Sorry I am doing a lot of talking about software – and mostly they don’t even have affiliate programs – aren’t I a bad Internet marketer! At the end of the day though you need to the right tools to earn passive income online.
I don’t know about you but my biggest technical challenge with Internet marketing, aside from the whole “I’m a marketer” mind shift was figuring it out what a profitable keyword is. I’d say its still my major issue!
Its confusing – I start with a good idea – I create 1000’s of associated keywords with Keyword Elite and then try to figure out whether I can take on the competition in SEO Elite. Although these tools are incredibly powerful they also have a couple of disadvantages:
- They are slow – and quiet often my IP gets banned from Yahoo or Google for a while – so I have to stop and start again the next day;
- There is no obvious workflow – step-by-step procedure if you like. The software’s videos are useless and the best I’ve seen on how to actually use it are Vic’s videos on Bloggerunleashed
Market Samurai has been around since last August (?) and is still in Beta – not all the modules are available yet – but what is I am liking a lot! What do I like about Market Samurai?
A built in WorkFlow for Identifying Profitable Keywords
The way I am using Market Samurai at the moment is:
- Keyword analysis: you seed a phrase and it generate options
- Filter out the obviously unsuitable phrases and the ones that get not traffic and export the rest to a spreadsheet
- Analysis each remaining phrase to see what the competition is.
- Categorise my spreadsheet with the high priority (low competition, high profitability) and the medium (medium competition, higher profitability)
Pretty much I am using the approach described in the videos below by Market Samurai’s creators. I’ve linked the introduction video plus the three detailed follow ups. They are quite long and detailed but I found them clear. You may want to take notes to get your head around it. They also mention the free tools you can use to do a similar, but far more labour-intensive analysis, so its useful to see these even if you can’t afford the software.
The First Golden Rule: Target Keywords With Traffic
The Second Golden Rule: Target Profitable Keywords
The Third Golden Rule: Target Keywords With Low Competition
I am finding this a really useful approach – and in fact I’m going back through my existing sites and realising that I had made two key mistakes:
- Chosen keywords with no traffic
- Chosen keywords with no buying traffic.
Like DUH! For example I OWN the search term “internet marketing HubPages” – I dominate the e-book scammers, for which I am very happy! However I now know they weren’t making any money – because #1 position gets about 1 searcher a day!
Pricing and Free Use Period
You can try it risk free – by downloading the fully functional software (the module that’s aren’t available aren’t available in the paid version either) you have 40 days to decide whether to pay for it. N.B. the site says 12 day trial – but have a 40 day count down – so beware that you may only have 12 days to make a decision – can someone leave a comment if that happens to them.
The price is $147 which will no doubt go up in the future – to a subscription model I suspect. If you like it make sure you buy it at the current price before the rest of the modules were released 🙂 Regretably there is no affiliate program yet!
I’d love to hear your comments pro/con this software or anything else that makes it easy to find that elusive buying keyword!
You might want to check out my Free On-Page SEO Series too – starting with What Are My Keywords?
34 replies on “Understanding Buying Keywords with Market Samurai”
Hi Lis,
Re: the 40/12 day trial – the 30 Day Challenge offers a 40-day trial if you sign up via their special link (they’ve given us a lot of support – and we’re helping their participants out with an extended trial to say thank-you 🙂 )
The 12 day trial is the normal trial period.
I hope this helps you out. 🙂
Brent
Thanks for clarifying Brent – I did check the 30 day challenge box under the where I heard about it – which I think is when I first heard of it – that must have done it!
I follow Griz and it looks like you and I have the same ideas! We should network a bit….
I am currently at 300 per month from Adsense, putting in about 30 minutes per day on posting (I have only one money site though, no Adsense on the others yet….)
Love your blog!
Hi Patrick – thanks for stopping by – yeah looks like we are going the same route. This blog will never have Adsense on it though – way to much all over the place! I have made the odd affiliate sale though and it keeps me sane! Its nice to have one place to write where I don’t have to worry about the keyword density!
Hi Lis,
I downloaded the trial version quite a while ago. The keyword research portion still works even after the trial expired, but I really do need to just go ahead and plunk down the $140 soon, so that I can take advantage of the other features … unfortunately, I never really found the time to play with it enough during the trial period.
Todd
Todd’s last blog post..Free Our Gang Little Rascals Domain Name
Yes I believe the keyword tool is free for life – but I am loving the competition analysis part – the content creation is OK but I could do easily enough manually ditto the promotion. I suspect they will put the price up when the complete the other modules re publish content and adwords so don’t wait too long!
“Yes I believe the keyword tool is free for life” – yes 🙂
“I suspect they will put the price up when they complete the other modules…” – yes again 🙂
Brent Hodgson (from Noble Samurai)’s last blog post..Using Social Tagging Software to Increase Website Traffic
LOL thanks for the confirmation Brent!
Hi Lis,
I thought I would check out a few of your other posts and found this one. I have been using Market Samurai (I still have a hard time spelling it) since last August and the 30 day challenge. I really like it and I recommend it as a great tool. The more I work with it the more it teaches me.
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Hi Lis, as you can see I’m jumping around your blog. I’m just starting out at all of this too, and it’s nice to see that we’re on the same page with our approach. I’m just getting my head around the keyword research thing. I did the same, optimized my page perfectly for a certain product, but no one searches for that name. Duh. Just the other day I had an ah-hah moment with Adwords and SEO4Firefox, and am now finally targetting words that should work. I’ve run out of start-up money for my on line venture, so have to make do with what I have for now. Nice reading, keep it up.
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Sorry Robyn – missed your comment! Be careful with buying adwords – can send you broke fast! Yes it all takes a lot, lot longer than I thought as well – I’ll be earning Xmas – still holds – its just a couple of Xmas’s late!
Hi Lis,
I am using Market Samurai and I love it too. The one drawback I found about it is that it is not so good at finding the long tails. It is great for the short words. But I guess like any other tool it is not meant to be used by itself. there is so much to consider. Or may be it is just me, but I try to analyze everything. I can hear a few people you and I know “stop talking, stop reading other people’s blog, stop analyzing go build sites”. Okay I am going.
Mireille’s last blog post..Two Fun Rules of Raising Children
I haven’t found anything that is great with longer than 3 word long-tails Mireille – it is what it is as they say! LMAO I know exactly what you mean – I have a science degree cause I like to analysis you know!
Hey liz I jumped on the niche train recently as well and grabbed the samurai;
What should I be looking out for? I was told min 300 searches a month and avg cpc of $1 plus,
I have found two such ‘niches’ that have a <300k results none really targeted to the keyword.
Just wondering on how to proceed form here
Take them out! Build a keyword focussed site or blog and get anchored backlinks for the phrase you want to dominate!
Hey Lissie,
I have been seeing your name around in some places that are best left unmentioned. 🙂 Any way I like your style and I like the look of your blog!
@Mireille – If I find what may be a good keyword idea in MS I then use that phrase to generate more keywords and see what I get. Then I use some of the good ones from that list and do it again. I get a lot of weird stuff but I also have found some good long tails.
Good Luck
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Hey Lis
I am back again, after following your advice before re the scam, I have been doing my research with market samuari, a lot of research and id really appreciate your opinion on what I am thinking of going with, if you don’t mind???
I found a 3 word term I want to try out (I guess I shouldnt post what it is but its not make money online!) it has 12000 daily searches according to samauri, seotc is 1%, good purchase percentage and the competition seems low (this is the part i am not sure on) I checked out seo competition section and the no1 is exact term url (the other 9 urls do not have the keywords in them), 10 years old and around 300 backlinks which I checked out and most seem to be from lenses hubs etc. So I started a blog with the exact keywords and a filler word and made a few posts (not indexed yet) the no 1 has a lot of content, so my question is,would it be worth persuing or is that volume of content and domain age too hard to make it a possibility?
I would really appreciate your opinion!
Oh also I can’t subscribe by email here?
Thanks!
Hi Confused – 10years old has lots of authority , and the exact keyword match in the url is quite loved by Google at the moment to – what are the backlinks anchored on – the keyword you are going for? If yes and if the backlinks are mainly hubs and lenses sounds like you found someone who reads the same sites as I do LOL – you may want to find another. I’m not so worried about the content – its the correctly anchored backlinks plus age plus exact url match which may be tough to compete with.
Yes you can subscribe by email – top right corner next to the orange rss icon – subscribe by email 🙂
BTW you might be interested in a new membership site/video course that I just reviewed KeyWord Academy Course
Hi Confused as hell these are the most detailed videos
on M/S but not produced by the M/S team..
http://www.noblesamurai.com/forum/topic/is-there-any-info-on-metrics-to-follow
tomartomartini’s last blog post..John1324 on "WHAT ARE AUTHORITY SITES AND HOW CAN WE IDENTIFY THEM???"
I really love Samurai Market. It does what any good keyword program is supposed to do, gathering accurate, up-to-date information on traffic, competition, and inclination to buy and targets profitable, previously undiscovered microniches accurately and quickly.
Like your post, thanks for sharing this one.
Market Samurai has been much faster than keyword elite and it runs perfectly with my old laptop too. It’s great to have a software that you run on different machines cause I have multiple workstations at home where I do IM.
.-= Sam@aku ankka tarjous´s last blog ..Walt Disney näyttely tennispalatsissa – Aku Ankka ei mukana =-.
Yes I agree I run Market Samurai on a old 14″ laptop running XP!
Lis,
I too am a budding internet marketing wana-be, practicing to become a full time marketer.
Some time back I remember reading a long post you made about using MS in doing KW research pertaining to Mark and Court’s ‘Keyword Academy’ course. I’ve just joined their ranks again and was wondering if you would be willing to give a short course in how to use MS to shorten the keyword research aspect of the Keyword Academy learning curve.
My plans are to go completely through KA’s course to finally get my “feet” under me and start earning at least $10.00 a month.
warm regards – appreciate your transparency
Reeder Lyons
Thanks for your kind words Reeder – I am thinking about updating my “software I use” pages and will incorporate some more stuff about Market Samurai
I just found out about Market Samurai and am really excited to learn how to use it. Don’t know if I can afford the price tag now, but I’m seeing a lot of successful people that are using it – must be something to it.
I’m learning little-by-little and appreciate people like you who are willing to help. Thanks for the tips!
Has anyone seen an independent review of Market Samurai vs Google’s keyword tool? A lot of the reviews of Market Samurai are from affiliate marketers. Can you get an Google IP ban by using Market Samurai? I have had problems with the advanced Google search options (get a warning from Google about automated queries which is not what is happening).
Tom I use Market Samurai all the time – and have for nearly 2 years now – that’s for ever in Internet time! I use google KWT too – Samurai I use mainly for tracking my rankings and checking out the competition for my keywords. It does much more than that but I use it every month to track my business – and its the one piece of software which I actually pay for to do that! I have never got a Google ban either from using it – not sure how they avoid it – but they do .
I find it a huge time saver – but your mileage may vary – I think they have a free trial period still – try it out – for yourself – that’s really the only way to know if it will work for your business
Lis – interesting article. I’m just now getting around to looking seriously at Market Samurai. Strangely enough, in spite of your concerns about an impending price jump, you can pick up a copy today, almost two years after your initial post, for $149.
LOL 2 years later its still in beta too – I have no idea why software vendors do this – but the product works, works well and I still use it on a weekly basis!
And it’s still on sale for a special price if you purchase before your trial period runs out – $97!
The SEOV number is inflated by brand advertisers, and there should be understanding of what makes a profitable keyword and the mindset of the searcher.
Many times I’ll see a broad two word phrase with a high SEOV but they are clearly NOT buying keywords. Buying keywords relate to the searchers mindset and they are using keywords that are more specific — for they know what they want. Clearly, the SEOV inflates the value of many browser keywords, in which do not convert as well for they are in research mode — not quite ready to buy.
Tools can be helpful, but it will not substitute the mind!
I use market samurai and have done so since day one. I notice that some of my sites do just ok as the domain does not contain buying keywords. The guys who run Market Samurai are genuine, onto it and update the thing every 2-3 days to keep up with Google . there is nothing that comes close to it in my opinion. You can also see the competition and the Page rank status of all their backlinks which is very useful when targeting keywords i.e should i or should i not
Good to see fellow MS supporters on this page cheers Craig
Are you still using Market Samurai, Lissie?
I did the free trial and got depressed – if I believed what their competition analysis tells me, I should be getting no traffic to my sites and zero dollars. But, since my sites were fairly well developed by then and I had no interest in changing my niche, I decided there was no point in having information that depressed me, and I didn’t go any further.
I must say, I assumed that if I wasn’t in the business of finding new niches and building new sites, there wasn’t much point in having Market Samurai. Your post makes me wonder if I missed something.
I use Market Samurai to track my site’s rankings – and no I’ve never really liked their keyword research module. Their SEO competition is quite useful if I bother checking the competition for something – which I rarely do (and never in the dance niche!)
All the usual keyword tools are crap as far as estimating traffic is concerned. I do like Keyword Researcher for long tails though – not that it will give you competition or anything – but just throwing up articles based on its long tails which I would never have thought of – is quite good.