Keyword advice needed? lol

[tamalee]

Hello all .. Im new to forum .. but I totally love it so far !

I am trying to understand the whole keyword thing and I need some advice ...

Ok so if I type in a particular long tail keyword and the response says 112,000,000 sites with that LTK .. there are a couple paid ads there too .. but then I type same long keyword into googles keyword tool and it comes up
with 0 competition and global & local search volumes are "Not enough data"...
lol

So .. Im confused lol .. does this mean there are supposedly never any searches ever for that LTK ? Any advice on a great tutorial to understand the keyword MAGIC! lol

Thank you all so much!

Tammy

[cindybidar]

What happens if you use quotes in your search like this "long tail keyword phrase here"?

Without the quotes, you'll get every page that has any or all of the words in your phrase, in any order. With the quotes, you'll only get the pages which contain the keyword phrase in the exact sequence you typed it.

I'm not sure which is better when you are looking at your competition, though. I don't think people use quotes in their searches as a general rule. Hopefully someone with more experience will weigh in and educate us both.

[angienewton]

Tammy,

I think you are correct. If you don't find that keyword phrase in the keyword research tool you are using then no one is searching for it.

I only use one keyword tool and that is the one at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ so I don't know anything about the Google tool.

This blog post of Lynn's might help you.

SEO Content: Choosing Keywords & Phrases

Let us know if you have more questions!

[Jackie Lee]

When doing keyword research you're looking at two different things
1. search volume ~ how many people are actually typing your word in the search engine
2. competition ~ how many other people are trying to rank for that keyword.

When you look on the google kw tool you're looking for search volume. You want to make sure there's some search volume for your keywords or even if you get to page 1 #1 spot you won't get traffic to your site (because no one's looking).

When you're looking at the number of sites that come up when you put your kw in the google search engine you're looking more at the level of competition. There are quite a few ways to measure competition ~ you'll have to decide which way works best for you.

[tamalee]

Wow thank you all .. that was very helpful! = )

[tamalee]

Oh and speaking of keywords.. should I really optimize my main heading under my domain name for the keywords Im using?

[pamb10]

Jackie,

That was a great explanation. Thanks for posting that.

Pam

[TEAM Online Success]

Great thread, very helpful already.

Jason

[areaK]

Def do the search with quotes around it (gives you pages with exact phrase rather than pages that includes all of the words) and consider getting a real keyword tool when you can afford it..it will pay for itself ten times over in the long run, well worth it and much better results than ANY free keyword tool.

[tamalee]

Thank U !!

lol... I just got "Market Samurai" actually... as I was told its an excellent one too .. so I'm workin on learning the ropes in that... which other keyword tools would you recommend?

Thx so much for all the help = )