Google Keyword Tool Scenario Question

1. 68

   BennyTheWriterposted 14 years ago

   Here's the scenario:
   
   I look up the word "KALEIDOSCOPE" with the Google Keyword Tool and I find that it has 1,500,000 monthly searches.  I also look up "KALEIDOSCOPIC," the word I originally wanted to use in my hub title, and find it only has 22,200 monthly searches.  KALEIDOSCOPE has very strong competition and KALEIDOSCOPIC seems to have a little bit less.
   
   Dumb questions, perhaps, but:
   1) If I want better traffic, should I use the word KALEIDOSCOPE in my title and article body instead of KALEIDOSCOPIC in my title instead? 
   2) How does the competition figure into the equation?  If a high-traffic keyword has very high competition, should I even bother using it?  OR, what can I do to carve my own niche out of that competition?
   3) Is it better to use a single high-traffic word OR combine several high-traffic words into one title or article?  Which would bring me the most targeted traffic?
   4) How do YOU, personally, use the keyword tool to increase your hub traffic? 
   
   I'm fairly new to HubPages, blogging in general, SEO, etc. and working hard to discover new techniques to increase traffic to my hubs.  Thanks a lot for any and all help, I'd truly appreciate it!

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2. 0

   girly_girl09posted 14 years ago

   Unless you are a SEO guru, then I would never suggest trying to rank for just one word. It'll never happen, unless it's a word you make up.
   
   Go for phrases of preferably four or more words, such as hot pink flashy kaleidoscopes (of course, you'd need to do research to find an actual phrase that gets traffic). Good luck!

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3. 68

   Mishaposted 14 years ago

   Yep, what GG said. Both are too hard to rank for.

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4. 68

   BennyTheWriterposted 14 years ago

   OK, thanks a lot girly_girl09 and Misha!  So I won't try to rank for either...
   
   But I'm having a hard time coming up with a high-traffic phrase.  When you already have a hub topic in mind, what do you do when you find the title you had in mind is very low-traffic?

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5. 82

   timorousposted 14 years ago

   With Keyword Tool, you'll have noticed it gives you many permutations of 'Kaleidoscope'.  Rather than use the most popular term, go a little further down the list and choose a (still relevant) term with fewer searches.
   
   Open a new window and go to Google (search).  Copy one of the 'kaleidoscope' phrases into Google search, and see how many page results you get ( near the upper right corner: i.e. 1-10 of 57,863 results).
   
   Search 'volume' is something quite apart from search 'results'.  The volume is the number of people actually searching using those terms.  The results are the number of pages that Google found containing that phrase in some form.  Google's algorithm has ways of discerning what the searcher's intentions might be.
   
   Some phrases with high search volumes may have fewer page results than you might expect.  When you find something like that, optimize your title and body text for that phrase, but include some of the other likely phrases as well, including the most popular.
   
   I'm guessing that only about 10% of the search results are all that relevant.
   
   Hope that helps a bit.  It's still a bit of a mystery and crap-shoot to me as well.

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   1. 68

      BennyTheWriterposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks a lot timorous, I will try this out!  It's nice to know I'm not alone in my confusion.  I'm still not very sure of what I'm doing, but your suggestions here are helpful.

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