Almost every niche website in existence today started with a single keyword. Whether or not keyword research was the first thing to do when choosing that site, finding a “winning” keyword was usually the green light to get started.
But is one keyword really enough to decide whether to proceed with a site? Can you choose a location based purely on a search metric?
And more importantly, when you find a great keyword, how can you turn it into a niche website that will one day make you money?
This is actually something that many people struggle with. Most of the failed sites I started as a beginner were due to poor keyword research, but there were also a few where I just approached the site wrong after finding a good keyword.
I’ve seen a lot of sites started by others with the same problems, so today’s post will cover some things you can do differently, or if you’ve never built a site before, some things to consider when planning your first site.
First Off – Which Keyword Is Ideal?
As I will show you later, no keyword is ideal. You really want the whole group of keywords. However, to find a group, you first need to find a keyword.
This keyword could theoretically fall into many different categories, but I’ll show you the type of keyword I usually start with when researching Amazon or another niche site.
A good keyword should:
- Be a shopping keyword
- Be famous
- Be ranked
Please note, I recommend KW Finder as an easy-to-use keyword research tool.
Buying keywords
They do not have to contain the word “Al”. A shopping keyword is simply something that someone would type into Google if they were interested in buying something.
Compare “running shoes” which can be anything related to “best running shoes” and you will see that the latter has more purchase intent with it.
Popularity
I like to start with a keyword that has over 1,000 searches because that usually means there will be a lot of other keywords and there will be interest in the niche. However, you can easily start with a keyword with 500 or even 250 searches.
There are too many variables to rely on search volume alone. If the product gives a large commission? What if there is almost no competition? What if there are hundreds of different keywords you can rank for with the same site?
It’s always worth doing additional research, so don’t just rely on the popularity of one keyword.
Rating ability
It may or may not be a real word, but the reason I chose “rank” over “low competition” is because it’s easier to measure. I’ve found keywords with low competition in the past that were still hard to rank for, and vice versa.
A classic example is when a keyword appears to have low competition, but that competition is all e-commerce sites. You probably won’t get an affiliate site to rank alongside them.
Typically, you want to find a keyword where the best sites are affiliate sites or authority sites with lower relevance.
So when I find a keyword and think, “Ok, that looks like a keyword that Google will rank affiliate sites for,” I don’t immediately dismiss it based on the strength of the competition.
Further analysis is needed later.
Good Keyword Examples
We’ve touched on the “best” keywords and these, ironically enough, are usually the best to go.
Here are some good examples that reuse the term running shoe:
– Top running shoes
– Reviews of running shoes
– (brand) vision (eg: Nike weather vision)
– best (brand) (eg: Best nike running shoes)
Depending on the niche, there will be other options. These examples are just to get you started. You can read more about it good and bad keywords here.
Deeper Drilling And Site Construction
Once you’ve found a keyword or two that looks promising, it’s time to think about how it can make a good site.
This is where people often go wrong. It is very easy to find a keyword and “Yes!” and then move forward with the site, maybe that wasn’t the best plan.
This usually happens when the keyword is too narrow and you build an entire site around it.
For example, it might be something like the term “best running shoes for plantar fasciitis”.
This is a decent keyword and worth exploring further. A mistake many people make is building an entire site around running shoes for plantar fasciitis.
You will only have so much success on this site until you hit the ceiling.
So here’s how you’ll proceed:
1.) Do additional research to find similar keywords and expand your site’s reach. In that case, you might find other keywords for running shoes or even other keywords for plantar fasciitis.
Maybe you could build a “shoes for plantar fasciitis” site or a “running shoes for various ailments” site.
The idea is to be broad, but not too broad where you have a lot of unrelated keywords.
2.) Do this research by putting your keywords into Long-Tail Pro, SEMRush, or even ubersuggest.org and looking at other related keywords. Then analyze those keywords for their benefits and strengths.
3.) Research existing products and search for keywords related to them, such as “review”. This allows you to link to 5-10 products from one “top” article.
4.) You can also find keywords that provide more information. You don’t need to have EVERY keyword on your site as a shopping keyword. If you can find things like “how to run with plantar fasciitis” it will complement your other keyword very well.
This is what the site might look like:
Plantar Fasciitis Angle:
– Best running shoes for plantar fasciitis
– Best hiking boots for plantar fasciitis
– Best shoes for plantar fasciitis
– How to run a marathon with plantar fasciitis
– Review of plantar fasciitis shoes
Running Shoe Disease Angle:
– Best running shoes for plantar fasciitis
– Best running shoes for flat feet
– The best running shoes for varicose veins
– Running shoes for verrucas
– How to run with sore feet
I haven’t checked the dimensions of these keywords, they are here as an example.
Why It’s Better
Besides the obvious reasons (more keywords = more content, more visitors and more money), there are a few things to consider:
1.) You hedge your bets.
If you rely heavily on a star keyword and never rank for it, what happens next? I have some sites where my favorite keyword won’t make it past page 2, but the niche is wide enough that I still get thousands of visitors and make good money from that site.
2.) The old EMD strategy is dead.
The idea of finding a keyword and building a site around it dates back to the days when people could get a keyword-specific domain name like bestshoesforplantarfasciitis.com. Google has closed this loophole, which means there is no real advantage to choosing a keyword anymore.
3.) More content = more rankings.
The more content your site has, the better it will be viewed by Google. So even if you create content for other keywords, your original keyword will rank higher because it is on a more populated site.
I usually launch a site with 8-10 pages and build it from there as it starts to rank.
Final Tip – If you’re not sure what Content to Own, leave it out
If you’ve followed the steps above and still aren’t sure what kind of content to build around your keyword, then you’re out of luck.
As mentioned earlier, it’s very easy to rush into choosing a niche and go with a site idea just because you’ve found a good keyword or two.
Now you can create sites without doing any keyword research, but you should still have plenty of content ideas. Without these, no niche will really be broad enough to have the ROI you’re looking for.
While there are some exceptions where a single keyword can make you a lot of money, experience tells me it’s best to stay away from single keyword sites.
As always, if you prefer to use our help to build the site for you, you can do so learn more about it here.
