Finding Keywords — Are You Looking Here?

This is a guest post by Matt Geer.

If you want to guest post on this blog,check out the guest post guidelines here.

The keyword research techniques that are taught on the web are all pretty much the same:

• Open up a keyword tool such as Google, Market Samurai or Word Tracker.
• Find low competition, high volume keywords.
• Make sure they are “buying” or “money” keywords.

Depending on the blog you’re reading, you’ll either be told to go after the big keywords or longtails.

Either way though, all you’re doing is chasing the same keywords that everyone else in that niche is.

Don’t get me wrong, this approach certainly works. But I like to do things differently. Different doesn’t always work, but when it does, in the case of keywords you can find niches or angles that no one else has taken yet that can prove to be pretty profitable.

So with that in mind, I wanted to show you a couple of places that people aren’t looking for keywords (as well as content ideas). Well, they probably will after this, so I suggest taking these tips and running with them as quickly as you can.

Keyword Research — 3 Places People Aren’t Looking That You Should Be

Here are 3 different places that people aren’t using for their keyword research.

1. Adsense

Adsense ads are generated based on the pages on your site (amongst other things). This is a great way to get keyword ideas for your site, blog posts and articles.

For example, if you have a site about credit or credit cards, you might have a page on “bad credit credit cards.” Here are some actual Adsense results that you might see:

• Credit Card Debt Relief
• Bad Credit Unsecured Loan
• Apply Instant Credit Card
• Bad Credit Personal Loans
• Bad Credit Loans

Are you targeting these keywords on your site? You should be, because running PPC for credit related terms is expensive, so you can be sure that these keywords are being searched for if someone is paying for them.

But don’t take these keywords and use them as is. You want to turn them into page or post titles. Let’s take “credit card debt relief” for example. What titles could we generate with this phrase?

• What Are The Best Credit Card Debt Relief Programs?
• 5 Reasons to Avoid Credit Card Debt Relief Services
• What is Credit Card Debt Relief?
• 10 Scams Commonly Pulled by Credit Card Debt Relief Companies

You can generate so many topics using this phrase — 25, 50, maybe more!?! Thousands of keywords and topic ideas are at your fingertips.

Ok, so where do we find these ads? Well, there are lots of places:

• Your own website, if you’re using Adsense to monetize it.
• Your competitor’s websites.
• Web 2.0 sites such as HubPages, YouTube, IMDB and eHow

You can go anywhere that monetizes with Adsense. I would personally stick to sites or networks that cover your topic, or a variety of topics. My ideas above will keep you busy for a while, though.

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers is another great place for keyword research because you’re getting keywords straight from the hors.. err.. people’s mouths.

What you need to do is look through all the questions being asked. I stuck with the credit theme and visited the credit questions within the business and financial section. Here are some of the gems I found:

• Are there legitimate credit repair companies?
• Can you buy a prepaid card with another prepaid card?
• What are some of the strategies that can help you use credit wisely?

I didn’t look to see if those keywords are actually being looked for online or not, but they’re the keywords I’d focus on when writing my content.

Note: I did check Google for total number of sites for “legitimate credit repair companies,” and there are only 70,000 competing results. And the Yahoo Answers question that I got the question from is on the first page. Hint: If the Yahoo question is on the first page, you can get past it.

Can you see the potential for keywords here? The content ideas you could generate?

Want to know a cool strategy? If you already have a blog or website dedicated to a certain niche, find these questions and write a blog post that answers them. Then answer the question on Yahoo Answers (semi-thoroughly), and then link to your site as your “source.” FYI: You can’t post hyperlinks until you’re a level 2 answerer, but that’s only 240 points, which isn’t hard to get. People will find this so helpful, and many of these longtail type questions / answers rank very well in search engines. So you’ll get traffic that way, too.

Just keep in mind that, if you choose to answer the question(s), that you want to be helpful. I wouldn’t just post a response that says — I answered this here, with a link to your site. That’s a quick way to get flagged. You also want to write the blog post and answer the question as quickly as possible, as questions are automatically closed after 4 days or so, or whenever the asker decides they got a good enough answer.

3. Forums

Forums are another great way for generating keyword and content ideas. Once again, this is worth your time to try because these are questions and/or problems that people are actually having. And I’m not sure about you, but usually when I use a forum to ask questions I’ve already done a search in Google and Bing. So there is search traffic to be had here.

Going through a couple forums for credit related questions, here are some keywords/phrases that I came up with:

• What is A Good Credit to Debt Ratio?
• Using Lex Law Firm to clean my credit?
• I want to fix my credit asap!
• Ok…ready to start repairing my credit

I can go on all day — there are 70+ pages in that particular section of the forum, and there are several sections overall. And that’s one forum of tens, if not hundreds updated regularly.

Something worth pointing out too — you don’t have to use these questions, answers or keywords as is. Add your own spin or angle to them. You could try different variations. For example, instead of bad credit, you might say poor credit. Or instead of credit score, you could use credit rating. You could even focus on the opposite of what is being asked. For example, instead of, “I want to fix my credit asap,” try, “how to screw your credit up asap.”

I think you get the idea.

Well, that’s it from me. I hope you see the potential here and take advantage of it right away. There are many keywords or phrases that these places can generate for you that will bring in people desperate for answers or solutions. More over, these people that are looking for answers are often willing to pay for them, provided you give them a quality solution.

So, what do you think? Are you going to take advantage of these keyword (and content) generating ideas?

About the author: This post was written by Matt, co-owner of Plug Things In. Plug Things In has written detailed internet guides that help you understand how internet service works, what your options are and how to “plug into” them.