Whether you are new to the Internet or are an old hand, one of the first aspects of setting up a website is looking at search engine estimates for key terms you want to go after. The Internet is a very large place with many businesses and individuals all vying for the converted top 10 positions you may undoubtably find a lot of competition for keyterms you are looking to make money with.
As a result, we start to look at keyphrases that hold less competition (sometimes referred to as the ‘longtail keyword’) enabling you to rank in the prime top 10 positions without having to battle for extended periods against others. One of the methods many internet marketers use to accomplish the first stages of this often difficult task is Google AdWords Keyword Tool. This is a free tool (if you have an AdWords account – if not, sign up its free to do so). The Google keyword tool is made up of Google search data from a number of different areas and whilst the most accurate measure we currently have of determining search volumes for given key terms it is important to remember it will only provide estimates.
What the Google Adwords tool will not do however is show you levels of competition.
Measuring the Level of Competition for Longtail Keyterms
OK, so you have a number of keyterms which are aligned to your businesses products or services. Your next step is to understand whether your website pages are capable of ranking within the top 10 positions of Google. There are a large number of attributes you will want to cover off in setting up your website in order for Google to understand its content and we will cover some of these on-page attributes in later articles. The principle method which many webmasters use to determine the level of competition of any given keyword is an allintitle Google search. An example would be;
In this example we are looking at the number of competing web pages which include the title “long tail pro”. The reason why a title tag search is relevant is that it provides a good measure of the amount of web pages which are discussing “long tail pro”. The reason for this is that in most cases, the title of the web page should provide an accurate representation of the content of the page.
In this example Google shows us that the competition levels are fairly low at 597 results. But what if you had a long list of keywords you wanted to check? placing each keyterm into the Google search bar and searching, taking down a note of the competing pages is going to be tedious work which is where Long Tail Pro keyword research tool comes into play.
Before we dive into the long tail pro keyword research tool lets take a look at another important aspect of keyword research and that is the ‘Exact Match Domain’ or EMD for short.
Google has always valued the URL in its algorithm meaning it uses it as a good indicator of page context. The shorter the URL is the more powerful it becomes within the overall ranking mechanism. It therefore stands to reason that the top level domain (i.e. www.thiswebsite.com) has the most potency in terms of ranking ability than an inner page (i.e. www.thiswebsite.com/innerpage) all other aspects being equal.
In a recent Google Webmaster Tools video Google’s Matt Cutts stated exact match domains continue to be a powerful way to rank in the Google search engine and although they are consistently looking at the ways in which the search engine ranks its results it continues to be a powerful indicator to Google of page content. With this being said, if you can obtain an exact match domain for a high search traffic keyword you are far more likely to achieve the converted #1 spot than without it.
What if there was a way to combine all the above attributes and automate it in order to produce a targeted long tail keyword list which had a good number of searches each month and an exact match domain also available? You would think this would be an impossible task right?
This is exactly what this amazing keyword research tool will do for you and very quickly indeed.
Long tail pro keyword research has never been easier and as you can see from the screenshot above the tool is very easy to use and simple to follow. Lets look at some of the features and why they are all important to your long tail keyword research.
Long Tail Pro takes just seconds to set up and all the above keyword research work I have described above can be done on autopilot with this powerful tool. Here are the stages that I go through when using Long Tail Pro.
1. Add the seed keywords
To begin your long tail keyword research you will firstly need to input into long tail pro some seed keywords. In this example I have used three and I would not recommend using anymore than this to keep the software running smoothly.
2. Login to Google AdWords Keyword Tool
You will notice a button which asks you to login into the Google Adewords keyword tool. Either use an existing account or create a new one – you will only have to input your details once and when you are ready to use simply click this button to login in.
3. Select Search Type
You also have the option here to select ‘Exact’, ‘Broad’ or ‘Phrase’ match for your results. I always tend to use ‘Exact’ match so provide you with the most accurate idea of ‘real’ search volumes for the keywords.
4. Fetch Additional Keyword Data
These options are for long tail pro to go out and check to see whether an exact match domain is available for any of the keywords identified. I tend to focus on the .com, .org and .net domains when doing keyword research although there are several other domain searches available including hyphenated domains.
The second check box here is the ‘Title Competiion’ I referred to earlier – I would give this a decent delay (5-15 seconds) so as to avoid your IP being banned temporarily by Google when conducting the searches.
5. Apply Keyword Filters
These settings will allow you to further refine your keywords list before it returns the final results. Again, for my tastes I tend to only be interested in ‘exact match’ searches of over 1,000 per month. You can set this to whatever you feel comfortable with. Title competition as well as CPC (cost per click) results can also be filtered.
You now simply need to select ‘go’ and long tail pro will go out and download your seed keywords from the Google AdWords keyword tool. It will then apply the settings you input in steps 3-5 and return the results in a clean and easy to see search result.
As you can see, all the settings you applied in the earlier stage are now performed and your list is presented to you in an easy to see format – these results would have taken several hours to accomplish manually! Also note the box at the bottom right of the screen shot – “export results”. This allows you to export all your data into an excel (.xls) file which includes all fields allowing you to further manipulate the data to your liking.
In addition to the amazing capability of the long tail pro keyword research tool there are also included within the software an ‘competitor analysis’ and ‘rank checker’ functions.
Competitor Analysis
This handy utility will allow you to view all the key elements of the top 10 search result on Google for any key term. On-page attributes such as H1, H2 tags, Title, Back-links and more are provided thereby allowing you to see how difficult to beat are the top 10 results. Tip: if you click on any of the search results within the ‘keyword research’ field it will automatically transfer it to the ‘competition analyser’ and begin its work for you.
Long Tail Pro Keyword Research Tool Review Summary
This is without doubt an indispensable tool for keyword research and always forms the beginning of any project I start. The ability to check exact match domains in bulk whilst also returning your search data in an easy to use format (and exporting it to excel) is something which I could not live without. The price of long tail pro is extremely low for the features it offers and I would advise any web or online business to use this tool in order to get a leg up on the competition.
Download Long Tail Pro Now!
Having been in the internet marketing niche for several years I have used many keyword research tools including the main players in the markeplace (Market Samurai etc). Having beta tested Long Tail Pro I can honestly say it is the best keyword research tool on the internet and far out competes anything in the market.