To this very day, I get a lot of questions of things like “How do I know if a keyword is profitable”? or “How do I know if this is a good keyword”? Now, I am going to reveal something to you that is very basic, as I am sure that all major players or so called experts are doing. I am neither and I do this very thing, so hopefully this will give you some advanced knowledge into what profitable keyword research is all about. First I am going to explain exactly what I do, then I will give you some general advice.

First things first. I have money and I put away money for product and keyword research. I do not have time to go thru the free methods of keyword research. I use PPC as my #1 source for keyword profitability. Why on earth would someone ever write articles for Search Engine Marketing on keywords they were unsure would produce unprofitable results. The very thought is actually quite disturbing, and I have lost sleep pondering the thought from time to time.

I ALWAYS research and test my keywords for profitability before I ever create a site. I like to overkill a niche when I decide to make a site over it. I am comfortable with 10 keyword phrases on my site, and 10 more that I can use to outsource articles being written that I can submit to article directories for SEO and Directory traffic. I NEVER create a site or promote one WITHOUT profitable keywords.

So in general, here’s what I do:

First I gather a large list of keywords. I use paid tools for this, but you can use a free keyword tool found over at Digital Point. I create my ad-groups in Google Adwords based on my highly tight-knit keyword phrases. I let the ads run for about a week. Not much to it is there? Wait though, because there is more. You have to track your conversions. This is an absolute must in the Pay Per Click Industry. Without proper tracking, your a sitting duck to getting your butt waxed without making a very good (if any) profit. I use a tool called XTreme Conversions. It’s a little pricey to some, but I made my money back in just a couple of hours. There are other ways to track, but this nifty little gizmo allows me to see what keywords are bringing me sales.

Once I have obtained 20 keyword phrases that have generated me a substantial amount of sales, then I begin to look at the profits. I can now see that I have 20 phrases that have all made me sales. Without jerking your chain, you now have 10 phrases for your site and 10 more phrases you can drive traffic to your site with. This helps a ton, because I have noticed that actual sales come from the articles used to drive traffic to my sites. This is a DUH right? That’s the whole point. Why waste time on keywords that don’t turn profits?

If your like me, and you don’t have time to jerk around much, then it only makes sense to have everything you do working at its full potential turning profits. At least, that’s the way I see it. More to come on Part 2 of Keyword Research Profitability as next time I will go into some easy, free ways that you can determine profitable keywords. This takes a bit longer, but if your on a limited budget, then it will be a lot easier than spending money, especially if your not familiar with Paid Advertising.

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