I just got a copy of Google Sniper 2.0 by George Brown. If you’ve never heard of him, he came up with a system to create niche websites, drive massive traffic to these sites, and, as a result, make money from affiliate commissions and ads. That system was the original Google Sniper, which he launched a year or two ago.

On February 14th, he released Google Sniper 2.0 (super cheesy release date, I know), which contains updates and modifications to the previous system. Why does it need updates and modifications? Because just like everything in life, things change — and on the Internet, things change a helluva lot faster than in the real world.

So I started reading Google Sniper 2.0 earlier today. I just finished the first two chapters and here are four excellent keyword research tips from Chapter 1 that I think we all could use. Use them well.

Tip 1: Find a Niche You Can Monetize

Let’s start by defining what a niche or niche market is. A niche market is a subset of a general market, meaning a specific product or service within a general market. Examples of niche markets include “forex trading robots“, “making money with AdSense“, and “getting back with an ex”. On the other hand, examples of general markets include “forex trading”, “making money”, and “relationships.

How do you know if a niche can be monetized? George Brown recommends running a Google search on the term and checking if there are Google AdWords ads that appear in the search results. For example, if you run a Google search for forex trading robots, you will see that there is a bunch of Google AdWords ads that appear on the right side of the search results. That’s an indicator that people are willing to pay for advertising, which also means that it’s most likely profitable.

Click here to see the search results for forex trading robots.

Tip 2: Find a Keyword You Can Monetize

Once you find a niche that you can monetize, the next step in your keyword research is to find a root keyword that you can monetize. Now how do you know if a keyword can monetized? George says that it is usually one that is related to buying or solving a problem.

Another point to remember when finding a keyword is that it has to be long tail. In SEO speak, a long tail keyword consists of three or more words that people use frequently to search for information. The idea is that by focusing on long tail keywords, you will have fewer competitors in the search results.

Make money online is probably one of the most searched keywords or keyphrases in the entire world (and it probably was a long tail keyword before). But because people found that it was a monetizable, everybody tried to monetize it. With so many people trying to rank high for “make money online”, it’s now close to impossible to rank for it.

So if you’re targeting the make money online market, you will need to find an even longer keyword. Here a some examples of longer tail keywords with probably fewer competitors:

• make money online with AdSense
• make money with AdSense
• make money with domain names

When finding a keyword to monetize, don’t just come up with a single keyword. Come up with a bunch of them. Brainstorm, and then list them down. When you have a nice list of, maybe, 10 or so keywords, run them through the next two tips — search volume and competition.

Tip 3: Find a Keyword That Gets At Least 3000 Searches Per Month

The next step in keyword research is to find out which keywords in your list get a decent amount of searches per month. It’s simple math. The more people searching for the keyword, the most visitors you will likely get. The more visitors you get, the higher your ad earnings or commissions will be.

George suggests that you make sure your keywords get at least 3000 searches per month. You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to check how many searches your list of keywords get every month.

This step will probably kill off some more keywords off your list.

Tip 4: Find a Keyword with Low Competition

The last step is to find keywords with the fewest competitors possible. Why? Fewer competitors means that it will be easier for your website to rank high in the search results.

How do you know how many competitors a keyword has? Simple. Run a Google search for the keyword in phrase marks. For example, run a Google search for “make money online with adsense“. Do you see the number below the search bar in the results? That’s your competition for this keyword.

I just ran the search and I see “About 728,000 results (0.25 seconds)” under the search bar. This means that there are 728,000 competing pages for “make money online with adsense”. That’s a big number. And it’s going to be tough to rank high with that number of competitors.

George recommends targeting keywords with at most 13,000 competing websites. In his experience, you have a good chance of ranking high if your competitors are this few.

There you go. Four golden nuggets of keyword research that you can use to focus on keywords that can take your websites to the top of search engine rankings.

George has a lot more of these golden nuggets in Google Sniper 2.0. It’s a great book that I’d recommend, especially to those who are just starting in the field of Internet marketing. I believe advanced marketers will also find new knowledge in it.

Click the banner below to check out George Brown‘s free introductory video on the Google Sniper 2.0 website.