A Simple Approach to Finding a Good Blogging Niche, Part III - Keyword Research

In the first two articles, we talked about brainstorming topics and content.  With that in place, it’s time to start doing some research and see just what the real world is like. It’s one thing to sit at home and think the world likes what you like, but it’s another thing altogether to see if there are people that actually do.

As I mentioned in the beginning, there are lots of tools and methods for doing in-depth data mining that the SEO pros use.  Eventually, you’ll also learn how to do these things, as you become more and more immersed in the world of blogging and Internet promotions.

However, to get started, we just want to do some solid basic research and know what is already happening in each niche. That will help us to know if a niche is starving, thriving, or flooded.

In order to have a successful blog or website, people have to find you. A vital part of that process is having good keywords that the search engines can match up to people’s searches.  A good keyword is one that’s fairly popular (meaning people are actually searching for it), and yet is not too flooded in competing sites.  Here’s a process that will help you find those keywords.  You’ll do this process for each of your niche ideas.

• Start with a general keyword

In our example in the last article, we used “Fishing” as a possible niche topic.  That one is probably too broad, but let’s start with it anyway.  Go to Google.com, and type that into the search bar. As you type, Google will drop down a list of similar keyword suggestions. These are popular, similar searches.  That means that these are possible keywords that people are actually searching for. Write these down. In my browser, it showed, “Fishing License Utah”, “Fishing Report”, “Fishing quotes”, and a few others. Save that list for later.

Do the search.  You might see a number close to the top that says something like “About 500,000,000 results” or some number. This indicates how many websites Google knows about that are using this keyword. It’s usually a huge number.  If you don’t see a number, but only see ads and pictures, then the number is way too high to display.

Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see another list of suggested search terms, like:

fishing youtube
fishing tips
fishing videos
fishing gear
fishing games
fishing report
bass fishing
fishing knots

• Begin narrowing

Obviously, your first, most general search will be way too broad, and will need to be narrowed.  Let’s try some more.  Click into one of the suggested searches. The first one I tried was “Fishing tips”, with “About 211,000,000 results”.  That’s better than before, but it’s still way too many websites.  I’ll need to keep looking for my keywords.

• Narrow further

Next, I clicked into “Bass Fishing”.  Right away, I saw that this one had “About 10,600,000 results”.  That sounds like a huge number, still, but in the scale of the internet, that’s actually reasonable.  This one could work.  When you find a keyword in this range, look at some of the websites in the list.  Click into them and begin exploring them.  Are they commercial sites or informational sites? What sorts of information are they sharing? If you see websites that you’d like to emulate, write down the addresses for future reference.

And always write down the keywords you’re exploring, and the numbers you find.

• Try a different branch

After you’ve played and explored some with the keywords you’ve gotten, go back and explore another “branch” of the same “tree”.  In our example, maybe I could try “fly fishing” or “angling” to see what kinds of new keywords I could generate.

After a while of this exploration and research, you’ll have a list of good possible keywords, and you’ll have a good idea of what’s happening and what’s available within the niche you’re considering.

Do this same process with each niche topic idea on your list, and you’ll have a lot of good information.  You’ll probably start to see some real trends in the niche ideas you’re exploring and you might even be starting to formulate some thoughts on which ones might be better options than others.

Still, there’s one more step to come...


This article is part of a four-part series on researching and choosing your blog niche. The other articles can be found here:

1. Introduction to finding a good blog niche
2. Brainstorming blog niche and content ideas
3. Keyword research
4. Monetization product research

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Google Personalized SERPs: Convenient or Creepy?

As of December 4th, Google has begun giving you personalized results on your searches.  they've been doing that for a long time, for those that chose to "opt in" to the service, but now all SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) will be personalized automatically.

What that means is that when you do a search at Google, and click on a result at that SERP, Google will keep track of that click for 180 days, along with all of the other clicks you do after a google search.  From that data, it will get an idea of the kids of sites you like, and those sites will get preferential ranking in your results.  Over time, the kinds of sites you look for often will drift to the top of your results. 

If you happen to run the Google toolbar, or are logged into google docs or gmail or something else Google, they're actually able to track all your web-goings.

The convenient part of that is that you're more likely to find what you're most interested in when you do searches.  The searching part of your internet experiences is more likely to become less "search-y" and more "find-y".  The 'net becomes more useful and friendly.

The creepy part is thinking that Google is going all "Big Brother" on you, watching your every move.  What about privacy?  What about freedom?  Who's watching my SERPs?

I don't mean to stir up conspiracy theories or frighten the already-alarmed alarmists, but really, this kind of thing has been going on for a long time.  A lot of the websites we use keep track of our activity.  That's good business for them.  That way they can know what their customers want, and can better deliver it to them.  In my own personal case:

• Amazon knows that I like cookbooks, games, and religious commentary
  
• Facebook knows who my friends are
• Pandora knows that I like hard rock and classical music
  
• Netflix knows that I like comedies, but am willing to watch a chick flick with my wife
  
• Those that follow my blog know I love to cook outdoors
  
• YouTube knows that I like music videos and parodies

So, this is really nothing terribly new, and certainly not anything to get too alarmed about.  It does, however, raise the question, "If search results and SERPs are going to be tailored to the preferences of the user, how do I make sure that my site ranks high?"

It does mean that getting a #1 slot, or even a page 1 slot is no longer going to be a constant.  It does, however, mean that if you all of the things that made you rank well before, you're still going to rank well, and you're going to rank even higher if someone is clearly interested in what you've got.

Keep in mind that personalization is only one aspect of a very complicated ranking algorithm that includes many other factors, like keyword matching, keyword placement, number of inbound links, the age of the site, and other elements.  There are all kinds of factors that all add up to the SERP you see.

It also means that "niche-ing" is going to be even more important.  That means that you'll want to make sure that your website is focused, and that you're well interlinked among other sites and blogs within that niche.  Showing that you're clearly "about" something will help you to rank when someone wants to know about that thing.  Trying to sell everything to everyone will end up with your site ranking for no-one.



Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.