To start things off, if you follow Zeitgeist* you can see if there is anything that catches the eye. NOW I'm talking about keywords here, not the website design, if that's what you're thinking. These are the keywords that are 'hot' at the moment, if they excite, then add them to the list. If they are particularly new, the analysis that follows may be invalid, so please use common sense. i.e. 'world trade center' would have been 'cold' before 9/11, then hot, then cooling over the following years and now it will be hot again because of the film. If in doubt, check the trends to see the movement over the years.
You probably don't want to get a keyword that is going down in the keyword listing, trust me, most top seo services would agree (unless you have some inside information). If you're still short of inspiration, try the thousands of websites that accept PayPal. Or Google Groups. In the search box, type in the name of a product you're interested in possibly selling.. The search results will list the news groups discussing the product. Have a look if there is any RECENT 'buzz'. Any groups or products that match? ยท Go to the Amazon. Click on the Top Sellers tab near the top of the page. The most popular items are featured there, organized by category, and updated hourly.
Go to the E-Bay - In the search box, type in the name of a product you're interested in possibly selling. This gives an indication of the activity surrounding the item in question. Click on the Sell tab at the top of the page. Then, click on the Seller Central link at the bottom of the Sell page. Scroll down the page and click on the What's Hot link. Then 'Hot Items by Category' 'eBay Pulse' and 'eBay Marketplace Research' are all worth a look. This is where you find out which categories and products are hot -- and where demand is outpacing supply! By the way, if you're wondering what Zeitgeist means, it means the general intellectual,moral and cultural climate of an era.
Once you have an idea of the target market then it is a simple matter to go to your favourite keyword research station. Punch in your potential keywords and look for the KEI. The KEI is simply a calculation between the number of web-sites competing for that term and the number of times that search term is used on a daily basis. Ideally what you are looking for is a keyword with FEW competing sites and LOTS of visitors to increase web traffic.
This is what KEI checks and identifies. Assuming that the best KEI has a reasonable number of searches (count above 400 should do) and the KEI is over 10 then that is your one! If you're lucky,that is of your KEI is over 100 then you may have hit gold! Write it down and start over. If it doesn't meet your benchmarks then try some other words from your list for that subject. Repeat for your other six categories so you end up with at least 7 target words. What I do is usually come up with 2 or 3 options per category and score them KEI/count i.e. 15/585 so when we get to the next stage I know which ones are more valuable. Final tip: Avoid the word 'free' in your keywords - too too difficult to make any money with that one.
