You will see me talking about Google keyword tool quite a lot, so here is a guide on some of the finer features:
Exact searches:
You want to find the exact searches for each keyword as a broad match will contain anything which is remotely involved in your chosen niche, for example if your chosen keyword is “I like to eat apple pie” and you have a broad match search it will display any searches for any combination of the words, such as “apple pie” “eat apple” “I like apples” etc.
When you select exact, your search volume will drop dramatically but it is much easier to target a specific exact match that=n something that has a huge broad match volume.
Local searches:
Sometimes your results can be deceptive, as you can see in my niche market post you can have a lot of global monthly searches and it could have an amazing CPC but if the local searches are less than 10 (as in my case) then you will never achieve any results. Use Google insights (as I explained in the article) and switch your location to that country. It will give you a more realistic CPC that you may achieve as well as give you a more specific reading of the volume of searches your keyword can achieve.
Filters:
Because there are millions of potential keywords, when you start your search you will get a ridiculous amount of useless suggestions, luckily Google keyword tool has a filter option. You can filter out any unwanted results based on various factors. I suggest putting in these values if you’re a beginner:
Local searches: >8000
CPC: £1 or $2
Competition: Low
