This is quite an old article but let me explain.

If you have an exact match domain yes you will definitely have more chance of ranking.

and , yes you can create a niche on whatever you want, it will take a little research if you’re a complete novice but it’ll be a learning process. Remember Google has no idea of your knowledge level.

My name is Eran and I am planning to build a web site in order to create passive income
I read all of your SEO Tutorials, they really helped me to focus on my task – Thanks a lot

Two issues are not 100% clear to me
My first question relates to this article.
You said:
“2) Check the PageRank of the top 5 sites if any are a PageRank 4 or above move on, unless they do not use the ‘exact keyword’ in the title tag
3) Check the link popularity using yahoo links count (download the SEObook plugin SEO for Firefox) Any pages with ‘page’ link popularity of over 1000 then move on, unless the keyword is not in the title tag “

The thing I don’t fully grasp is the following indication: “, unless they do not use the ‘exact keyword’ in the title tag”
So does it mean that if I use the exact keywords in my page title, I can be ranked in a higher position (then “stronger” web sites) in Google search despite the fact that my page rank and links popularity are less?

My second questions refers to the actual content.
Assuming I found a great topic (lots of searches, high PPC, low competition, etc.), but I’m really not an expert on it.
Of course I can read hard copy literature and search the web until I become an “expert” on the subject and provide content, but I can never provide content that is already there
For example, can I create a web site on a niche in Alternative Medicine even though I never had any experience or practice with it?

Thanks

Good to hear about yout SEO success!

In terms of building links to your travel site I would look to syndicate some content, write some articles and approach travel bloggers.

One thing is for sure there is no shortage of sites out there to get links from in the travel sector.

I am starting a travel agent website soon and this is the post, which I am referring again. I have zeroed down on keywords and a big thanks again for pointing to Firefox SEO plugin. It has been a life saver and a big boost to go ahead with my plans.
One thing, I am not sure how to get back links for the site as it was easier for the news blog by commenting on other blogs as I am regularly publishing content. How do I go for backlinks for the travel site. Can you point me to the right direction.

Thanks!

This post is a little dated now, in the case of global search and why I used it, when you rank a website for a broad term you usually pick up a lot of the long tail or associated traffic from having authority on that keyword. So picking the right keyword cannot simply be based on the count in Google and you have to appreciate the broader view.

Another reason I used this figure is due to the fact most of my readers at the time were US based and therefore it was more relevant.

Anyway I appreciate your comments and I’ll try and keep the tips coming through

Must admit that I’ve just started to read your blog recently, in my favourites now and very enjoyable so far, so thanks for all of the tips and advice, this is a Great Post and I’ve started to employ the techniques mentioned…

Obviously this post was written before the new keyword tool was launched and the old one dumped by Google.

But as I use a UK TLD I’m interested as to why you have specified your metric to be calculated from Global monthly searched rather than local?

Cheers and keep up the good work!

Paul

Thanks for your comment I appreciate it.

If you can provide me with a quality SEO/SEM or internet marketing post I would be happy to check it out. I have a number of requests every week from people wanting to guest blog but the posts they send are not even worthy of ezine articles, however I know you know your stuff so email when you have it ready and I give you an email to pass it over with.

I think if more people would read a post like this then less people will complain about not knowing how to find niche keywords.

Btw, would you accept guest post from me? I will write an extremely good SEO post for you.

Regards,
Kai Lo

To be honest with you I would forget about the number of results for the purposes of putting a niche site together. The results mean there are that many sites that kind of relate to that keyword. Remember Google works with words and the meaning of words does not come into play in the algorithm as yet.

Focus on them top five results, if all are PR3 or below with 500 or less page links, then you have yourslef a keyword that you can rank highly with between 2 and 4 months. If you have any doubts head over to the seo chat Keyword Difficulty Tool, generally niche keywords come out below 50% or just a bove.

Thanks for the comment and all the best for the new year.

First, I have about 1,200,000 sites on Google for the keyword, but all but one of them on the first page are not targeted to that keyword in the visible tags. The main reason for this, is that the words are slightly out of order for what makes sense. If I created a page running with this slight misorder of words, is overcoming 1,200,000 small enough to realistically overcome to get in the top 10? (the top ranking for the search is a PR of 3 and external links is 65)

I’m just having a lot of trouble understanding what is a surmountable amount of results on google (given some reasonable PR and external links)