How I Find Keyword Opportunities for My Websites: SEMrush

Finding keyword opportunities is the key to raking in passive income for your websites that you currently own, or for websites that you want to develop.  There’s tons of tools out there to use for keyword research.  A fan favorite is the Google Adwords Keyword tool because it is free.  You can find it here.  But it is limited in scope and while it can get the job done for a lot of beginners it does not get the job done for the pros.  The tool that has climbed the ranks and is now my favorite tool for keyword research is SEMRush.  Now this tool is not for everyone because it may be too pricey for you, but it is a powerful and amazing tool.  You can try it out for free here but this is a limited version.  I am not the be all end all SEMrush know it all, but I do know that for me this tool is great for two purposes…  One is that it can help you dive into your site and see how your site is doing in the SERPS for different keywords (you don’t need to list out the keywords, it has them already for you).  Now this in itself is similar to Google Analytics (which is free) but the benefit is that you get a lot more analytical data, such as:

– Your keyword position in the SERPs

– The average CPC for this keyword

– The volume of searches for this keyword

– How many results are in the SERPs for that keyword

That data is a goldmine for a website owner.  It is stuff that I could find if I pieced together a few different sources, but that takes time and time is my most valuable resource.  I get their Pro package which is $69/month and for about $2.50 a day I get a boatload of data that helps me analyze what keywords my site is ranking for, which of those keywords I should focus my SEO efforts on because of the volume of searches and the CPC, and it helps me identify keywords that have weak competition.  As an example of this, if I’m ranking respectably for a keyword on Anticareer and I’ve done nothing in terms of SEO or keyword volume than I know that this keyword competition is weak because with no effort I’m ranking pretty decent for it.  This allows me to find keyword opportunities and when you find opportunities you can generate cash.

The second way I use this is to analyze other people’s sites in niches that I’m either in or that I want to go in.  I can see what they are ranking for, how big the volume of searches is, and then I can drill in and see how big the competition is for that keyword.  Keyword research is extremely important and if you focus on the wrong keywords you are fighting a losing battle.  I know the cost of $69/month will turn a lot of people off, but sometimes there are tools that are worth their weight in gold and this is one of the ones that I recommend.

Besides just keyword research there is a Backlinks research option that is also useful.  The backlinks research is not as insightful as using http://www.ahrefs.com or something similar, but for me, getting the keyword research is the most valuable and the backlink research is a little gravy on top.  If you can afford getting both I’d also recommend signing up for ahrefs.com if you’re heavy into SEO and tracking your backlinks as their tool is great too.

If you can’t afford this tool at this time that is understandable, but I’d still recommend you check out their free limited version as you can glean a little bit of useful information about your site or your competitor’s sites.  I’ve reached out to SEMRush to see if they’d be interested in giving away a few free 1 month subscriptions to readers of Anticareer.com.  If they come back with a positive response than there will be a follow up post with a contest to give away the accounts.