Since Google has improved their external keyword tool it has now become my favorite way to do keyword research.

Now when I start my keyword research I’ve generally already selected a product to promote. I do it this way others like to look for the niche first then find a product but I think it’s easier to know I have something I can sell before doing all the keyword research. Of course some will say that you need to know if you can sell it first. Anyway this is how I do it.

First go to Google’s Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

For the sake of an example let’s say we found an ebook on Dog Training.

So we type into the keyword research tool “Dog Training”. You want to use the broadest keyword phrase for this search because we want to discover as many keywords as we can.

When Google has come back with the results I like to click on the Advertiser link at the top twice so that it sorts by the least competition first. Now look down the list and find keywords that have 500 – 5000 searches and the competition bar is small. Now this is just the rule I use you may be able to go with more searches and more competition but I use these as my rule.

Also you want to look for keywords that you can write content about.

If your keyword phrase doesn’t bring back many results I use another trick that helps to gather a larger list. Go to Google Search and type your keyword phrase into the search box. Do not use quotes. Look for the first site that is about your phrase. Copy the link to that site and come back to the external keyword tool. This time choose get the keywords from a website and put that link in the box. Now repeat the keyword research as above this should have brought you other keyword ideas.

Now we need to look at the competition level of these keywords. Since this post is getting a little long I’m going to save the competition and make a post on that tommorrow.