How To Use Google Adwords For Keyword Research

KEYWORD RESEARCH TO INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC

Is your page not ranking in Google for the right keywords? Are you spending too much money on expensive and under-performing advertising in Google Adwords? Are you looking for a cost effective way you can drive more traffic to your website?

Well, your organic website traffic levels will still be very much influenced by the actual keywords that are on your web pages – regardless if Google has somewhat moved past simply matching keyword searches to keywords found on pages.

Keyword Research is one topic, which every blogger should learn from day one. Probably, every Blogging or SEO blog you have read till now, I’m sure Google Keyword Planner (previously Keyword Tool) and “Keyword research” are not a new term for you. But if not, you are missing out the basic of any Blog SEO.

Blogging has evolved from just quality content to SEO optimized social content. Writing quality content is a must, but at the same time, it’s good to have the properly optimized article to rank well in search engines. This is where on page SEO comes into the picture. On the page, SEO starts with selecting the right keyword for your post, and the keyword should be one which have search volume. That means people are searching for that particular keyword.

Here is one question you should ask yourself: Even though I’m writing quality content, why I’m unable to drive enough traffic from search engine? Well, I’m sure Google doesn’t have anything against you until unless you are doing Black Hat SEO. The reason is, you are not writing on topics that people are searching for. Or even you are writing on a topic that is trending, but you are making it hard for search engine bots to understand your content. I have already covered how to write SEO optimized articles in WordPress, and today you will learn how to use Keyword Planner tool for researching Keyword.

What is Keyword research?

In the offline world companies spend millions of dollars doing market research to try to understand market demand and market opportunities.

Well with search consumers are telling marketers exactly what they are looking for – through the use of keywords.

And there are tons of free and paid SEO tools out there to help you understand your market. In addition to those types of tools lots of other data points can be included as part of your strategy, including:

• data from your web analytics tools (if you already have a website)
• running test AdWords campaigns (to buy data and exposure directly from Google…and they have a broad
• match option where if you bid on auto insurance it will match queries like cheap detroit auto insurance)
• competitive research tools (to get a basic idea of what is working for the established competition)
• customer interactions and feedback

mining and monitoring forums and question and answer type websites (to find common issues and areas of opportunity)

Let’s get to know the basics first. In layman language, Keyword research is the process of identifying Keywords, which get the good amount of search volume/month. For example, Keyword: “KeywordSpy”, “Android Smartphone Tips and Tricks” and so on. The idea behind performing a research is to, find the keywords that can give maximum traffic and comes with less competition. I will discuss competition part later in this post. For example: When you do an exact match search: “Android Tips”, “Smartphone Tips” both gives the entirely different picture in terms of traffic.

By doing a complete Keyword search, you will be able to find keywords to drive targeted traffic, more revenue and more niche traffic. Moreover, when you are planning to target a small niche, for example, “Hacking News”, doing a Keyword search will help you to find many new Keywords that you might be missing out. You can also analyze competitor site and find keywords which they were ranking for. Doing a comprehensive Keyword research based on the data can drive immense traffic to your site. And by the end, the sale happens only when you are getting targeted traffic. Isn’t it?

Just how important is it in the mix for a successful SEO campaign?

• Keywords are huge.
• Without doing keyword research most projects don’t create much traction (unless they happen to be something surprisingly original and/or viral and/or of amazing value).
• If you are one of those remarkable businesses that to some degree creates a new category (say an iPhone) then SEO is not critical to success.
• But those types of businesses are rare.
• The truth is most businesses are pretty much average, or a little bit away from it, with a couple unique specialties and/or marketing hooks.
• SEO helps you discover and cater to existing market demand and helps you attach your business to growing trends through linguistics.
• You can think of SEO implications for everything from what you name your business, which domain names you buy, how you name your content, which page titles you use, and the on page variation you work into page content.
• Keyword research is not a destination, but an iterative process.
• For large authority sites that are well trusted you do not have to be perfect to compete and build a business, but if your site is thin or new in a saturated field then keyword research is absolutely crucial.
• And even if your website is well trusted then using effective keyword strategy helps create what essentially amounts to free profits and expanded business margins because the cost of additional relevant search exposure is cheap, but the returns can be great because the traffic is so targeted.
• And since a number one ranking in Google gets many multiples of traffic that a #3 or #4 ranking would get, the additional returns of improving rankings typically far exceed the cost of doing so (at least for now, but as more people figure this out the margins will shrink to more normal levels.)

What is Google Keyword Planner tool ?

Google Keyword tool is an official product from Google, which gives us a traffic estimation of our target Keywords and also help in finding more relevant and related Keywords for your niche. Few Important things to know:

1. You need to have a Google Adwords account to use Google Keyword Planner tool. It’s free, and you don’t need to spend any money to use this tool. You can simply create an Adwords tool and start using it.
2. You can also search for existing Google Adwords coupons to create one free account for yourself, and start using Keyword Planner tool.
3. This tool is created to target Adwords advertisers, but it still gives a great deal of information when it comes to finding the right keyword for your blog and articles.

This is what the homepage of Keyword Planner tool looks like. All you need to do is enter your target Keyword that you want to start searching for. After that, you can add filters such as for which country you want to target your keywords (In below example, All location is selected).

What does the research involve?

• Keyword research can be done in many different stages of the SEO process – everything from domain name selection, to planning out an initial site map, to working it into the day to day content creation process for editorial staff of periodical content producers.
• And you can use your conversion, ranking, and traffic data to help you discover
  1. new topics to write about
  2. ways to better optimize your existing site and strategy
  3. anchor text to target when link building
• Keyword research helps define everything from what site hosts the content, to the page title, right on through to what anchor text to use when cross linking into hot news.
• Google has the best overall keyword data because of their huge search market share. Due to that selective and random filtering of Google’s data, it also makes it important to use other keyword research tools to help fill in the gaps.
• In addition, many search engines recommend search queries to searchers via search suggest options that drop down from the search box.
• Such search suggest tools are typically driven by search query volume with popular keyword variations rising to the top.

1) Enter your product or services:

This is the place where you will put your target Keywords. For example, my next post in on Keyword research, and I’m not sure what keyword I should be targeting that post for, I will do some searches based on my knowledge like you see in the example, and it shows me results globally and local search. The idea here is to find a Keyword that has good traffic but low competition. If you are working on a blog for the long-term goal, you can also target high competition Keyword, using resource pages. For ex: WordPress guide. It makes take time before you see your keyword ranking at the good position. Below image illustrates the difference between Broad search, Exact search and phrase search.

How much research do you do on a project?

• It depends on How serious of a commitment the project is. Sometimes we put up test sites that are start off far from perfect and then iteratively improve and reinvest in the ones that perform the best.
• If we know a site is going to be core to our overall strategy I wouldn’t be against using 10 different keyword tools to create a monster list of terms, and then run that list through the Google AdWords API to get a bit more data about each. (EDIT – Shaun – That’s how I do it, too.)
• On one site I know we ended up making a list of 100,000+ keywords, sorted by value, then started checking off the relevant keywords.

2) Search type:

This is one important column that you should be taking care of. There are three options for search type:

• Broad
• Exact
• Phrase

Exact Match: Exact searches, shows the traffic for exact match Keyword. For example, if you search for WordPress SEO in exact match, it will be different from broad search in a great way. My suggestion, prefer Exact search when you are doing research for your micro-niche site and broad search when you are writing on the personal blog. Ex: Keyword Research Broad Match: Broad Match is my favorite, as it let me target long-tail keyword, and your traffic is not limited to exact match words. For Bloggers, broad match is useful, but that again depends on your blog type and target. Ex: “Keyword-based research” Phrase: Phrase type is useful when you need Keyword in an exact phrase. For example: “Best Keyword Research”. Keyword position won’t be changing, but it gives the data for traffic, that your Keyword might be getting for phrase search.

3) Advanced option and filter:

This feature is set to add more filters to your search. For example Country search volume, Language and target device (Computer or mobile devices). Depending upon your target audience, you can set everything including the category.

4) Understand Keyword tool column:

Notice the pointer 4 in the above image and now, understand the meaning of each column.

• Competition: Just to clear one myth about this tool, competition field doesn’t show how hard and easy it’s to rank for that Keyword. In fact, it shows the competition among advertisers bidding on that keyword. So, if you see “low” for a great keyword, mark it and later we will see how we can easily analyze the competition.
• Global monthly search: Global monthly search shows the average of search happened in last 12 months globally.
• Local monthly search: It shows the search volume based on your filter. For example, in above image, I have applied filter for U.S as country and notice the huge difference between global and local search volume.
• Approximate CPC: This column shows approx. CPC (Cost per click), for an advertiser. Many SEO gurus recommend to use this column to find AdSense CPC Keywords It’s a good idea to pick high CPC keywords, where advertisers are bidding more but with low competition.

For this tutorial, let’s keep it simple and let’s keep our example for broad search type.

Performing Keyword research using Google Keyword tool:

I hope this must have given you a basic understanding of Keyword tool by Google works, and now, we will move to real deal here. Our target is to find some low competitive but high-medium traffic Keyword usingGoogle search, Google Keyword research tool, SEMRUSH & LongTailPro.

We will be using SEMRUSH or LongTailPro to analyze the competition of a keyword. Basically, this would help us determine how easy or difficult it is to rank for a certain keyword.

Now, before we start here is a quick question:

What one of these is better?

Getting 100 untargeted visitors or 10 targeted one?

If your answer is “Targeted”, then don’t leave those keywords with low traffic. Since it’s relevant to your niche, in longer run it will help you. Make sure to check “Google traffic trend” too, which will help you to check your target keyword traffic pattern over the time.

Discover Keyword using Google Instant search:

Google instant search is my first basis of finding a perfect Keyword. It’s more like a Keyword discovery tool, which you can use to generate tons of ideas. Though you can’t use all of them, but for initial step, it’s good to brainstorm some ideas for K/w research. Put any Keyword related to your niche

Once you have found 3-4 such Keywords, start adding it to Google Keyword suggestion tool and perform a search.Now next step is to find if these Keywords are going to do any benefit regarding traffic, or just going to be another article with not much value from traffic POV.

Keyword search analysis:

Now, I will put Selected Keywords in search tool and perform a search, it will give me details for search type I’m performing and also show relevant Keyword ideas. Now, that is keyword goldmine for you, as it will let you find many relevant Keywords that you can target in the same post or else can come up with a follow-up post.

Checking Keyword competition using SEMRUSH:

Once you have identified the keyword, next thing is to check the keyword competition, or you can call it ‘Keyword difficulty.’ This is just to measure how difficult it is to rank for a certain keyword.

Note: If you are creating an authority micro niche site, you should target all possible keyword, despite difficulty level.

I usually use SEMRUSH for checking the keyword competition & it is also handy to find related keywords that I usually place around the post. Let me explain what I meant by an example.

I searched for a Keyword “SEO Keywords” in SEMRUSH tool & this is the result that I got.

Note: Do pay attention to Column call CPC. This is useful for anyone who is using AdSense to make money from their blog. The higher the CPC for any keyword is & if you rank higher in search engine for that keyword, you are more likely to earn huge/click from Adsense.

Back to the above screenshot, clicking on view full reports would show detailed information about all keywords. First, have a clear look at the below screenshot:

I have highlighted Keyword competition column with the red box. Though; this detail is for advertisers, but it would give you a good idea of what Keyword you should target.As you can see here, according to competition checker tool, “meta keywords SEO” is easier to rank.

If you are looking something from a blogger/publisher point of view to rank a post, then use LongTailPro.

Download LongtailPro (Windows & Mac only) (Windows & Mac only)

LongTailPro shows competition based on factors such as domain age, the number of backlinks, on Page SEO, page rank, DMOZ submissions, Domain authority& few other significant factors. You can also click on “view details” to see more detailed results for your competitor. Here is a detailed competition report for my target Keyword: (For first top 10 results)

Do remember when writing an article or making a post keyword targeted, you need to have Keywords in your Title, description, and H1 tag. Take care of keyword density, LSI keyword, add videos & few other signals

Along with above-mentioned points, backlink and social media promotion are one major factor for better ranking. Also, my suggestion for you is always to ensure you domain expiry date is not before next three years.

So now, we have one keyword with us, and similarly, you can find many keywords related to your niche. It might be the little time-consuming, but it’s worth more than spending un-targeted ten posts. Now, your next target should be writing a Keyword optimize article (SEO copy-writing), and you can refer to our earlier guide on OnPage optimization.

Never forget, this Keyword research is just a primary steps, and real magic starts with your content. Moreover, never try to get traffic on the wrong keyword, as it will affect your overall blog performance regarding Avg. Time on site and bounce rate. For your old blog articles, if you have not optimized them for any Keyword, you can use Google analytic data, any software for

For your old blog articles, if you have not optimized them for any Keyword, you can use Google analytic data, any software for Keyword research and work on re-optimization for Keyword. I did this for almost 30% of my old posts, and they started ranking in 1-2 page in ranking.

Google Adsense Alternatives

BEST GOOGLE ADSENSE ALTERNATIVES

Let’s look at some common scenarios in which people seek out AdSense alternatives.

Reasons to Look For AdSense Alternatives

There are many reasons to look for alternative ad networks and other ways to monetize your sites. The most popular reasons I hear are:

1. Google AdSense rejects many sites for not having enough content or if they feel your site would not be appropriate for their advertisers.
2. Getting a site approved for Google AdSense is not as easy as it was in the past.
3. If you read any of the internet marketing or webmaster forums, I’m sure you’ve see thread after thread with a title that goes something like… “AdSense banned me! Why?”
4. Google AdSense has a lot of rules and they monitor sites constantly. If you happen to break even one rule, they will not just ban the site, they will ban you and won’t let you open a new AdSense account. And even if you manage to open one somehow and they catch you later, they will ban the new account.
5. Did you know that if you even accidentally click on an ad on your site you could be banned for life?
6. Many site owners feel that Google AdSense rules are just too strict. Conforming to the many rules often leads to site design issues.
7. In some instances, you have to redesign your entire site just so you can use Google AdSense.
8. Contextual text ads sometimes just don’t fit a site’s design and layout. Other ad formats that Google AdSense does not support work better on many sites.

Types of Ads

Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.

Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.

In-Text: These style of ads popup when you hover over selected text phrases with your mouse. A small box pops up and usually contains either images, text or video as well as the ad’s link.

Display: Display ads contain images, headlines, body text and other elements used to get a viewer’s attention. Sizes range from eighth page to full page ads.

Banner: These are your typical image ads you see on many sites. They can be just the image or an image with a text line above or below it. Sizes range from button size to half page and come in all orientations.

Alternative Ad Networks

Here are the top alternative ad networks that you can use instead of Google AdSense. Take your time and check out each one of them. You should find several that will work well with your sites.

1. Adsterra

Adsterra is one of the fastest growing premium ad networks and currently serves over 10 billion geo-targeted ad impression per month. They offer various popular ad formats for web and mobile devices: popunders, standard banners, pushups, interstitial, sliders, and direct links.

Adsterra is a perfect alternative to AdSense for the websites that have over 50K impressions per month. They work with website from all types of niches and have a great ad fill rate for all countries.

Publishers can enjoy on-time payments made bi-weekly via major payment systems, as well as a personal account manager and real-time statistics provided through Adsterra API.

2. Media.Net

Media.Net gives you exclusive access to the Yahoo! Bing Network. They are one of the world’s largest contextual ad networks and boast many top publishers like Forbes, ELLE, Reuters, and Good Housekeeping.

Media.Net offers publishers several ad styles. Do note however that they only allow one of each ad type to appear on a page.

The main ad style available is the content ad. These are contextual ad blocks that are available in different sizes to suit your needs.

The next ad type available is the search targeting ad. These appear the same way as contextual ads but are only displayed to search engine traffic.

Media.Net also provides web bar and mobile ads to its publishers.

I feel that this is the closest AdSense alternative currently available. But, be aware that they are known for suspending accounts and not stating the reason. So, if you use them, read all the rules and be careful to follow them.

Possible roadblock: Media.Net needs to approve each site you want to place ads on. And they’re a little strict on what sites they approve.

3. Chitika

Chitika is an online advertising network with over 350,000 publishers. They serve over four billion targeted ads per month. Chitika has several top tier advertising partners like Yahoo!, SuperMedia and HomeAdvisor.

Since the Chitika ads are search targeted, they work best with websites that get most of their traffic from search engines. Visitors that arrive at your site by other channels are displayed generic ads loosely based on your site’s title and keywords. If the majority of your traffic is from links or type-ins you may want to look at other AdSense alternatives.

They do allow you to use alternative ads that you can display to your non-organic visitors to better make use of your site’s ad space.

Publisher payments are available by PayPal starting with a $10 minimum.

Chitika is one of the few ad networks that has an affiliate program. This could bring in an additional income for you.

4. Adversal

Adversal is an excellent alternative to AdSense if your site gets over 50,000 page views per month. They have fast approvals but make sure your site meets their requirements before you apply to be a publisher.

They offer various banner sizes and types to publishers. Pop-unders and ministitial type ads are also available for publisher use.

Currently their minimum payout is $20. A PayPal option is available.

Adversal is also one of the few ad networks that has an affiliate program.

Please be aware that Adversal will reject any site that does not receive at least 50,000 page views per month.

5. Infolinks

Infolinks ad network currently serves targeted ads on over 125,000 websites. They work best on sites that contain large amounts of text based content.

Infolinks indexes your pages to determine the best ads to display. Several types of ads are available to publishers for use on their sites.

The main ad type Infolinks provides is their in-text ad links. Selected words on your page are selected and either double underlined or dotted underlined. When a visitor scrolls over one of the words, a pops up containing an ad relevant to the word appears.

These ads can appear a little spammy and get a little annoying when you accidentally move your cursor over a link. They do allow you to limit the number on a page though.

They also have an ad block called related tags. These are very similar in look to AdSense horizontal link blocks.

A tag cloud ad block is available for your use if you feel it would be suitable for your site’s layout.

Infolinks has a search widget that sits at the bottom of the screen and when a visitor moves their cursor over its bar, it slides up to display its contents.

Infolinks will not approve a site if they feel it is thin on content.

6. Clicksor

Clicksor offers publishers multiple ad formats including clickable text and targeted contextual banner ads for use on their sites.

All ads displayed to your site’s visitors are context sensitive. This way your site visitors see ads that they will be more likely to click.

They offer weekly payouts via PayPal or check. The minimum payout threshold is currently $50.

Clicksor also offers an affiliate program that pays a 10% commission.

Caveat: They’re getting more picky on which sites they accept and are rejecting many sites that are not based in the US, Canada or UK.

7. RevenueHits

RevenueHits is a fairly new ad network and looks very promising. They offer a nice variety of ad types including banner, pop-under, sliders, top and footer style banners, buttons, and interstitials.

They offer both contextual and geo-targeted ads. They are a performance-based network (CPA), not a CPC or CPM network. So make sure you understand that you are paid when a visitor to your site takes specific actions instead of being paid when they click on an ad.

RevenueHits offers payment via wire, PayPal and Payoneer. The current minimum payout is $50.

They do not allow ads to be placed on pages that do not contain content.

8. BidVertiser

BidVertiser pays you on both clicks and conversions. This could help you make more money from your sites.

Text ads, banner ads, mobile ads and slider ads are available.

They offer publishers a point-and-click ad builder tool that helps you to customize the ads to fit the look and feel of your site.

They pay monthly by check, wire or PayPal. The current minimum payout is only $10 if you choose to receive payments through PayPal.

One downside to BidVertiser is that they use an advertiser bidding system. Each advertiser bids ad placement and what sites their ads appear on. So, it may take some time for advertisers to find your site in the BidVertiser network and start bidding on your ad spots.

9. Intellilinks

Intellilinks lets you sell simple text links on your sites to advertisers for a set monthly fee. The more traffic you have and the better your search engine rankings, the higher you can set your monthly charge.

If you have a site that is ranked well and receives a good amount of traffic, you will want to take a close look at Intellilinks.

For integration, they provide a WordPress plugin or script that is easy to install. This plugin or script automates the process of adding text links to your site.

Sold links can be placed inside of content and on the sidebar as related links.

Your site visitors do not have to click these links for you to be paid.

Payments are made through PayPal on a monthly basis.

One negative thing about Intellilinks is that it may take time for advertisers to purchase links on your site.

10. PopAds

PopAds specializes in pop-under ad delivery.

They claim that their average earnings for a site that receives 1000 unique visitors a day is $4.00 a day.

You can select the minimum bid you will accept from advertisers as well as setting the frequency with which the pop-under ads display to site visitors.

One of the great features of PopAds is that you can request payment of your PopAds revenue anytime you want. If you are earning at least $5 a day, you can even make payment requests on a daily basis.

Getting an account and site approvals is easy with PopAds.

11. PopMyAds

PopMyAds is a pop-under ad network that accepts publishers and traffic from all countries.

They provide quick site approval; many times in under one hour.

This is one of the few ad networks that accepts legal adult sites. Please check their TOS for more details on the sites they accept.

Their minimum payout is just $5.00 and can be paid through PayPal or Payza. You can contact them if you need to be paid through wire transfer. All payments are processed in 1 to 7 business days. PayPal and Payza payments are usually processed within 1 business day of payment request.

12. PropellerAds Media

PropellerAds is a large ad network that specializes in pop-under ads but also provides standard banner ads, on-click ads and in-banner video ads. They also have sliders, sponsored links and other ad formats available for publishers.

If your website is in one of the following niches, you will want to check them out: Games, entertainment, movies, dating, finances, software or gambling.

They also have a great ad fill rate for tier 2 and 3 countries. So if you have site visitors from India, South Africa or Singapore, you should give them a try.

13. Vibrant Media

Vibrant Media is an extremely popular ad network that you will see at work on many popular sites. They have many premium advertisers and pay high CPC rates to their publishers.

Let me give you an advance warning though. They are very picky about what sites they accept. Any site you submit to them for approval must be of high quality and receive a minimum of 500,000 page views per month.

Vibrant use their own IntelliTXT technology that searches your pages for relevant keywords and phrases. It then underlines these and adds code needed to open a small popup when they are hovered by a visitor’s cursor.

These popup ads are interactive and draw a high number of clicks.

Vibrant also offers other ad types, including in-image and display.

Though site approval is difficult, if you do have a site that meets their minimum criteria, they are a great network to be on.

14. VigLink

VigLink helps you to monetize your sites by automatically converting key phrases and existing links into affiliate links.

VigLink supports over 32,000 affiliate merchants and pays you between 25% and 50% of all revenue earned by clicks on links converted by VigLink.

Currently they offer three types of monetization technologies.

Their VigLink Convert service takes many of your regular links to products and converts them to links that will earn you a commission if the product is purchased by the visitor clicking the link.

VigLink Insert takes keyword phrases from your site and converts then into affiliate links. This works great if your site discusses a lot of products.

The third technology they offer is VigLink Anywhere. This technology is designed for sharing links via Twitter, Facebook, email etc.

It’s easy to get approved and account activation is instant once you verify your email address.

If you have been turned down by other networks, this one is worth checking out.

15. BuySellAds

BuySellAds sells advertising space on your site to advertisers for you.

When you submit a site to BuySellAds for approval they look at your PageRank, Alexa score, inbound link count and other metrics to determine your site’s overall quality. They only accept high quality sites.

You actually have control of what you feel your ad space is worth. But, be careful that you don’t price yourself out of the market.

BuySellAds supports many ad types, including background takeovers, display, email newsletters, RSS feed ads, image plus text, text ads etc.

They pay you 75% of the revenue your ad space brings in.

BuySellAds only accepts English language sites. You also need to have a minimum of 100,000 page views per month.

Also note that you must own the domain. They do not allow sites on wordpress.com, Blogger, etc.

There are many reasons why people look for alternatives to AdSense. Getting rejected, getting banned, overly strict rules, and that sometimes contextual text ads just don’t work with a site’s design.

Now it’s time for you to explore all the options you have and pick the ad networks that works best for you, your sites and your goals.