Keyword research is not rocket science. You don’t need to hold a PhD in Marketing to do it properly and you don’t need to outsource it to a company that would bill you a fortune if you have the time to do it. However, a lot of webmasters tend to mess things up from the very beginning and waste valuable time with little results. Assuming you use the Google AdWords keyword tool, here are the most common mistakes new users make with their research.

Not taking the “Exact” match into account

The default match type in Google AdWords Keyword Tool is “broad”. The result for will be the sum of the exact searches for your keyword, exact matches of your phrase with words inverted and all other searches that contain your phrase, along with other words. As you can see, this can be quite misleading.

Example: Let’s assume you are building a weight loss blog to promote a set of affiliate programs. A broad search for weight loss diet plan would yield 49,500 global searches per month, which may sound quite appealing. However, the exact match shows only 4,400. While the latter figure may still be worth trying to rank for the figure, notice that it’s more than ten times lower than the “Broad” value.

Not factoring in the competition

Granted, the global search volume is a figure to base your decisions on, but it’s definitely not the only factor you have to take into account. A good balance between the number of searches and the total results will keep you on the safe side. Otherwise, you could be spending fortunes on link building to get only to the second or third page.

Example: Let’s assume you are using Adsense to monetize a dog food blog. The AdWords tool shows 27,100 exact matches for “dog food”, and there are 4,800,000 URL’s competing for the same keyword. Assuming you reach the top position, are capturing 60% of the monthly traffic, Adsense offers an average CPC of $0.80 and you get a 2% click-through rate, your monthly earnings will be of around $260. Within this budget, however, you have to rank first and stay there for the months to follow.

Targeting keywords that are not profitable

You might run across keywords that have a decent search volume (a couple of thousands) and low competition. Don’t think you’ve found a goldmine, have a look at what the niche pays—it could be that you can’t even cover hosting and a dot com.

Example: The AdWords tool reports 8,100 exact matches for “earn money online without investment” and a competition of around 50,000. It shouldn’t be hard to reach the first position within one or two weeks and get a couple of thousands of hits every month. However, the estimated average CPC lies at only $0.05, which hardly makes it worth your while.

Keep these three tips in mind when doing your keyword research. Read valuable tips on this blog and others, do your homework and learn as much as you can before jumpstarting any new project.