I’ve written a few posts on affiliate marketing and keywords and as a result have been asked “what’s the best keyword tool for affiliate marketing?”

When doing a search for anything on the Internet Google, and other search engines, produce results based on relevance to the search phrase the user has entered. This “search phrase” is called a “keyword” and is an integral part of Google’s (and other search engines) algorithms in determining which pages rank for what keywords.

With keywords being an important factor for ranking it helps to know what keywords give us the best opportunity to rank on page 1.  For affiliate marketers ranking on page 1 is the difference between success and failure. Knowing what keywords are easiest to rank for gives an affiliate marketer a huge advantage.

Let’s first cover what Google wants from us.

All search engines want the same for their customers but Google is the dominant player with around 95% of all Internet traffic.

As an aside Google handles over 63,000 searches per second or 3.8 million per minute, while 380 new websites are created every minute!

Mind blowing!

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Jaaxy – Simply The Best Keyword Tool … or not?

I’m not going to lie – I have not tried every keyword tool there is out there and I don’t feel I need to compare them all.

Let me explain why …

I’m a simple kind of person that loves analyzing things to a certain extent, but I see no point in reinventing the wheel.

Jaaxy was developed and created by Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim, two of the world’s best marketers and young men I greatly admire for a number of reasons. They are successful, they are humble and have a truly ethical approach to life in general and to the Internet in particular.

A bit later I touch on what Google looks for when ranking a site and Kyle and Carson have had the exact same approach since they started their business back in 2005.

Sticking to the basic premise of providing top quality information to their customers, without trying to game the system, has paid huge dividends for them.

Their business, Wealthy Affiliate University focuses primarily on training and education for Internet Affiliate marketers.

A large part of Wealthy Affiliate is about the tools they include and the Jaaxy keyword tool is probably the best known, and most used tool in their stable.

If Jaaxy is good enough for Kyle and Carson and thousands of their students to make a really good living its better than good enough for me.

The simple premise behind the creation of Jaaxy was to assist affiliate marketers find keywords that are likely to rank high in searches. But Jaaxy has developed into a keyword tool that goes much further than this.

Jaaxy’s Main interface is where keyword searches are carried out.

The following screen shot shows the results from searching for “What’s the best keyword tool” – the topic of this post.

 

 

Let’s go through each of the columns to show you exactly why I think this is such a great KW tool.

The Keyword column is the actual keyword I searched followed by related keywords searched in Google. Jaaxy automatically generates additional keywords and many a gold nugget can be found in here. So one search in Jaaxy throws up a ton of ideas. If you look to the right of the screen shot you will see yet another column providing “related Keyword searches”

The Avg Column is an indication of the average number of searches the particular keyword receives per month. The more searches the keyword receives the better it is.

The Traffic column. This is a key indicator and shows the number of potential monthly visitors to your site if you rank on page 1 for that particular keyword.

The QSR column – LISTEN UP! This is the most telling column of all and shows the number of competing websites ranked in Google for this exact keyword. In simple terms this is your direct competition. The lower this number is the better your chances of ranking on page 1 of Google searches to the keyword.

The KQI column – stands for Keyword Quality Indicator and lets you know if the keyword is great (green) average or OK (yellow) or poor (red). There really is no point in using a poor keyword.

The SEO column – A high number here is good with 100 being the highest. This is an indication that the keyword will rank well organically as an article or post topic.

The Domain Column – This indicates if an exact-match domain name is available. These days exact-matching domains do not carry as much weight as they did in the past. Nice to have though.

Let’s analyse my chances of ranking with the keyword “What’s the best keyword tool?”.

I know from Jaaxy’s results that there are an average of 334 searches per month and if I can get on to page 1 of Google I can potentially have 57 people visit my website.

That isn’t a lot of visits but read on as I explain how this can quickly escalate.

My competition is only 20 websites with this exact keyword appearing on their site.

I will have more competition than this because there will be sites with similar keywords. As far as exact matches go I will be at position #20 from the get-go.

We can test this by going to Google.com and typing in “What’s the best keyword tool” – in inverted commas.

The results I got are as follows (note that this may change over time).

That is clearly more than the 20 that Jaaxy has indicated – so what’s up with that?

Google has included the results for similar keywords (potential rather than actual competition).

To find the number Jaaxy refers to we need to scroll down to the bottom of the page where we will see Google says there is a total of 4 pages.

 

Click on the last page and it will default to only two pages – weird but that is how it works. I think the final result eliminates peripheral stuff like adverts.

After clicking on page 2 (now the actual final page) I get the following result.

Note it now says 19 websites with that exact Keyword – confirming what Jaaxy told us.

This is the real competition that I face and it should be fairly easy to rank high, provided that my post’s content is relevant to the keyword.

Jaaxy is simple to use and gives me all the information I need to confidently write a post using a keyword I know will rank.

I said earlier that the potential of this particular keyword is 57 visitors per month.

This is hardly earth-shattering but if I write 10 posts with keywords that have similar potential I will have 570 visitors per month, 20 keywords and its over 1,000 per month.

Adding only one post per week will result in 52 posts in a year and potentially bringing in over 2900 (52 x57) readers per month.

It all adds up very quickly.

And remember these are all highly relevant keywords to the search so my readers should be happy.

Happy readers = happy Google.

And happy Google means I will start to rank faster and for more keywords as I build out an authority site from these little nuggets.

Have a little play with this plug-in using your own keywords to see how Jaaxy works – put a keyword in the space provided.

Fun isn’t it?

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But Jaaxy Is More Than A Keyword Research Tool – much more …

At the very top of Jaaxy’s Interface you will find all the other features included in Jaaxy – lets go through each one individually.

 

 

From Left to right starting on the top line we have:

• We’ve covered the first one which is the “Search” option and we’ve seen how simple yet powerful it is. Incredible as it may sound Jaaxy is even more robust than this. More detail of the types of searches that can be conducted are found in the second row – see further down.
• “Site Rank” – this handy little addition allows you to track the performance of keywords on your website to see how they are performing over a period of time. In a couple of weeks I will jump in to Jaaxy to see how this particular post is performing. If its not doing as well as I hope (IE ranking on page one) I will revisit it to see how I can improve the SEO. There may be nothing I can do and I might just have to be patient.
• “Affiliate Program”. This is Jaaxy’s built in affiliate program. As a Jaaxy subscriber you can promote Jaaxy and will get paid a small commission for any referrals. It’s not too difficult to promote something you believe is awesome.
• “Jaaxy Help”. There are 3 training videos how Jaaxy can best be used for get maximum benefits. Definitely spend some time watching these for quick results.
• “Upgrade”. There are two versions of Jaaxy. The lite version I use and the Jaaxy Enterprise version which is a much faster and bigger version with more search volume, more lists to save for those who do a ton of keyword researches. Me I get plenty of work just keeping up with what Jaaxy Lite spits out.
• “My Account”. This is where you provide your account details, log out etc.

The second line refers to searches and provide a variety of ways of searching.

• “Alphabet Soup”. A great way to search is to have Google, or Jaaxy, recommend searches related to the main keyword.
  Start a Google search with a keyword – say “Keyword tool” (without the inverted commas) and Google will add words as alternate suggestions as you type – see the screen shot below.
  These suggestions are based on the most common words used in association with your main keyword.
  Jaaxy can do  the same thing.
  Jaaxy Help includes a video that explains this method in greater detail.
  You can learn more about the Alphabet Soup technique by clicking here.
  Using this method one keyword will produce a ton of result.
• “Saved Lists”. Keywords can be saved to lists for referring to later.
  It’s impossible to remember all the keywords you’ve searched and a list to refer to is a big plus.
  Jaaxy’s keyword lists include all the relevant data of the various columns.
• “Search History”. All your past searches are retained by Jaaxy. Useful if you get sidetracked like I do.
• “Search Analysis”. Allows you to track the performance of your keyword and website rankings in Google, Bing and Yahoo.
• “Affiliate Programs”. Looking for an affiliate program for a particular niche?
  No problem Jaaxy does the work for you and will provide you with details of the vendors that offer affiliate programs in your niche.
  The information includes the level of commission, the sites Alexa ranking and the hosting network.
• “Brainstorm”. Enter a keyword here and let Jaaxy do the heavy lifting.

I think you will agree that Jaaxy is an amazing tool and more than adequate for keyword research.

It is an immensely powerful piece of software delivering tons of accurate results in milliseconds.

It certainly has everything I need and that is why I rate it so highly.

Here’s that screen shot of the alphabet soup I promised you.

 

Google comes up with 9 common keywords associated with the main keyword. These can be plugged into Jaaxy to see the potential of using them – thanks Google!

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Google – Algorithms

This post is about the best keyword tool but it is important to understand that there are other aspects that Google looks at for ranking sites.

Google simply wants to provide its users with the most relevant information – it really is that simple. Google remains committed to this one goal.

Unfortunately because page 1 ranking carry so much weight, with so much potential for profit, website owners have, over the years, tried to play the system to get to that coveted page.

The results of this gaming has meant that Google has had to tighten up and adjust algorithms through the years.

They continue to do so and for those sites who have tried to sneak in through the back door it does mean starting over or giving up entirely.

On the plus side of all the algorithm changes over the years information put in front of searches is finely tuned to be relevant and provides the searcher with precisely what they want.

Keywords are not the only factor in ranking pages – there are several:

• Site authority – sites that have been around for a long time carry more weight than new sites. With 380 new Websites created every minute jostling for prime poistion is fierce. Google is not going to suddenly rank these new sites above older, more established sites. Not until they have proved themselves and that will take time, skilland SEO know-how.
• Fast Loading – a slow loading site causes people to click away so ensure site speed is good. There are a number of ways of checking this.
• Site Activity – Google likes to see sites that are regularly updated with fresh and relevant content. This is a key indicator to Google that the site is a real business that is still in operation.
• Relevant content – keeping your site focused on the main keyword/title is paramount. If your site is about losing weight then don’t suddenly add a page trying to sell cars. It makes no sense and is confusing.
• Images – For easy reading images break up content and this is ecouraged. But again the images need to be relevatnt to the text they are aligned with. Images must be relevantly titled too.
• Easy to navigate – Google does not like sites that make it difficult and confusing for the users. Keep links relevant and make the linking words relevant to the page they are linking to.

And like Coca Cola – Google keeps a few of their ranking criteria a secret!

Or put another way I don’t know everything that goes into their algorithms. I’m not sure I need to know as long as I keep my content relevant and interesting I am 100% certain Google will eventually recognise that and rank my site highly.

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Jaaxy Covers All the Bases You Need in a Keyword Tool

So there you have it – my reasons why I think Jaaxy is the best keyword tool out there.

Can I ask you a BIG favour – you could really help me here?

Please leave me a comment below telling me how you came across this particular post and if it was through a Google search what keyword you used and what page and position was it on?

I would really like to hear from you along those lines.

Thanks for reading.

Lawrence

PS Did I tell you you can try Jaaxy out for free?

Well you can …