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oregoncountry
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Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 159
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#1 · Posted: 9 Apr 2009 13:53
I have done a lot of reading(if you knew me well you would know that is a big deal for me, lol)but even though I have read some good info, I am a little confused by it still. Particularly in the area my subject line above. I hope I can explain this right. When I take my niche and do a search in Google, I can find out 2 main things. How much competition I have but also the popularity of the niche, am I right so far? Plus the sidebar area of a google search displays "sponsored links" which is very good if there are 8 or so, I think that is the good amount(8-10??). Ok, but, if the search result numbers are high, I need to break down my niche. For example:
Health
Natural Health
Natural Health Methods
etc.
One question I have is, what is a good # of results? Seems I've read that 200,000 is good. I don't know, Im just shooting from the hip here. I have the info somewhere but really wanted to talk to folks here about it as well, not just "read" statistics. One more question is going to sound dumb probably but in the keyword searches, for example, Wordtracker. You type in your niche, am I right? And then you find out how many searches per month on those words. I think the rule on that seems to be around 10,000 searches for those words are good.
So now Im confused between the "searches" on keywords, and the searches on Google etc. Am I making sense? Just delete me if Im not, LOL!!!
denise in Sams Valley OR
PS Someone wrote that keywords and niche are synonomus?? If that's true, why do keyword searches in Wordtracker etc. as well as a Google Search and why are the numbers so different? Seems I saw something about Wordtracker being searches per day? Maybe I've answered my own question 
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Singapoor
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Joined: 6 Feb 2009
Posts: 173
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#2 · Posted: 29 Apr 2009 02:05
Hi Denise,
Let me preface this answer by saying that 1) I'm also just starting out and 2) I've never used Wordtracker as a tool. But, I do think I can help clarify based on what I have found out. I'm hoping someone with more experience goes ahead and jumps in on this one though.
What I've discovered with this IM thing is that there are no absolute rules of IM. There are things that work for some and things that work for others. It is the same with definitions; some "definitions" are only that for the way that some people have structures their systems.
With these things said, what I'm about to tell you has been gathered from the 30 Day Challenge. The guys over there have some niche advice, which I'll get to in a bit.
I could see why some would say that "niche" and "keyword" are synonymous. What looking at search patterns would do would be to show you which terms a group of people are interested in. The fact that they're all searching for the same things shows a common need or desire. You can then use this to position your site/lens/hubpage/etc. to catch the eye of some of these people and profit from it. Little over a year ago, web20mentor wrote a post about how he did just that: I Made Money From Squidoo Last Month!
Back to the niche thing. The 30 DC breaks things down like this:
1,000,000+ searches would define a market
100,000 - 1,000,000 would define a mega-niche
30,000 - 100,000 would define a niche
and less than 30,000 would define a micro niche.
They feel it's best to aim for micro niche keywords and market to those people. I see the logic in it - it's easier to be a big fish in a small pool than a small fish in a big pool. Usually these micro niche keywords though are not single words but a small group of words. For instance, "guitar" would be a market while "vintage electric guitar" would be a micro niche.
You're right, when you search for your keyword in google, you'll see how much competition you have for that keyword. If you want to aim for a micro-niche, try to find keywords that have less than 30,000 other pages competing for people's eyeballs  .
I think Wordtracker is a way to get at keywords that may be good contenders (but again, I've not used it). I have used Google's keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2 Yahoo!'s keyword lookup isn't as accessible as Google's (or maybe I found it through the wrong avenues - but my understanding is that Yahoo! puts it in with their small business services site).
Now onto your traffic question. Again, 30DC advice. They feel that a micro niche keyword/keyword term is only useful if it gets an average of at least 80 searches each day - for a monthly total of 2400 as a general rule. I imagine though that some keywords are going to be more ripe for people interested in buying stuff than other keywords. So, for example (and I'm just making this up), a keyword search term like Bunsen Honeydew may be good in that it has only 34,000 competing sites and 3,600 monthly searches. But, it doesn't necessarily mean that people searching for Dr. Honeydew are necessarily interested in buying something. Maybe they're trying to find his email address or see what he's been up to since the lease ran out on his lab. I don't know. [He's a character from the muppets, by the way...] But you get what I mean though (I hope) .
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oregoncountry
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Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 159
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#3 · Posted: 29 Apr 2009 09:26
I so appreciate this! I have all but given up and this was very timely. Maybe today is the day I will try again, to come up with a niche.
thank you much, denise
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samueldarwin
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Joined: 10 Oct 2007
Posts: 474
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#4 · Posted: 29 Apr 2009 12:21
See, the total number of searches is not the competition. We have lot of factors included on this. To check competition checkout the following search.
allinanchor:"<Your Keyword>"
If you have doubts PM me please...
Sam
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Singapoor
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Joined: 6 Feb 2009
Posts: 173
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#5 · Posted: 30 Apr 2009 00:41
oregoncountry: I so appreciate this! I have all but given up and this was very timely. Maybe today is the day I will try again, to come up with a niche.
Aww, it warms the heart to hear that Denise. That's the thing about this IM thing, sticking to it.
"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit."
-Napoleon Hill
Not that I just had that on the top of my head (I was actually searching for a different quote), but this one sums it up too . The point being, with things in life, especially things like this IM endeavour, often people are tempted to give up just as they are on the cusp of achieving what it is they had set out to do.
That's another reason why I think this forum is great - we all motivate each other. And, you know what Denise, I want to see you succeed in this. I really truly want to see you carve out your place in the niche of your choice and prosper in creating the idealized day-to-day you have envisioned for yourself. And.... I know that I'm only one in a large group of cheerleaders who also want this for you. So please please please don't give up.
samueldarwin: See, the total number of searches is not the competition. We have lot of factors included on this. To check competition checkout the following search. allinanchor:"<Your Keyword>"
Wow wow wow, thanks for that Sam. I plugged my keyword in there and saw that actually, there are only 8 sites competing for that keyword (the number 1 is an ezinearticle actually). It was a bit of a bummer though that my site did not place in the 8  ... even despite the domain name being the keywords *sigh*. But that was the first bit of feedback I got after posting a link on the forum. A lovely lady informed me that some keyword work needs to be done. I couldn't be more grateful for that tidbit and the links she provided because without these tidbits, it may have taken ages to come to know that my keywords need to be tweaked in such specific ways. This keyword lookup link came only hours after... and seeing just how off (so off as to not even rank) really cemented the fact that I need to get to work. Thanks so much for chiming in.
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