You might wonder, what’s the difference between a search term and a keyword? There’s actually a fine line between the two. A search term is what users key into a search engine to find something specific. It can be a single keyword or made out of a combination of words, e.g., “physiotherapist” or “sports physiotherapist Los Angeles.”

A keyword, on the other hand, is a word or phrase that SEO professionals use to attract organic clicks and improve page rankings on search engines. Keywords are also used by marketers and PPC specialists to bid on in their paid search campaigns.

What is a search term?

A search term is also known as a search query. It’s a word or phrase that someone enters into a search engine, like Google. Search terms can contain a single keyword or a string of keywords that’s either a part of or the entire length of a phrase.

These keywords are used by:

• SEO professionals or agencies to rank a website or page
• Digital marketers to bid on in their paid-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns

All search results shown on Google depend on these two types of keyword targeting. And it all begins with the user’s search term.

How Google reads search terms

Search engines have changed a great deal in these past few years. And the better you understand how it works and the way people today search on the web, the better equipped you will be when crafting your SEO strategy.

Google no longer only ranks pages based on keyword density or volumes. Instead, the search engine’s algorithm looks at search intent. Over time it has adapted to understand users’ search queries better and match them as accurately as possible to relevant results.

When a user performs a search, Google will show both organic and paid results based on their search behaviors. And this is precisely why it’s important to understand how your target audience performs searches.

Paid marketing with Google Ads

All the results (including paid Google ads) that you get upon performing a search on Google depends on the search term that you used. Each Google search ad uses a keyword, or a group of keywords, identified by the advertiser. That’s why you will see relevant pages for both organic and paid results.

Once the target keyword is found, the advertiser will place a bid (or the maximum amount of money they’re willing to pay) for each relevant keyword. The value varies depending on the competitiveness of the keywords. And in most cases, the bid will depend on the advertiser’s paid-per-click (PPC) budget.

For example, if you’re running a marketing consultancy agency that targets small businesses, you might target “small business marketing” as a keyword. When a potential client enters a search term “how to do small business marketing,” Google will run an automated auction involving other advertisers that have placed a bid on that same keyword.

How a keyword competition level determines its placement on SERP

The winner of the auction will get the top advertising spots on SERP, followed by the rest in descending order. In PPC marketing, placing an appropriate budget that matches the competition level of a keyword is important. It increases the likelihood of your ad placed in priority and high visibility spots on SERP. But choosing the right search terms also matter just as much.

Using Keyword Tool can help you find both relevant high-volume keywords and give you valuable data such as competition level and the keywords’ average CPC costs:

Once you’ve entered your desired keyword, in this example “small business marketing,” you will see an entire list of keywords that will show you the competitiveness of the keyword:

As you can see from this example, the search term “small business marketing” and its semantic keywords are very competitive. So, depending on the data you get based on your keywords, they should help you craft a more feasible digital marketing strategy to promote your services on search.

Organic results on SERP through SEO

A large part of SERP, as you would’ve already noticed, are mainly organic search results.

It’s the handy work of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the practice of optimizing a page or website to ensure that it’s indexed, crawled, and ranks well on SERP. And just like paid search marketing, SEO is centered on search terms.

When a user enters a search term, Google’s algorithm will sort millions of pages and filter only the most relevant pages on SERP. The more clicks a website gets, the more relevant it will seem to Google. That, among many other factors, will determine the placement of the website or page on SERP.

How Google ranks websites

There are many factors that Google takes into consideration when ranking pages, including relevant keywords, meta keywords and how they are used in title tags, headlines, and meta descriptions. But don’t worry too much about keyword density, it’s been long proven to be mostly a myth. What is important is that you use high-volume keywords that are relevant to your brand or content.

Another important metric is your website’s page authority that is determined by Google PageRank. The more backlinks you attract, the more reputable your website will be in the eyes of Google’s crawlers. Which means it will be easier for your page to rank higher based on a targeted keyword.

Page authority depends on the strength of your backlinks. Want a high score? You’ll need tonnes of solid backlinks from authoritative, reputable websites. There are many strategies to gain backlinks, as long as you avoid any black hat SEO techniques like buying backlinks (because Google really doesn’t like it and you’ll get severely penalized).

On the other hand, if you have great content and solid on-page SEO practices, you’ll have a higher potential of getting organic backlinks from other websites, blogs, and even social shares. Which brings us back to the heart of SEO – using the right search terms for your content.

Finding relevant, high-volume search terms couldn’t be simpler when you use the right keyword tool. Through proper keyword research, you will see not just a list of relevant keywords but also valuable data like search volumes, cost-per-click (CPC) and average competition level.

With accurate keyword data and a solid SEO foundation, you can then focus on writing good copy and creating great content.

The post Search Terms: #1 Tool to Find Popular Keywords (& Skyrocket Your Traffic) appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.

Quitting your day job to make money on YouTube full-time seems like the ultimate dream. Who wouldn’t want to turn their passion into paychecks, especially one that has the potential to give you passive income?

A lot of people have made it, with some even becoming millionaires in a short span of time with a legion of fans, lucrative sponsorships, and cool merchandise.

Professional YouTubers like PewDiePie, Shane, MrBreast, and many others get millions of views on their YouTube videos, but that only represents a small portion of their actual income. In fact, most of their earnings come from diversified sources.

Earning passive income through YouTube views might be a dream to many, but first, it’s best to do a reality check. Based on current industry standards, you can only make about $1,000 per half a million views on YouTube. So, unless your video gets millions of views in a short period every single time, you might need to also look at alternative ways to turn YouTube views to money.

Nevertheless, this is still one of the best options if you would like to create passive income by turning your YouTube views to money. Here are some ideas that have worked for other YouTubers:

How To Earn From YouTube

1) Run ads to turn YouTube views to money

Many creators use AdSense to monetize their content. They create great videos, optimize them, and earn passive income by running ads on their YouTube account.

With 500 hours of video content uploaded every minute on the largest video-sharing platform on the web, it is often difficult to get a lot of views consistently.

But it is not impossible.

Let’s say, for example, you would like to earn $1,000. Based on average industry standards, your video will need around half a million views to earn $1,000 in AdSense money. That works out to be about $2 per 1,000 views (CPM).

Of course, there is no magic CPM number. It differs based on countries, type of ads, and your channel’s performance. But there are ways to increase your CPM. To do this, you will need to create content on profitable niches. The best way to find such niches is to do keyword research to find competitive keywords with high cost-per-click (CPC).

There are certain types of industries where advertisers are willing to pay more to get the attention of consumers, like insurance and real estate. Meanwhile, niches like food recipes have CPMs that are much lower.

Use Keyword Tool to find competitive keywords in your chosen niche that you can use to optimize your YouTube videos.

To achieve your first $1,000, you must draw out a plan and strategize how to get views on your video. It will require a lot of upfront work, and you may not earn much money consistently, but it can potentially give you a steady passive income in the long term.

2) Maximize your views to leverage affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing can be an incredibly lucrative way to turn YouTube views to money. Monetizing your channel through affiliate marketing is often best done for review-based content, whether it is a beauty product, digital services, or similar types of industries.

For example, if you are running a photography channel, you can create a review on a newly launched mirrorless camera, and share affiliate links in your video’s description section. You can also create YouTube cards and redirect viewers to your website or blog that contains the affiliate links.

When you recommend a product through an affiliate link, like Amazon, you will earn a commission from the product purchase. Depending on the affiliate partner’s policies, you can also earn a small portion from other products that the person buys on the website within a specified duration of time.

If you can grow your channel, you will increase the chance of turning your YouTube views to money via affiliate marketing.

But most importantly, you need to have a long-term plan, build an active community, and create a solid reputation for yourself. Only then will you be able to generate enough level of trust to entice viewers to buy the products that you recommend in your YouTube videos.

3) Sell digital products through your YouTube channel

Selling digital products through a digital platform is a great way to diversify your income. Since you don’t need to keep physical stock, you will be able to sell an unlimited number of products without worrying about inventory, fulfillment, and shipping. Compared to affiliate marketing, selling digital-only products is often a more profitable way of turning your YouTube views to money.

To help get you started, here are some ideas on digital-only products that you can sell through your YouTube channel:

• E-books
• Online tutorials (or webinars)
• Mobile apps
• Presets (for the camera, photography, graphics, etc)
• Templates (for banners, websites, blogs, etc)
• Email courses
• Membership sites
• Plugins
• Printables

Although selling digital products may be less of a hassle compared to shipping physical products, they still require a lot of upfront work.

You will need to invest money in hiring experts to create your e-book, app, presets, or landing page. Alternatively, if you have the right skill sets or willingness to learn, you can do it yourself. It will be far cheaper than hiring people to do the work for you, but it will require a lot of time and effort on your part.

The great thing about using digital products to turn YouTube views to money is you can use your knowledge, experience, and passion to generate income through growing your channel on YouTube.

Once you have grown your community and consistently receive a lot of views on your videos, you will be able to position yourself as a subject matter expert. With an excellent reputation on YouTube, it will be easier to promote and sell your digital products to your viewers.

Turning YouTube views to money by diversifying your income streams

It is entirely possible to choose one of the three methods laid out in this article and do it well. But the smarter option is to diversify your income streams. Whenever possible, try to combine all three methods and watch as your earnings grow month by month.

Whether you are looking to monetize on YouTube as a side hustle or a full-time gig, you need to prepare to put in a lot of hours of work.

One of the biggest challenges for creators is posting content regularly. Some post one video a day; some do it once a month. Either way, consistency is key to building a good following on YouTube.

If you create content of value, post consistently, and interact well with your viewers, you will be turning your YouTube views to money in no time!

Frequently Asked Questions

The post How to Make $1000 by Turning YouTube Views to Money appeared first on Keyword Tool Blog: How to Find Great Keywords.