Those of who have been following this blog will know the term ' funny 50th birthday poem '. This is the keyword I decided to target for one of my poetry sites and I am pleased to report that I have captured 50% of the Google page 1 listings in just a matter of weeks. Just follow the link for the full step by step SEO strategy . But that is not the object of this post as I would like to share something quite interesting and that applies to all keyword research.

For example, if you have a look at the recent stats for my Squidoo lens (part of the SEO strategy) you will notice that one of the 'nested' terms has received just about twice as many clicks as the actual target term itself;

50th birthday poem 17
50th birthday poems 10
funny 50th birthday poem 9
funny 50th birthday poems 3

I won't bore you with the details, but this list of keywords stretches to 110 keywords!!! (This information is available in your Squidoo dashboard). Talk about a long tail. This is the point that I am trying to make. Even when you use such a fine tool as Micro Niche Finder, which tells you the expected number of searches and likely competition for any given search term, there is just no way of predicting the impact of you targeting that search term. So, whenever you are doing keyword research for your own sites, please ask yourself the following two critical questions:

1. What is the likelihood of you gaining traffic from any nested search terms i.e. a term within the target term, such as ' internet marketing ' or ' marketing secrets ' within ' internet marketing secrets '?

2. What is the likely ' stretch ' of your keyword? In my case, the stretch amounted to 110 different search terms. What will be the likely impact? Again, in my case, the target keyword ended up being almost irrelevant, in terms of the total number of visitors.

I know this just adds confusion to the pot, but I think both points are worth thinking about. Indeed, both of these factors can be very pleasant unexpected bonuses and can be the difference between a profitable campaign or not. That is the final point I am going to make. When you are next doing your keyword research and you end up with a borderline decision, please think about these two factors as they will probably push your decision into the green and hopefully, profits!!