Once you have access to a good keyword research tool that reports the three most important metrics (search volume, keyword difficulty (KD) score, and CPC value) you can then use that tool to guide your keyword research strategy in a way that achieves the best—and fastest— results for your website.
I call this process the “Keyword Accelerator Formula” because it’s a fail-safe method for uncovering easy-to-rank keywords that can give you a speed boost in obtaining more profitable website traffic. What’s great about this strategy is that it strips out all of the extra noise that many keyword research tools have that can distract you from your ultimate goal: to choose keywords as fast as possible to accelerate website traffic and profit for your business.
Gary Halbert, a pioneer in direct response marketing, once said, “Money is attracted to speed.” And this concept applies specifically to the keyword research process. The faster you can find good—and profitable—keywords to target, the more traffic—and money—you can earn as a website publisher.
Below I’ll go over the basic steps for the Keyword Accelerator Formula. Then in the next section of this playbook, you’ll get the complete how-to guide with in-depth step-by-step instructions for how to put this strategy into practice from start to finish.
Low KD: Find Keywords with a Low Difficulty Score
The first element of the Keyword Accelerator Formula can help you unlock a ton of easy-to-rank keywords that can drive more traffic to your website without worrying so much about the competition.
By starting here, you’ll only be analyzing keywords that can put your website in a blue ocean. Essentially, you want to start the keyword research process by finding relevant keywords for your website that have the lowest keyword difficulty (KD) score. That’s because this metric indicates that those search terms have the lowest competition in the SERPs.
As mentioned previously in this playbook, you can often rank high in the search engines for low KD score keywords just by doing good on-page SEO and writing content that meets user search intent. Content that’s optimized for keywords with a low KD score typically does not need a large number of backlinks to rank in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. And some articles will not need any backlinks at all to rank in the top positions in the SERPs.
High SV: Narrow Your List by the Highest Search Volumes
The next part of the Keyword Accelerator Formula is to sort through the list of keywords with the lowest KD scores to find the terms with the highest search volumes because these keywords offer better opportunities to get higher levels of traffic to your website with the least amount of effort.
For example, a keyword with KD score of 20 and search volume of 10 is not as attractive as a keyword with a KD score of 20 and search volume of 1,500. The keyword with 1,500 monthly searches has the potential to send you a lot more website traffic for the same amount of effort it would take to write and optimize an article for the keyword with only 10 searches per month. Therefore, you should always pick the keyword with the higher ROI.
By first narrowing your list of low KD keywords to only including the highest search volumes, you can discover a treasure trove of potential keywords that are easy to rank in Google, Yahoo, and Bing that can drive more traffic to your website without it needing to have the highest SEO metrics to compete in the SERPs.
Keywords that contain low KD scores + high search volumes can put your website in a deep blue ocean with very few, if any, competing SEO sharks swimming in the water.
High CPC: Compare the Cost-Per-Click Value for Each Keyword
The final element of the Keyword Accelerator Formula can take your website to a whole other level if you’re monetizing with display ads or affiliate products. By comparing the cost-per-click (CPC) value for each keyword in your list, you can make better choices as to which terms are best to target for financial gain.
As mentioned earlier in this playbook, CPC is an advertising revenue model where advertisers pay publishers each time a user clicks on a text-based ad or display ad. The CPC value refers to the actual price advertisers pay for each click in pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns. And there’s often a strong correlation between the CPC values of a keyword and the amount of money an article based on that keyword can earn through display ad revenue and affiliate product sales.
The example below will help you understand how this all works in the Keyword Accelerator Formula. To get started, I want you to compare the most important keyword metrics for these two fictitious keyword phrases:
Keyword #1: Cheap Car Insurance for Young Drivers
Search Volume: 14,000
KD Score: 15
CPC Value: $7.49
Keyword #2: Best Car Insurance for Young Drivers
Search Volume: 6,000
KD Score: 15
CPC Value: $25.89
At first glance, you may think that targeting keyword #1 would be the better option because it has a higher monthly search volume—more than double the number of searches than keyword #2—and an equally low KD score of 15. And that keyword strategy would definitely make sense if you were only focused on getting the maximum amount of traffic to your website without any concern for the monetary value of those visitors.
But if you’re monetizing your website with display ads or affiliate products, then picking keyword #1 would actually not be the best choice. In fact, choosing keyword #1 may cause you to miss out on a lot more display ad revenue and affiliate commissions while also requiring you to capture much more traffic than keyword #2 can provide.
Here’s what I mean:
The CPC value for keyword #2 is about 245% more than keyword #1. What this reveals is that advertisers are willing to pay a lot more money to have people click on their ads that are displayed in Google’s search results and the Discover Network when users are searching for the phrase “Best Car Insurance for Young Drivers” than for people who are looking for “Cheap Car Insurance for Young Drivers”.
In other words, the earning potential from people who are searching online for keyword #2 is 245% higher than keyword #1. Even though more users are looking for “Cheap Car Insurance for Young Drivers” on Google, those people are not worth as much money to advertisers that are bidding on keywords related to car insurance.
When you think about that from a financial perspective, it makes perfect sense why a car insurance company would pay a higher CPC for keyword #2. Users who are searching for the “Best Car Insurance for Young Drivers” on Google are typically not as hard-pressed on getting the lowest price possible as are the people who want to find “Cheap Car Insurance for Young Drivers”.
Therefore, an advertiser is willing to spend more money on each cost-per-click to acquire a customer that’s searching for the “best” car insurance because the advertiser knows it can get a higher ROI from their ad spend.
Now, here’s how all of this relates to the Keyword Accelerator Formula and why it’s important to consider the CPC values of the keywords you select for your website content. By choosing keywords with higher CPC values, you can often make more money with less overall traffic by publishing content that targets those pricier keywords.
If we go back to our example above, you’ll understand more clearly how this works. Although keyword #1 has 14,000 monthly searches and can drive more traffic to your website, it does so at a much lower CPC value than keyword #2 ($7.49 compared to $25.89). And through my testing and experience with monetizing websites through display ads and affiliate products, I’ve discovered that the CPC value has a strong correlation to the average cost-per-mile (CPM) for every 1,000 impressions each web page receives and the conversion rate for visitors purchasing products through affiliate links.
I can’t stress this part about the Keyword Accelerator Formula enough. In my opinion, the correlation between CPC values and potential earnings is an extremely important concept to understand because it can totally transform how you approach the keyword research process to make the most money from your website.
Recap: Keyword Accelerator Formula
Low KD + High SV + High CPC = Optimal Keyword to Target
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