Using The Google Adwords Keyword Tool For Link Analysis

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

People who are starting a blog, looking to increase the traffic or subscribers to their blogs or looking for affiliate marketing opportunities hear a lot about SEO, keywords and backlinks. We are told that Google likes pages that are unique, relevant and optimized for keyword phrases that people are searching for.

Sounds pretty simple, huh?

I just read a post by Jonathan Leger entitled “Google Link Analysis 101” where he shows a quick method to see how many searches are being done for a keyword phrase using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and then do a quick competition analysis with the Yahoo Site Explorer.

Using The Google Adwords Tool Give You Search Volume

Go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and type in any term you would like to rank for. Hit enter and you’ll see a list of all of the phrases that use those words and in the section below it, phrases built using synonyms and related terms.

Before you do anything else, click on the “Match Type” drop-down box and change it to “Exact.” That way you’ll get a true idea of how many searches are being made monthly for the exact term you’re researching.

Select your term from these results and open another tab or window with Google search open. Copy and paste the term into the Google search bar and hit enter. Now you’ll see Google’s listing of the top ten sites ranked in order of popularity for the term you are interested in.

Using Yahoo Site Explorer To Analyze Link Volume

Copy the URL from the last line of the first Google search result. Open another tab or window and bring up the Yahoo Site Explorer. Paste the link you’ve copied into the “Explore URL” box and hit enter. What you’ll see next will tell you how many pages and links the URL has associated with it. Click on the “inlinks” tab so you can dig a little deeper.

After selecting the “inlinks” tab, you can use the “Show Inlinks” drop-down menu to show links from outside the URL or “Except from this domain.” This figure gives you a better idea of the authority Google may attach to it because they count for more than internal links(links from one page on your site to another page on your site).

If the URL is not to the root of the domain, make sure to run the Site Explorer again for just the domain URL. Google looks at both links to the page and to the domain. A site with few links to the page but thousands to the domain may be very hard to compete against.

Repeat this process for every URL from your Google search on page one to see if any of them could be beaten by your site or page. If none of the site represent an opportunity, it’s best to start again with another keyword phrase until you find one you can compete against for page one ranking.

This method is not mine and comes from Jonathan Leger’s blog post entitled “Google Link Analysis 101.” The post has a 9 minute video illustrating how quickly and easily it can be done.
Best,

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