A Better Way to Estimate Keyword & Niche Traffic
Written By: admin Posted On: August 9, 2007 Tags:
This concept was originally posted in Dan Raine’s Immediate Edge training course (Google it). I saw it recently in this Thirty Day Challenge (Google it) contest going on that claims to turn even the most novice internet user into a millionaire (which training course doesn’t?). Either way, this is a solid tip and answers a lot of my own questions when doing preliminary keyword research for a particular niche.
The concept Ed proposes is quite simple: Take a keyword/phrase that you rank #1-2 in Google SERPs and compare it to another keyword/phrase you would like to rank for to project the amount of traffic that phrase will receive if it were ranked #1-2 in SERPs. This technique obviously requires you to rank well for a particular keyword before you can begin researching, but most of us already do. If you are just starting, Ed has given the phrase Male Yeast Infection out for free, and tells us that he was receiving 500 uniques per day in the #2 spot.
Taking that data in to Google Trends, we can compare any keyword phrase and quickly see what kind of traffic we can expect from Google from our new niche. Not a revolutionary technique, not ground-breaking, but a very solid tip.
Try It Out
Step One:
Pick a niche. Here is an interesting random niche generator since I’m lazy right now and don’t feel like giving any creative ideas. I probably wouldn’t recommend using this for business purposes as I’m sure the results are pulled from a database. It’s good link-bait either way.
Step Two:
The niche it picked for me was “concrete mix”. Pulling this in to Wordtracker tells me concrete mix (phrase match not broad term) should net me 97 uniques per day. That isn’t an incredible amount of traffic, but when I pull the same keyword in to Google Trends it tells a little bit of a different story:
So, who to trust? I would suspect Google on this one, folks. You also have to take in to account the fact that since this technique has been published, I suspect a lot more search activity has been going on for the phrase male yeast infection, and would therefore affect the outcome of your research. The best way is to use your own data, or simply look at data from 4-5 months ago with that phrase.
Another thing to note is that if your phrase is netting under 200-250 uniques per day, it will not show up on the Google Trends graph. In that case, you’d simply scroll down the page to look at the bar graphs. In the example below I’ve defined a more specific niche topic, “Concrete mix design”. Since it gets under 100 searches a day, it’s listed in the bar graph section. I can deduct that most of the viewers are of the English language, so this still gives me a great deal of precision in estimating traffic.
Some hippie threw together a nice but dirty tool that checks Google Trends, Wordtracker, and Google all at once in different iframes for the phrase match. You can check that out here.
Good luck!
This is unrelated but worth a mention, Nate talks about what he’s learned during the time he’s started his blog. I found the post to be inspiring and informative. Check it out.
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That tip was very eye opening for me when I saw on the 30 day challenge but I’m still quite new to internet marketing.
Simon
I visited all your links. I had a script error on the 30-day challenge so I didn’t go further. The comparison chart-too bad it used wordtracker (probably an affiliate link) instead of Overture data. Would have saved time not having to go to DigitalPoint. Oh, well…
The article is very informative. Where in all the Google ’stuff’ do you find the trends without going through your website?
Hey Ann,
I use both Overture and Wordtracker. This post has no affiliate links included in it, I’m not sure if the link I provided uses that in his Iframe source– either way it doesn’t matter. You can try the experiment with Overture and you will get very similar results.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about Digital Point? You can visit Google Trends by simply going to http://www.google.com/trends, as pointed out in my post.
Good luck!
The chart done by ‘the hippie’ threw together- the ‘free’ WordTracker tool has much fewer alternatives than Overture for any keyword phrases. DigitalPoint.com (a free site) lays the 2 side-by-side and you can really appreciate the limit to WordTracker unless you want to pay the subscription rate. I was just commenting on that tool, not Google’s. Sorry for the confusion.
As for Google Trends, where on My Account is it listed, as opposed to bookmarking the specific page?
Hey Ann,
Doesn’t Digitalpoint’s tool require a Google API key?
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Thanks Scot (with only one “T”), for the great writeup. I’ve known about these types of techniques for some time, but you did a great job of summarizing it all and making it quite user-friendly.
No, DigitalPoint.com just REQUIRES you to fill in the “I’m not a robot” numbers and letters. It has more capacity than just keyword phrases if you want to use them. They also accept donations.
I agree with Jonathan. You did a good job summarizing the essential points here. Very helpful tips especially for beginners – as well as for experienced marketers who think they know it all
Austin
http://www.findaniche.org
This is a useful article. I like your blog and will be back to read more in the next few days.