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S05|L11 - how to find low competition keywords

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Notes

Tutorial Notes

Now, we’re going to do the first phase of Search Engine Optimization or SEO. We are going to research keywords where we will be optimizing each of the pages in our store around.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex01a-google_search.png

A keyword is a string of words that you type in on Google to search for. So if you go to Google and type in doctor mugs, this phrase doctor mugs will be called a single keyword even though it’s actually two words.

And if we do a search of the keyword doctor mugs, we’ll find that a flex store doing Aliexpress dropshipping and print on demand store is apparently ranking number 2 for organic ranking results for this keyword.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex01b-mugdom_result.png

The page that’s actually ranking for this keyword is actually a category page featuring different mugs aimed at doctors. 

So for each of the main pages of our site, we’re going to choose a keyword for each of them and then optimize those pages around that keywords. We’re going to choose a keyword for each of our product pages and were going to choose a keyword for each of our category pages, and a keyword for our homepage. 

To do this, we are going to use the MOZ Keyword Research Tool.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex02a-moz.png

To access it, you usually need to purchase a MOZ Medium subscription. MOZ has a cheaper subscription you can sign up for but you can only do 150 keyword searches which are unlikely not going to be enough for us. The chances are we would end to be doing around 300 to a thousand keywords searches by the time we’ve identified our keywords so we will need the medium subscription which has up to 5000 searches per month.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex02b-moz_subscription.png

Medium subscription is expensive so I recommend you take up the Medium subscription 30-day trial and find the keywords that you need and then cancel your subscription before they bill you. 

When we complete our keyword research, we are going to prioritize keywords that have low competition. Low competition keywords have fewer websites competing for the keywords or the websites that are currently ranking for the keyword are not well optimized around it. We want to choose low competition keywords because it gives us the chance to optimize our pages better than our competitors so that we can outrank them. The more difficult the keyword, the longer it going to take to rank for them.

The metrics that we want to focus on are the monthly traffic volume and the difficulty score. Our ultimate goal is to find keywords with traffic that have difficulty scores below 40.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex03a-traffic.png

This site Mugdom is not well optimized but it’s still getting SEO traffic. Why? Because it’s trying its best. So just putting any effort into your SEO at all already puts you in leaps and bounds over your competition.

The lowest search volume we will choose for a keyword is a volume of 11 to 50. This means that MOZ predicted to have 11 to 50 each month search for this keyword. This may look small but keep in mind that most people use long phrases that we call long-tail keyword. Long-tail keywords make up the majority of traffic around 70%.

keyword searching

homepage / store

Let’s start by picking a keyword for my tutorial store – Brewed Treats. So let’s go and find the keyword for it!

Once logged in to your MOZ account, come and click on the Keyword Explorer research tool. 

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex03b-moz_keyword_explorer.png

What you want to do for your homepage is to try to choose a keyword that matches the types of items that you’re selling in your store. So for Brewed Treats, coffee mugs would be a good keyword to start with. We also sell gifts for coffee lovers, so coffee gifts would be another keyword. 

Type in your keyword in the search bar and make sure to choose the US, then click the Search icon.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex03c-moz_search.png

From the search results, you can see that the difficulty rating is pretty good and the monthly search volume is pretty nice as well.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex04a-good_result.png

good result

You can also check the suggestions from MOZ. Click on see all suggestions.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex04b-suggestions.png

click on 'see all suggestions'

I’ve clicked on funny coffee mugs and here’s the data that it shows. We are not going to use this keyword because not all our coffee mugs are funny and the difficulty score is high. We want to stick to 45 and below difficulty.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex04c-coffee_mugs.png

so-so keyword

So let’s go back to the results and choose another keyword to check. I’ve chosen unique coffee mugs. I would choose this keyword over the other one because the difficulty score is good and the monthly search volume is high.

Let’s check another keyword – coffee glass. This one is much better. The monthly search volume is high and the difficulty is really low. So we are going to stick with this as our primary keyword for the homepage.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex04d-coffee_glass.png

better keyword

product category keywords

Next, we will do research for each of our product category pages. We have three categories in Brewed Treats – Coffee Mugs, Travel Mugs, and Coffee Spoons. We now have to find keywords for each of our product categories.

Repeat the same process we did for finding the keyword for the homepage. Just keep in mind that we want keywords with high monthly volume and low difficulty score. Also, don’t forget to look at all the suggestions from MOZ as you might find some keywords that might be useful.

After we’ve chosen the keywords for the product category pages, we now need to choose keywords for each of our product pages. Our goal is to look for the lowest competition keyword we can find that is still relevant to our item and also get traffic.

I’m going to show how I complete keyword research for my two products  – Coffee Spoons and Camera Lens Travel Mug.

Let’s start by searching cat coffee spoons. As you can see, great difficulty but horrible monthly volume search traffic. So let’s look at the suggestions.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex05a-coffee_spoons.png

coffee spoon keyword results

The monthly search volume of the suggestions doesn’t look good as well and we really don’t have much to choose from. This is a very niche keyword. 

So let’s try cat spoons. As you can see, the difficulty is good but monthly volume traffic is not that high. But this is okay as we are using very a niche keyword. We will definitely go for this keyword here.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex05b-cat_spoons.png

cat spoon keyword results

Now, we are going to look for a keyword for our Camera Lens Travel Mug. Let’s try to search for a camera lens travel mug. As you can see, it’s not looking really good. The difficulty is high and the monthly search volume isn’t so great.

file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_07/ex05c-camera_lens.png

camera lens keyword results

Let’s load up the suggestions and let’s see what MOZ has for us. Let’s try camera lens coffee mug. The monthly search volume is high but the difficulty is still a bit high. So let’s try another keyword – camera lens mug. The results show that it’s a more challenging keyword with a difficulty score of 50. 

So let’s keep looking until we find the right keyword. Let’s try the camera lens thermos. As you can see, the difficulty score is 46 which way better than 50. And the monthly search volume is good. There are also some long-tail keyword suggestions that we can use. We are definitely going to use this for our Camera Lens Travel Mug.

Keep in mind that you have to go through multiple keywords to find the best one. Sometimes it’s going to be a bit trickier and you have to go through multiple keywords.

There you have it! Go ahead and find the keywords for your homepage, product category pages and each of your product pages.

Review

Summary

This lesson explains how to do keyword research for SEO by choosing one target keyword for each major store page.

Core Goal

Choose keywords that each page can realistically rank for in Google.

Pages that need keywords:

  • homepage
  • product category pages
  • product pages

What A Keyword Means

A keyword is the search phrase someone types into Google.

Example:

doctor mugs

Even though it has two words, it counts as one keyword phrase.

Pages To Optimize

Each important page should have its own target keyword.

Homepage

Use a broad keyword that matches the overall store.

Example:

coffee gifts

Category Pages

Use keywords for product groups.

Examples:

best coffee mugs
best travel mug

Product Pages

Use more specific keywords for individual products.

Examples:

cat spoon
camera lens thermos

Tool Used

Use Moz Keyword Explorer.

The course recommends:

  • Moz Medium plan
  • use the 30-day free trial
  • cancel before rebilling if you do not want to keep it

Reason:

  • keyword research may require 300–1000 searches
  • cheaper plan may not provide enough searches

Main Metrics To Check

Focus on:

  1. Monthly volume
  2. Difficulty score

Difficulty Score Rules

Moz gives difficulty from 0–100.

Target:

  • best: under 40
  • acceptable: 40–45
  • only if necessary: 45–50
  • avoid: over 50

Rule:

Lower difficulty matters more than higher volume.

Keyword Selection Principle

Choose the lowest-competition keyword that is still relevant and has search volume.

Ideal keyword:

  • relevant
  • low difficulty
  • decent traffic

Minimum Search Volume

Lowest acceptable Moz volume:

11–50 monthly searches

This seems small, but it can still be useful because of long-tail traffic.

Long-Tail Keywords

A long-tail keyword is a longer, more specific search phrase.

Example:

funny mug for a doctor

The transcript says long-tail keywords make up most search traffic.

So ranking for a shorter keyword can also help you rank for related longer phrases.

Traffic Reality

Moz volume only estimates the obvious keyword traffic.

Actual traffic may be higher because:

  • people search longer variations
  • related phrases also bring visitors
  • many pages together add up

How To Choose Between Two Keywords

If one keyword has much more traffic and only slightly higher difficulty, it may be worth choosing.

Transcript rule of thumb:

  • if traffic is about double
  • and difficulty is only within about 3 points higher
  • choose the higher-traffic keyword

But:

  • there is no exact formula
  • use judgment

Homepage Keyword Process

Start with a broad store keyword.

Example starting keyword:

novelty coffee mugs

Then check Moz suggestions.

Examples checked:

  • funny coffee mugs
  • unique coffee mugs
  • coffee gifts

Chosen example:

coffee gifts

Reason:

  • high monthly volume
  • low difficulty
  • broad enough for homepage

Category Page Keyword Process

Pick keywords matching each product category.

Example category:

coffee mugs

Checked:

  • unique coffee mugs
  • funny coffee mugs
  • best coffee mugs
  • cool coffee mugs

Chosen:

best coffee mugs

Reason:

  • strong volume
  • low difficulty
  • relevant to the category

Example category:

travel mugs

Chosen:

best travel mug

Reason:

  • best balance found
  • not perfect, but usable

Product Page Keyword Process

Product keywords are more specific.

Expect:

  • lower traffic
  • fewer keyword options
  • more compromise

Example product:

cat coffee spoons

Chosen:

cat spoon

Reason:

  • difficulty below 40
  • relevant enough
  • better volume than the more specific phrase

Example product:

camera lens travel mug

Better final keyword:

camera lens thermos

Reason:

  • “mug” keywords were too competitive
  • “thermos” was less obvious but better
  • keyword research revealed a better angle

Keywords To Avoid

Irrelevant Keywords

Do not choose keywords that do not truly match the page.

Example:

  • do not use “cute mugs” if not all mugs are cute
  • do not use “tea mugs” if the page is mainly coffee mugs

Wrong Search Intent

Avoid keywords where the searcher wants something you do not provide.

Example:

camera lens coffee mug in stores

Reason:

  • searcher wants to buy in a physical store
  • your online store does not match that intent

Misspelled Keywords

Avoid spelling mistakes even if they have traffic.

Reason:

  • they look unprofessional on your site

Trademark Keywords

Avoid trademark keywords unless the product is genuinely that branded item.

Examples:

  • Canon
  • Nikon

Reason:

  • your product may be inspired by those items
  • but it is not actually those branded products

Practical Workflow

For each page:

  1. Identify what the page is really about
  2. Search a broad keyword in Moz
  3. Check monthly volume
  4. Check difficulty
  5. Open keyword suggestions
  6. Test related keywords
  7. Reject irrelevant keywords
  8. Reject wrong-intent keywords
  9. Reject trademark keywords
  10. Choose the best realistic keyword
  11. Record the keyword for that page

Keyword Research Table Template

Page Page Type Starting Keyword Chosen Keyword Volume Difficulty Notes
Homepage
Category
Product

Research Checklist [0/9]

  • Choose homepage keyword
  • Choose keyword for each category page
  • Choose keyword for each product page
  • Check monthly volume
  • Check difficulty score
  • Prefer difficulty under 40
  • Avoid irrelevant keywords
  • Avoid misspellings
  • Avoid trademarks

Key Insight

Keyword research is not perfect.

You will often compromise between:

  • relevance
  • traffic
  • difficulty

Bottom Line

Do not chase the biggest keyword.

Choose keywords that are:

  • relevant
  • low competition
  • realistic to rank for

Then optimize each page around one chosen keyword.

Transcript 

00:00
In this video, we are gonna do the first phase

00:02
of search engine optimization,

00:03
otherwise known as SEO.

00:05
We are going to be researching and picking keywords that

00:08
we will optimize each of the pages in our store

00:11
around. A keyword is a string of words that you

00:14
type into Google to search for. So So if we

00:16
come to Google and type in Doctor. Muggs, this phrase

00:18
here, Doctor. Muggs, would be called a single keyword even

00:22
though it's actually 2 words. And of course, if we

00:25
do a search for the keyword Doctor. Muggs, we'll find

00:27
that a flex store doing both AliExpress drop shipping and

00:30
print on demand is currently ranking number 2 in the

00:33
organic results for this keyword. The page of theirs that

00:36
is ranking for this keyword is actually a category page

00:39
featuring different mugs aimed at doctors. Most of these are

00:42
custom mugs that they've created with print on demand services,

00:45
but they are also dropshipping this mug from AliExpress as

00:48
well. So what we're gonna do is for each of

00:50
the main pages on our site, we're gonna choose a

00:53
keyword for each of them and then optimize those pages

00:56
around that keyword. We're gonna choose a keyword for each

00:59
of our product pages and we're gonna choose a keyword

01:01
for each of our category pages. And we are also

01:04
gonna be choosing a keyword for our homepage.

01:07
To do that, we're gonna use the Moz keyword research

01:09
tool. To access it, you usually need to purchase a

01:12
Moz medium subscription.

01:13
Moz do have a cheaper subscription you can sign up

01:16
for, but they only include 150

01:18
keyword research searches, which is unlikely to be enough for

01:21
us. The chances are we'll end up doing 300 to

01:24
1000 keyword searches by the time we've identified our keywords,

01:27
so we will need the medium subscription, which has up

01:30
to 5000 searches a month. But this is expensive, isn't

01:34
it? Luckily, Moz do have a free 30 day trial

01:37
for their Medium plan. It currently lasts 30 days. I

01:40
recommend you take out the trial, find the keywords that

01:43
you need, and then cancel before it rebills you. It

01:45
will rebill automatically so you'll need to remember to cancel

01:48
if you don't want it for longer than 30 days.

01:51
I'll have a link to Moz and its trial on

01:53
this page. When we are completing keyword research, we're gonna

01:56
be prioritizing

01:57
keywords that have low competition.

01:59
Low competition keywords are when there are either less websites

02:02
competing for the keyword or the websites that are currently

02:05
ranking for the keyword

02:06
are not well optimized around it. We want to choose

02:09
those low competition keywords because it gives us an opportunity

02:12
to optimize our pages for that keyword better than our

02:15
competitors so that we can outrank them. The more difficult

02:19
a keyword, the longer it's going to take to rank

02:21
for them. And honestly, we really just wanna be getting

02:24
traffic and sales flowing into our site with less effort,

02:27
so the low competition keywords

02:29
are our main focus here. Manually checking for this for

02:32
all of our keywords would take a very long time,

02:34
which is why we are going to use the Moz

02:36
Keyword Explorer tool to speed up the process for us.

02:39
The metrics we want to focus on are the monthly

02:42
traffic volume and the difficulty score. The Moz keyword tool

02:45
is gonna give us a difficulty score out of 100.

02:47
Our real ultimate goal is to find keywords with traffic

02:50
that have a difficulty score below 40. Sometimes we are

02:53
gonna have to compromise on traffic numbers to target a

02:56
lower competition keyword.

02:57
But remember, the lower the competition, the easier it is

03:00
to rank for it and the faster you will make

03:02
money in sales. Sometimes it's just not possible to find

03:05
easy keywords like this. So then we'll look for keywords

03:08
with a difficulty rating of between 40 to 50. And

03:11
for some, it's just gonna be too tough to stick

03:13
to that. So the most we'll ever go up to

03:15
for a page is 50. But really, the difference between

03:19
50 and 40 is huge. So we want to stay

03:21
away from anything over 45 if we can and truly

03:25
prioritize keywords below 40. In an ideal world, we would

03:29
find a keyword that has low competition yet lots of

03:32
traffic, but sometimes this just isn't possible.

03:35
And in those cases, we're going to have to strike

03:37
a balance.

03:38
Now usually, if there is a keyword that's got double

03:41
the traffic numbers and is only within 3 points of

03:45
difficulty

03:46
to the lower competition keyword,

03:48
I would choose the 1 that's more difficult but has

03:50
the most traffic.

03:51
But there's honestly no set formula here. It's gonna be

03:54
a process of researching and weighing up and dealing with

03:58
compromise.

03:58
In fact, my video tutorials are usually highly curated,

04:03
but for this 1 here, I've decided to do true

04:05
over the shoulder style videos so that you can see

04:08
my exact process throughout it. I wanted to show it

04:11
in this way because as you're gonna see, the process

04:13
isn't perfect. It's about weighing these 2 things up. You're

04:17
not always going to find the perfect keyword and the

04:20
process itself is not always perfect. But that's absolutely fine.

04:24
The site here, Mugdom, well, you know, this site isn't

04:27
actually the most well optimized, but it's still getting SEO

04:30
traffic.

04:31
Why? Because it's trying its best, and most stores don't

04:34
even try at all. So just putting any effort to

04:37
your SEO at all already puts you leaps and bounds

04:40
ahead of your competition.

04:41
The lowest search volume we will choose for a keyword

04:44
is a volume of 11 to 50. This means that

04:46
Moz predicts that between 11 to 50 people each month

04:49
search for this keyword. Now this may seem small, but

04:52
there's something to keep in mind. Most people use much

04:55
longer phrases. Instead of the keyword doctor mugs, they might

04:58
search funny mug for a doctor. That would be a

05:01
keyword featuring 5 words. We would call this a long

05:03
tail keyword. Long tail keywords, as you can see, make

05:07
up the majority of traffic, about 70 percent. By ranking

05:10
well for a keyword like Doctor. Mugs, you will also

05:12
rank well for these long tail keywords too and get

05:15
traffic from them. The thing though is that long tail

05:17
keywords are difficult for tools like Moz to analyze because

05:22
of the fact that they only get a handful of

05:24
searches a month. So what you need to keep in

05:26
mind through this process is it's not just 11 to

05:28
50 people you'll be reaching by ranking for a keyword

05:31
with an estimated amount of traffic. That's only 30 percent

05:34
of the traffic you'll be getting. In reality, it's more

05:37
like 36 to 166

05:39
people. And that's just for 1 keyword. Remember, we're gonna

05:42
be selecting lots of keywords here, and they are going

05:46
to add up collectively.

05:47
And over time, you can add in more pages and

05:50
rank for those as well and you will build up

05:53
your traffic empire. So yes, it's gonna be about striking

05:56
a balance. Low competition is our primary reason for choosing

05:59
a keyword. But But if another keyword is just a

06:01
few points higher on the difficulty scale but has substantially

06:05
more traffic,

06:06
then we would choose that 1 usually instead.

06:09
All right. Let's start out by picking a keyword for

06:11
our homepage. Remember, my example store throughout this tutorial series

06:15
is Brewed Treats and it sells coffee items and accessories.

06:19
So let's go and find a keyword for it.

06:22
Fantastic. So once you've logged into your Moz account, I've

06:25
come and, clicked on the Keyword Explorer Research tool.

06:29
So what you wanna do for your homepage is you

06:31
wanna try to think of a broad keyword

06:34
that matches the types of items that you're selling in

06:36
your store. So for brewed treats, our primary item is

06:40
novelty coffee mugs. So so that would be a good

06:42
keyword to start with.

06:44
And, you know, we're also selling items that are fantastic

06:48
as gifts,

06:49
so coffee gifts could be another 1. We don't need

06:51
to get this keyword right. We don't need to choose

06:53
the best keyword to start with because as you're going

06:56
to discover, Moz is going to recommend to us,

07:00
similar keywords

07:01
that we can then do research on. So we just

07:04
need to get 1 in there to get started. So

07:07
we're going to start with novelty

07:10
coffee

07:11
mugs, and you wanna make sure that you've got this

07:13
set to the United States.

07:15
And once you've done that, do a search.

07:18
Okay. So your this is not bad. This difficulty rating

07:21
is pretty good. It's not below 40, which is what

07:24
we really, really want, but this is still very low.

07:27
And the monthly search volume is pretty nice as well.

07:30
There's a good chance that your homepage keyword is going

07:33
to have the highest monthly search volume out of all

07:36
the keywords that you end up choosing because usually it's

07:38
the broadest.

07:39
So it's nice to pick a high volume keyword.

07:42
But as I said, we can, take suggestions from Moz

07:45
and check out what keywords Sabre can be. So we're

07:48
gonna come and click see all suggestions.

07:52
Now here's the list they've given us.

07:54
Because we want to go after a higher monthly search

07:57
volume,

07:58
since this is our homepage keyword, I'm gonna sort this

08:01
by monthly volume.

08:04
Here, here's 1 that they recommended

08:06
that's

08:07
quite relevant.

08:08
Your funny coffee mugs. Most of our coffee mugs are

08:11
funny by nature because they are novelty.

08:14
So let's do a search for it.

08:16
We're not gonna do this anyway. I mean, this is

08:18
was already sort of pushing it because not all of

08:21
our coffee mugs are funny, and we're not just selling

08:24
coffee mugs. And, it's a big no because this is

08:27
really high. As I said, we can go above 45

08:31
difficulty, but only if we have to. We really want

08:34
to be sticking to,

08:36
45 and below and ideally,

08:39
below 40. This is a nice monthly search volume, but

08:42
this offsets it far too much when we could pick

08:45
a much easier keyword that we've already discovered.

08:48
So let's come back and, try this 1 here.

08:53
Unique coffee mugs.

09:00
This is much better. I would choose this 1 over

09:02
the other 1 any day.

09:04
It's only within a 3 point difference to our earlier,

09:08
keyword that we found, and the monthly search volume for

09:10
it is really high. So,

09:13
it's still a little bit more difficult than I'd ideally

09:15
love it to be. I'd love it to be below

09:17
40, but this here, you know, this is manageable.

09:21
I do think though that we need to check my

09:23
other idea, which was coffee gifts.

09:29
Alright. So,

09:30
this is much better. Look at this here. This is

09:33
kind of a unicorn keyword. This is a keyword that's

09:36
extremely good because the monthly search volume is really high,

09:39
yet the difficulty,

09:41
level is

09:42
really low. 33

09:44
is extremely low.

09:46
So I don't think we're gonna find anything better than

09:48
this. So we're gonna stick with this as our primary

09:51
keyword for the homepage.

09:53
Next, you wanna do product research for each of your

09:55
product category pages. If you've been following along with the

09:58
video tutorial series, you will know that I added a

10:00
category for coffee mugs in my example store and I

10:04
added a category for travel mugs. Plus I added a

10:06
category for coffee spoons. So that is 3 different keywords

10:09
that I now need to find for each of those

10:11
pages. Just like before, I want to strike a balance

10:14
between traffic numbers and the difficulty score with low competition

10:19
being my primary reason for choosing a keyword. All right.

10:21
I'm gonna switch over to my computer and you can

10:24
watch me complete keyword research in real time. I'm gonna

10:27
show you how I found a keyword for 2 of

10:29
my product category pages, the first being coffee mugs and

10:32
the second being my travel mug category page. So I'm

10:36
gonna start out by doing keyword research for, what's probably

10:40
gonna be my biggest category page, which is coffee mugs.

10:43
Now of course, we did find a keyword before that

10:45
was quite suitable, didn't we?

10:50
This here is a keyword that would be great for

10:55
my,

10:56
coffee category.

10:58
But, the difficulty

11:00
this is fine, but it's not great. I definitely wanna

11:03
see if we can do better, so

11:06
I'm gonna come and click on all suggestions.

11:10
And we might find that this is the best balance,

11:12
but it's definitely worth, taking a look see. So we

11:16
know we don't wanna do funny coffee mugs,

11:19
but what about best coffee mugs?

11:27
Well, this is much better, isn't it? This is why

11:29
you check. Look at this here. Difficulty

11:32
34, yet still has a huge monthly volume. So right

11:35
now, this keyword is definitely winning.

11:40
Let's check out cool coffee mugs.

11:46
I mean, this is great. I'd normally be happy to

11:48
see this, but why would I go for a harder

11:49
keyword that has has less search volume?

11:52
So cool coffee mugs is not going to be our

11:55
keyword.

11:56
I'm gonna stay away from cute mugs because while some

11:59
of my mugs are cute, they're not all cute and

12:02
it's the same for this 1 here. Some of my

12:05
mugs are suitable for tea but some aren't.

12:08
Definitely gonna stay away from travel coffee mug because that's

12:12
a whole other category that we're gonna research

12:15
shortly. And, you know, best coffee mug, this is extremely

12:18
similar to our other winning keyword.

12:21
Sure, we sell some big coffee mugs, but not all

12:23
of the mugs in our category page are going to

12:26
be big ones. You know? So I think we've definitely

12:29
found our winner here. It's going to be best coffee

12:32
mugs.

12:34
So the question now is, what about our travel mug

12:37
category?

12:39
Let's see if we can find a good keyword for

12:42
that. So let's start off by, typing in

12:45
cool

12:47
travel mugs just to give us some ideas.

12:51
Well, that's not so good, is it?

12:53
The monthly search volume,

12:55
is pretty low. I think this is a great indication

12:59
that the travel mug

13:01
keyword

13:02
is not going to be as widely searched for as

13:06
coffee mugs. So we need to make sure that we

13:09
don't

13:10
try to pick keywords with the same traffic volume as

13:13
coffee mugs because we're unlikely to find it.

13:17
So let's come and

13:19
see what we've got.

13:22
Best travel mug.

13:31
Yeah. So, you know, the difficulty,

13:34
isn't great, but, I mean, it's fine. And but the

13:37
monthly search volume is really good. I'm just gonna tie

13:41
try putting an easel onto that.

13:43
Yeah.

13:45
So we would

13:46
we would focus on the word mug over mugs, but,

13:50
you know, this is looking pretty good. So right now,

13:52
this is currently our winner, but it's worthwhile

13:57
going and taking a look at what other ones we've

13:59
got.

14:00
Best travel coffee mug.

14:08
Nah. This 1 is just a little bit harder for

14:10
no reason.

14:22
Same deal. Yeah. More it's it's trickier, but,

14:26
it's just not it's not necessary.

14:30
So

14:31
a lot of these

14:32
are just variations

14:34
on the same. So

14:36
I think we've got it. We've got our we're gonna

14:38
go with,

14:41
guest

14:43
travel

14:45
mug.

14:46
Yep. This is the 1. So,

14:49
we've found our keywords for our 2 category pages.

14:53
We're gonna go with best travel mug for travel mugs,

14:56
and we're gonna go with best coffee mugs for our

14:59
coffee mug category.

15:00
So there you go. I had great luck finding a

15:03
keyword for my coffee mug category page, but not my

15:06
travel mug category page. That's just how it is. Sometimes

15:09
we're not always gonna find unicorn keywords for each of

15:12
them. We need to compromise. So after you've chosen a

15:15
keyword for each of your product category pages, we now

15:18
need to choose a keyword for each of our product

15:22
pages. It's okay to target keywords. Remember, with lower search

15:25
volumes, this is just a fraction of its actual traffic

15:27
volume, plus all of the traffic across our pages will

15:30
add up. Our goal is to look for the lowest

15:32
competition keyword we can find that is still relevant to

15:35
our item that also gets traffic. And as you're going

15:38
to discover, because we're getting more and more specific

15:41
with the types of searches that we're doing, the traffic

15:44
numbers are likely to decrease during this keyword research phase

15:48
and that is okay. I'm gonna show you in real

15:50
time how I completed keyword research for 2 of my

15:53
products. The first is my cat coffee spoons and the

15:56
second is the Camberlands travel mug. Okay. So let's start

15:59
out by looking for a keyword,

16:01
for cat coffee spoons. So

16:05
cat coffee

16:09
spoons to get us started.

16:11
So, you know, great difficulty,

16:13
horrible monthly volume search traffic.

16:17
So let's come and see what suggestions we have from

16:20
Moz.

16:23
So in this case here, in the past, I've been

16:25
searching by monthly volume.

16:27
But as you can see,

16:30
we are not getting good

16:32
keyword suggestions from that. We're getting lots of things that

16:35
are quite irrelevant,

16:36
and we're targeting down very specific here. So we really

16:40
want to be searching for relevancy,

16:42
and we're just gonna have to go through

16:45
and look at the monthly volume

16:47
ourselves.

16:48
So we really don't have too many to choose from

16:51
here, which makes sense because

16:53
this is a very niche keyword.

16:57
So let's try cat spoon.

17:05
You know what?

17:07
This here,

17:08
pretty good.

17:09
We're below 40. Obviously, this is lower, but the reason

17:12
why it's lower is because of the fact that we

17:15
are looking,

17:17
for very specific, very niche keywords here. So we shouldn't

17:21
be concerned about the fact that this is much lower

17:23
than usual.

17:24
So,

17:25
we'll definitely go with this keyword here for cat spoons.

17:29
So now it's time to look for our second example,

17:32
product, the camera lens travel mug. So let's just get

17:36
started by typing that in.

17:39
Oops. Sorry.

17:47
This is not so good.

17:48
Look at this difficulty, 50. Remember, 50 is our absolute

17:52
maximum

17:53
when we're desperate desperate,

17:55
for a keyword and we can't find anything

17:58
lower.

18:00
And, of course, you know, the monthly search volume

18:03
isn't so great.

18:04
But now that we've had the keyword suggestions loaded up,

18:08
we'll take a look at those

18:09
and see what Moz has for us.

18:13
So,

18:15
we wanna look for ones over here with monthly volume.

18:18
So,

18:20
let's try well, actually, no. We don't wanna try this.

18:22
So look at this here. This here is a great

18:25
example of a keyword you want to avoid,

18:27
camera lens travel mug. This is a spelling mistake.

18:32
And sure, spelling mistakes

18:34
have,

18:36
traffic

18:37
but and you might get traffic for those keywords, but

18:41
anyone else is going to look at

18:43
your store and think it's extremely unprofessional so

18:47
avoid that.

18:49
So let's try camera lens coffee mug. This 1 has

18:51
a lot more

18:52
monthly search volume as a bonus.

19:00
Yeah. It's got more monthly search volume, and it's slightly

19:03
easier, but not really. This is still extremely,

19:06
extremely high.

19:08
Would definitely rather go with this keyword because of the

19:11
fact that it's got more search volume and it's slightly

19:14
easier. But really, I wanna try to find something simple

19:17
something easier than that. 49 is really pushing it.

19:22
So,

19:25
let's see.

19:26
Camera lens

19:28
mug.

19:32
Yeah. Look at this here. Difficulty 50.

19:35
This is a more challenging keyword and I'm glad that

19:38
we've come across this because you're definitely going to find

19:40
this. Not all keywords are easy. We've had some we've

19:43
had a pretty good time finding

19:45
low competition,

19:46
high traffic keywords so far, but it's just not always

19:50
the case.

19:51
And we're going to have to

19:54
make some sacrifices and we're going to have to make

19:56
some compromises.

19:58
This is a keyword I'll avoid because sometimes when you

20:01
look at a keyword, you can very easily see the

20:04
buyer's intent or the searcher's intent. Camera lens coffee mug

20:07
in stores.

20:09
Clearly, this person is looking for all the people that

20:11
are searching for this are looking for 1 of, travel

20:15
mugs,

20:16
that they can buy immediately in a physical store, but

20:19
that's why they say in stores.

20:21
So we don't want to rank for this keyword because

20:23
the types of people that come into our store won't

20:26
want to buy it anyway because they're looking to purchase

20:28
it in a physical store.

20:31
So we're going to skip this keyword.

20:34
Let's try this

20:40
1. No. No. Less monthly volume,

20:44
same difficulty.

20:45
Definitely not going for that.

20:48
Once again, a spelling mistake. And you may have noticed

20:51
I keep it going

20:52
like, Canon,

20:54
camera lens mug. So I am avoiding anything with the

20:58
word Canon in it,

21:00
and Nikon in it because those number 1, they're trademarked

21:04
phrases.

21:05
And you can still, I believe, legally

21:08
use them because, of course, you're able to sell Canon,

21:12
cameras and you're allowed to mark them as being Canon

21:14
cameras. But our travel mug doesn't actually feature the Canon

21:17
logo because that would be illegal,

21:19
and it's a fake logo.

21:22
It is inspired by Canon, but it's not the Canon

21:24
logo. It's almost like a satirical version of this. So,

21:29
we don't want to do that because we're not actually

21:32
selling a Canon camera lens mug. So we're gonna stay

21:35
away from that.

21:42
Yeah. And sometimes you just gotta keep

21:45
keep looking.

21:54
Here we go. So,

21:55
the DSLR coffee mug, that's interesting. DSLR is not a

22:01
trademark phrase.

22:04
But I thought we were gonna maybe get lucky here,

22:06
but, no, it's still quite difficult.

22:10
What about this 1 here? Can we find something that's

22:12
closer to

22:17
to 45?

22:22
Okay. Here we go.

22:23
So this year is definitely not perfect. 46 definitely higher

22:27
than I'd like, obviously. I've been calling 44 fine, but

22:30
46 is definitely a whole lot bigger than 50.

22:33
And the monthly search volume for this is still really

22:36
good.

22:37
The other thing I like about this too is that

22:39
there are other long tail keywords we can see for

22:41
the word thermos.

22:43
So,

22:44
you know, everyone is clearly trying to target words like

22:47
mugs

22:50
whereas not as many people are trying to target this.

22:53
And,

22:54
this here will then give us a competitive edge

22:57
when it comes to not just ranking for a short

23:00
a short tail keyword but also for the long tail

23:03
keywords related.

23:04
So, you know, looking at this here, we're starting to

23:07
well, we're pretty much running out of keywords

23:09
that have minimum traffic data. And so based on that,

23:14
this is definitely going to be our winner,

23:17
and this is gonna be the keyword that we're gonna

23:19
be targeting for our cameraman's travel mug. Now I know

23:23
I had to go through quite a lot of keywords

23:24
that time but I wanted to keep it in so

23:26
that you can see that sometimes there is quite a

23:28
bit of research involved and you're gonna go through multiple

23:31
keywords

23:32
during that phase to find the best 1. Sometimes you

23:35
will get really lucky and very early on in the

23:37
process, you're gonna find a very obvious keyword that you

23:40
should focus on like I did for the cat spoons.

23:42
But sometimes it'll be a bit trickier and you'll have

23:44
to go through multiple keywords and make more sacrifices,

23:48
and this was the process that we went through actually

23:50
for the camera lens travel mug. And of course, through

23:52
the research phase, I discovered that it was better to

23:55
focus on the keyword thermos

23:57
instead of the word mug, which is something I had

24:00
not considered

24:01
until I had started the research phase. So don't rush

24:05
this step. Like me, you might end up being surprised

24:08
at what you discover. Alright. So go ahead now and

24:11
research and find a keyword for your homepage,

24:14
for each of your product category pages, and each of

24:17
your product pages.