Let’s say you did target “weight loss” and you DID get a first page listing. While that is not something that will likely happen, there are a few drawbacks to getting there. While there are thousands upon thousands of searches for that key phrase, you really don’t know what they’re searching for. They could be looking for:

• Weight loss tips
• Weight loss menus
• Weight loss ebooks
• Free weight loss information
• Weight loss programs ( think Nutri-System)
• Weight loss workout routines
• Vegetarian weight loss
• Weight loss supplements
• Fast weight loss

If someone were to land on your site for the term “weight loss”, do you offer what they are REALLY looking for? And how would you know. The problem is that the term “weight loss” is a very broad keyword, and it covers a lot of potential possibilities.

If someone is looking for weight loss supplements and you’re offering a weight loss ebook…
If someone is looking for fast weight loss, and you’re offering an exercise program…
If someone is looking for free tips, and you’re selling something…

You’re out of luck…

You have successfully generated the dreaded “untargeted traffic”. People who get to your site who have absolutely no interest in what you’re offering.

Mega-market keywords look really good because of the number of searches that they get every day. But unless you have a site that covers just about everything that someone would want, you’re not going to make a lot of sales.

Another thing to consider is that where you rank is going to affect your traffic. If you’re not on the first page of the search engine results, you’re going to have a hard time getting any traffic. Let’s say you get your site in the top 100 sites for your keyword. Most people look at the first page of results, and if they don’t find what they want, they enter another search term. A few of them may go to the second page of search results. Very few of them are going to go through 10 pages of results to find your page.

That’s why it’s in your best interest to drill down in these mega-markets and target the related keywords. It’s a lot easier to attract the kind of visitor to your site that is looking for what you’re offering. And that results in you making sales. I don’t want you to waste your time targeting keywords that you’ll have a hard time profiting from. The sole purpose of writing this is so you can avoid the mistakes that I have already made. Hope this helps.

Let’s go through an example that will show you why it’s not always a good idea to target a keyword based ONLY on how many searches it gets. This is especially true in the mega-markets such as golf, dogs, and digital cameras. For this example, I’m going to use the weight loss market. Weight loss is a huge market, because there are always going to be people who are interested in losing weight.

I enter the keyword phrase “weight loss” in Market Samurai and find out that there are 818,630 searches per day!

That’s a lot of searches, and if you could get a first page listing on the search engine results page, you’d get a lot of traffic.

Let’s look at how much competition there is for “weight loss” – 65,200,000 sites. Over 65 million sites!

The main lesson here is to ALWAYS look at the competition you’re up against before you decide to use a keyword. Even though “weight loss” is very competitive, you can still enter the weight loss market. When I entered “weight loss” in Market Samurai, I got a list of 200 keywords and the competition for each one.

Looking through the list of keywords, I decided to look for the keywords that had less then 100,000 competing sites that still had a lot of searches each day. Here’s what I found:

• weight loss menus – 325 searches per day – competition of 14,400 sites
• weight loss meal plan – 595 searches per day – competition of 23,400 sites
• weight loss software – 266 searches per day – competition of 26,900 sites
• safe diet pills – 398 searches per day – competition of 45,800 sites
• fastest weight loss – 730 searches per day – competition of 62,300 sites
• rapid weight loss diet – 595 searches per day – competition of 80,600 sites
• weight loss patches – 398 searches per day – competition of 98,600 sites

These are just a few of the keyword phrases that came up, and they show that while there aren’t as many daily searches for these phrases, there is a LOT less competition. And a much better chance for you to use one or more of these key phrases to get traffic to your site.

Weight loss IS a competitive market, but it is also a market where people are spending a lot of money. You can still enter the market using related keywords that don’t have as much competition and will give you a much better chance of getting your web pages ranked well and driving traffic to your site.

Spend your time working with the keywords that you have a chance at ranking well for instead of trying to rank for the keywords that have the most searches. That way, you can still enter any market you’re interested in and start getting the free traffic you’re after.

The tool you use to do your keyword research is important as well. As you’ve already noticed, I use Market Samurai for my keyword research as well as all of the other features such as rank tracker, finding content, publishing content and much more. What you need to know is that the keyword module is ALWAYS free. Once the trial period is over, you can still use the keyword research part of Market Samurai forever. It’s a great tool to make keyword and competition research quick and easy. Get your copy by clicking here.