Since starting to read Trent’s Online Income Lab and following his move from Amazon product niche sites to Adsense niche sites I have been thinking more about starting to make some Adsense sites of my own. The main thing that attracts me to them is that they should be easier to outsource than the type of product based sites I am making at the moment.

Adsense Keyword Research

The main thing that stopped me from taking the plunge was finding some good keywords to get started with. Using the Google Keyword Tool I found it very hard to find keywords that matched my criteria of getting over 3,000 exact match local searches a month, had a CPC of $1 or more and weren’t in too competitive niches.

SECockpit

After reading a review on Trent’s site for SECockpit (aff. Link) and seeing that they had a $1 5 day trial offer on I thought I’d give it a go. SECockpit is like the Google Keyword Tool taken to the nth degree! It not only looks up your keyword but also analyses the competition and gives it a niche ranking. I think this is similar to what Market Samurai does but SECockpit is s web app and is apparently much faster and quicker to use.

Why I cancelled the SECockpit Trial

Although I loved SECockpit I decided not to sign up to the full service once my trial had finished. The sole reason for this was that I had found about 35 keywords that I think I can build sites for. This will keep me going for a while and then once I have used I will probably sign up for the full service and find more niches. SECockpit is not only good for finding Adsense niches but also the regular product niche sites I make too so I think it definitely be a valuable tool to have.

TO find out more about this keyword research tool visit the SECockpit website now.

SECockpit Keyword Tool is a post from: How I Got Rich

A while ago I tried to do some ‘tests’ to see how accurate the Google Keyword tool is and also how much traffic you get for being number one or two in Google.
Read about it here: http://howigotrich.net/tag/google-keyword-tool/

I tried it again recently with a site I have that has been number three in Google for its main keyword for many months but only gets about 3-6 unique hits a day.

After running a Google AdWords PPC campaign for that keyword I found out that the keyword got 273 impressions in one day (I’ve only run the campaign for one day so will see how it goes).

That means that for being number three in Google my site gets around 2% of the searches for that keyword clicking through to my site. This is not a lot!

According to the Google KeyWord Tool this keyword gets 1,900 exact match searches per month which works out at 64 per day. This is over four times less than what the AdWords research tells us.

So what have we learnt? The Google Keyword Tool is still inaccurate but we already knew that but this reinforces the idea and I would urge anyone doing keyword research to use AdWords rather than the Google Keyword Tool before choosing a niche.

Also it tells me that this niche is worth targeting and putting some more effort into as it is getting around 8000 exact searches a month instead of the 1900 reported by the GKWT. But there is also the problem of the 2% click through rate the site is getting being at number three in Google. Will this improve if I get the site to number two or number one? Only time (and some dodgy forum profile backlinks) will tell…

More Google Keyword Tool Data is a post from: How I Got Rich

Just a quick update about this topic. According to AdWords, yesterday my campaign got 197 impressions. Bear in mind this wasn’t campaign wasn’t running a whole day but during that period my site got five hits.

So five as a percentage of 197 is 2.5%. Now I know my site is only at number two but that is a pretty poor showing. Needless to say no one has clicked on my ad.

I will wait and see what the stats are like for the next few days and report back.

Google AdWords vs Google Keyword Tool part II is a post from: How I Got Rich

My regular readers will know I often like to grumble about the lack of accuracy of the Google Keywoord Tool.

Getting a site to number one in Google usually gives me about 2-4% of the number given by the Google Keyword Tool for exact search in hits per month i.e. Google Keyword Tool says 14,000 exact matches for my sites main keyword but my site will only get about 500 hits per month making it completely unprofitable.  Either no one is clicking through or the Google Keyword Tool is well out.

So to find out I have just setup an AdWords campaign for one of my sites main keyword.  The Keyword Tool said there were 12,100 exact searches for this keyword last month but my site at number two in Google only got 140 hits in that month (1%).

Lets see how many impressions my ad gets (and lets hope it doesn’t cost me too much!).

Google AdWords vs Google Keyword Tool is a post from: How I Got Rich

Nearly all my niches look good on paper with well priced products (£20-£100) and 20,000~ exact searches a month.  However once I get the sites to number one in Google I quickly realise that either the Google Keyword Tool was misleading with its estimate for exact match searches or no one wants to click on my sites or that the click through rate for being number one in Google is less than 5%.

Take one of my earlier sites for instance.  Last month it is reported by the Google Keyword Tool to have gotten 18,100 exact match searches but during that month it only got 529 unique visitors which is less than 3%.

I know the Google Keyword Tool is not renowned for its accuracy but surely this is way too out for it to be of any use?

I have checked my other sites and nearly all of them get around 5% of the figure quoted by the GKWT making them a waste of time as the traffic is so low!

How do you check that a niche is actually searched for?

Google Keyword Tool Strikes Again is a post from: How I Got Rich