords out of the software. I see them all listed in Website Auditor when I run my first scan of the site but they are not listed in the reports, and I can't figure out how to get them out so that I can keep that long list in excel. I want to start with the actual keywords already in the site. How do I scan a site, copy all of the keywords and put them in an excel spreadsheet column? Or for that matter do the same thing with the Titles, and the Meta Descriptions, or even the url path name, independently?


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#2419 2011-09-16 10:32:20 Dan Richmond

Well, you could do that of course, although there's little point in that, since your concern should be to find what to put on your site, not what is on your site already. In any case, you can analyze your webpage in WebSite Auditor and copy the keywords from the Webpage -> Keywords tab by selecting all in the table, right clicking and selecting "copy to clipboard".

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#2352 2011-08-04 09:34:38 Dan Richmond

Thanks for the question.

You know, Google AdWords gives out rough data and is often not corresponding to real stats unfortunately... So in your case I would create several landing pages for some 3-6 long-tail keywords each and write good copy for them, seeing how they bring traffic later on.

However, \"Tower of London\" might be not a very representative example. Just imagine that people searching for this keyword mean to find all topics you mentioned in the result. That is, searching for \"Tower of London\" I would expect the \"Tower of London Homepage\" with all you mentioned - opening hours, history, fun facts and trips.

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#2299 2011-07-20 21:42:32 Gianfilippo Pelosi

Hi Dan,

I'm reading your book with interest and I am in the process of trying out SEO PowerSuite before buying it. I have a problem which is similar to the one my Italian colleague was having in these comments. Long tail keys, zero searches , KEI = zero.

I'm seriously struggling with #of searches / KEI when it comes to longer tail keywords. I am building a website about London for Italian tourists. I am building a whole test about one famous monument: the 'Tower of London'.

Now...apparently for that keyword there are 5400 monthly searches, roughly 2000 of which are exact, roughly 3000+ are broad. In order to get more ideas about long tail searches, I used Google autocomplete that suggested (of course all words are the Italian equivalent) Tower of London history, Tower of London ghosts, Tower of London what to see, Tower of London architecture, Tower of London times etc. I thought, "cool! A lot of good pages to write!". When I got back to the Google keyword tool and entered most of the long tail phrases suggested by auto complete I got ZERO serches. In fact also Rank Tracker gives me the same results and a KEI, of course, of ZERO.

So my point is: since it's often useless to target generic terms (or too hard), I guess it's better to create few pages for few good long tail ones. But the SEO PowerSuite, as well as the Google tools, seem to be absolutely useless when it comes to long tail keys. They only say zero, zero, zero. I'm clueless about what those 3000 people not searching EXACTLY for "Tower of London" are searching. 'History'? Apparently no. 'Ghosts'? Just few. 'Architecture'? Nah! 'What to see'? Nada. 'Anne Boleyn'? No way. 'Henry VIII'? You wish. 'Opening hours'? very few.

Something does not add up to me. Google auto complete gives many ideas around the Tower of London. The Keyword tool, as well as Rank Tracker (which is based on those tools) say that virtually nobody searches for those phrases and the KEI is 0.

What do I do? Just try out these niches and waste a lot of precious time writing pages and discovering that they generate no traffic? Or is there a way to get really *serious* and *useful* insights about long tail searches??

Thanks for your time.

GFP

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