Scalple..Suction..Oxygen. Dissecting a Keyword.

Last Update: May 28, 2012
Upon recently researching some of my keyword research so as to move forward with my internet marketing efforts, goals and dreams, I quickly found myself stymied, perplexed and even a little befuddled by a certain result.
Now, I have seen this type of result many times in the past and it matters not which KW tool you use, for I have used many, (right now though I am using Jaaxy and it's pretty awesome) and have found that from time to time any and all of them return same said type of result.

Upon first glance I thought to myself..."Self, now what?"

So henceforth and hitherto, I began to ponder, perpend, put on my thinking cap, not in a quest to know Why this has happened, for the intricacies of the algorithms known only to the powers that be are far too complex for this mere mortal to begin to understand, concieve, deduce, discern, distinguish, nor explain.
Nay, mine is not to reason why, but to answer that age old question that has plagued man since the dawn of time.
What's that Mean?

So here's the result I found and some thoughts I had when I saw it. Mind you I still consider myself to be somewhat of a newb not to be misconstrued as boob, although there may be those who would disagree

Keyword Monthly Searches Est. Traffic QSR KQI
obedience training for dogs 4705 800 425 green
obedience training dogs 4705 800 108000 red

For the first KW there is a .info available and for the second a .info and .net
Now I am not looking for a domain, I already have a site. Rather I was perusing my KW list for topics for blog posts, categories, pages or even articles ideas for SA and other directories.

Now at face value, I know which one to stay away from at this point for any endeavors by looking at QSR and KQI, but, in this search return is one KW result incorporated in the other and is this somehow a redundant result thereby making both to competitive to go after, bearing in mind I am not looking to build a site around these only content, but of course I would still like to rank and drive traffic.

More so, should a result such as this even cause one to hesitate, does either KW really have any value, should I just skip this one because it makes my brain hurt and therefore I should just find something easier and peasier to work with?

In the beginning, when I would see something like this, my eyes would glaze over and I would move on, truth be told, usually I would move at all, and it would stop me in my tracks and thereby hinder my progress.

Now I know for many of you, this might possibly seem very minor or even trivial, and at this stage I now know what I would and will do with this result as it pertains to my situation.
However, this is the type of thing that in the beginning would trip me up to the point of frustration, and frustration leads to self depravation, and self depravation leads to depression, and depression leads to loneliness, and who wants to be lonely. (okay that was a little extreme but I was reminded of a T.V. commercial)
But sometimes it's the seemingly simple things that trip us up. What was it I heard recently, and may have even been right here, "It's not the mountain in front of you that is challenging, it's the pebble in your shoe."

So I thought I would ask ya'll to give us your take on this.
The result, that is. Not my meandering attempt at yarn spinning. Sometimes I just get in a mood, but I don't hear voices, hush up now I'm trying to type, as I was saying I don't hear voi..... okay, okay I'm coming.

Oh those weren't voices, that's my wife, I gotta go wash the dishes.
See Ya!
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kyle Premium
How is your progress going here? Hope all is going well buddy!
jpnetco Premium
Just finished reading some of your blog posts @ SA, especially about how important the social sharing aspects are, and how relevant followers and following is, not only to immediate success but to long term success as well.

I remember reading your post about how many views you've had with your Steve Jobs article and I remember thinking in my neonewbieistic mindset with out investigating my suspicions that it must have something to do with a huge following that you have, and also remember thinking what good is it if only those following you are viewing your work.

However, today reading further into the SA blog and your posts I realized that it is much more than that. So, I dug a little deeper and I see that you only have 208 in your tribe, (not small by any means) but that your overall article views on SA are over 128,000 and another author Rodders Gillam has over 300,000 overall articles views with a tribe of only 22.
My tribe is 23, yet I have only written one article, I have 132 followers here at WA, but don't feel I have contributed much here either. I have done a fair bit of commenting on both locations however.

Still, I can't help but feel that I am not doing my fair share, if someone is willing to give their time to following me, then I should be more appreciative by giving them a reason to do so by contributing more. So, on one hand I am learning a great deal and making some progress, yet on the other, I fear I have allowed myself to become too laxed in the pursuit of my goals and dreams. However, I am going to follow my own advice that I end many a comment to others with, and that is, I will Stay the Course.

BTW, Thank you for asking seemingly out of the blue, with no provocation from me. That does validate yours' and Carsons' true motivations for WA and SA and I, as so many others appreciate it very much.

A little law of attraction moment for me as I literally finished reading your post in SA and decided to check back in at WA and landed on your unsolicited comment.

Thanks Again.
kyle Premium
The members of WA and SA have and will always be in our best interest. Your success is our success and the better we can help facilitate this, the more powerful the community here at WA and SA will become. :)

There are a lot of authors that are truly benefiting from their articles within SA to the tune of 100,000's of clicks. It comes down to writing within your niche and continually seeking out and writing about the topics that have lower competition and those that will get shared.

If you continue making your readers your focus within all of your content activities, you will continue to reap the rewards from your work. Don't be so hard on yourself either, just continue working towards your goals. Make a weekly checklist of tasks and work to achieve it.
Amy Farr Premium
It is refreshing to see someone with a command of the english language! Bravo! Truly it is a lost art to read well written correctly spelled verses...
Can you tell it is a pet peeve of mine? LOL!
I am a big offender of my own pet peeve unfortunately..
jpnetco Premium
Thanks, Amy, keeping an online thesaurus open helps a lot. I really wouldn't say I have a command, but I do like to play with words from time to time, part of discovering my voice, I reckon. ( You know why southerners are always fixin to do things? Cause they're always reckoning stuff)
kyle Premium
I would also suggest that you should move on. Anything over 400 is going to be far too difficult to get ranked under as often times these are far more competitive than they initially appear. I typically aim for a QSR of under 300, but under 400 is still doable.

And don't restrict yourself to just keyword rich domains, you don't need a keyword rich domain to get a lot of traffic as it is your content that is going to get ranked and there are a "TON" of keywords that you could get ranked under with a brandable domain (that doesn't focus as much on a keyword).
TJ Books Premium
What is the advantage of getting ranked with an article and getting ranked with webpage content? I guess the article does get passed around, having written almost 1000 articles, I know that. I'm focusing far more on site content; That may help make article writing more effective by having more good content as the prize. I get ranked fast with content alone. JAAXY has made this possible.
jpnetco Premium
Thanks Kyle and TJ I appreciate your thoughts and input. It really helps give some direction.
Sielke Premium
I'd move on, in regards to purchasing a domain but keep the keyword in mind and you can write an article to target.
jpnetco Premium
At first glance that is my thought as well. But I wonder does the word "for" really make that much difference? Are there really the exact same amount of searches for both KW's and that vast a difference in the QSR simply because of the word "for"? Or is one KW phrase being counted as part of the other, thereby in reality making both too competitive even for a post or an article? Thanks for the comment though.
Sielke Premium
Interesting thoughts, however, if you're going to make any type of site about obedience for dogs then you'll probably want to write an article about obedience for dogs anyway. As for the difference in quoted results, take a look at Google and you'll see that apparently its more than possible.
jpnetco Premium
True about the article, If I were making a site about obedience for dogs, but I wasn't necessarily talking specifically about me and my site here. This could apply to any niche where two seemingly identical Kw's have such different QSR's, often though they will have a slightly varied search count as well. In this case, and in others I have seen before in other niches, everything is identical except for the QSR. I have read others in the past who teach kw research with the google adword kw tool that when two closely related kw's separated by only one word difference each show the same amount of search reasults, lets' just say 1000 for a round number, it doesn't necessarily mean that each phrase gets 1000 but that each phrase is counted by google as part of the same search and in this case either phrase will return 1000 but will each phrase be as equally competitive when it comes to ranking?

In the case of these two particular Kw's when googled in " " obedience training dogs does show 108,000 results, whereas obedience training for dogs shows 507,000. A far cry from 425. But, if you go to the last page it does show 400 actual competing pages for one and 641 for the other. But most people especially those that are still fairly new to IM aren't gonna know to go that deep in their research and if they are using a tool like Jaaxy or even WA tool
then they are most likely going to take the results at face value and I'm not sure that is always the true result, but when two results are so vastly different within the same tool in one respect (competition) but so identical in another (number of searches) how do you know which one is true or closer to true.
As I stated earlier, does the word "for" really make that much of a difference or is it more like the difference between a singular form and a plural form of the same KW?
Sielke Premium
Ah I see where you're going with this post. It's a good observation. Adding the word "for" does make a difference, to google thats a whole new phrase just like adding pronouns "a" or "the" you get my drift.
jpnetco Premium
I do, but was never really sure how to interpret the effect of the addition or the subtraction of such words in relation to the results returned. Thanks for the interaction my friend.
jpnetco Premium
Think I'll try an experiment and target both with separate articles and a blog post.
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