KEI Concerns and CID Alternative by Serge M Botans

KEI Concerns and CID Alternative by Serge M Botans

KEI Concerns and CID Alternative

Like many folks, I have been using KEI for some time now to
determine what keywords I should target with my web site.
And this has led me to becoming concerned with the results
KEI provides and the keywords it suggests. I need to say
here that my concern is very subjective as many folks are
happily using KEI and don't seem to have a problem with it.

My main concern with KEI is that, by the way it works, it
strongly favours demand numbers without, I feel,
sufficiently taking into account the corresponding supply
numbers.

I need to say here that I interpret supply numbers as a
representation of how competitive a keyword is. For example,
if keyword 1 has a supply of 200,000 while keyword 2 has a
supply of 5,000,000, then I would consider keyword 2 as
being more competitive than keyword 1.

And all things being equal, I would prefer to target a
keyword that is less competitive and with less demand,
rather than a highly competitive keyword that has a higher
demand. The reason for this is that I feel that I have a
better chance of cornering a section of a less competitive
market than I do that of a highly competitive one.

Based on my concern with KEI, I have decided to create an
alternative. I have called this alternative "Competition
Indexed Demand" (CID). Now, CID works out the marketing
potential of keywords in a similar way to KEI but it uses a
different formula, one that takes more into account the
supply numbers of keywords (or their competitiveness).

For example, using "ranking" as the starting keyword with
Overture, KEI suggests the following top 3 keywords,

Keyword Demand Supply KEI
nfl quarterback ranking 43,474 75,800 24,934
nfl power ranking 43,171 122,000 15,277
college basketball ranking 71,149 541,000 9,357

while CID suggests the following top 3 keywords,

Keyword Demand Supply CID
dick vitale college basketball ranking
16,983 33,400 640
nfl quaterback ranking 43,474 75,800 427
vote nba power ranking 3,129 30,200 394

Comparing the 2 sets of results, you can see how CID favours
lower competition compared to KEI. I have now used CID for
quite a number of keyword research projects and have found
that not only it favours lower competition, but it also
suggests keywords that, I feel, have a better demand-supply
balance.

Given that CID is an alternative to KEI, you now have to
make a decision when doing your keyword research in order to
determine the marketing potential of the best keywords to
use. The decision is: shall I use KEI or CID? The answer to
this question is straightforward: if you want to focus on
high demand then use KEI, and if you want to focus on lower
competition, then use CID.

Furthermore, based on my obervations of KEI and CID results,
I have felt the need to come up with 2 rules to avoid both
KEI and CID generating what I feel are inappropriately high
numbers. My observation has been that these high numbers are
generally generated because the demand and/or supply numbers
are too high.

These 2 rules are:

- "the 100 thousand demand rule" which states that "any
keywords whose demand numbers are above 100 thousands should
be ignored",

- "the 10 million supply rule" which states that "any
keywords whose supply numbers are above 10 million should be
ignored".

Applying these 2 rules to KEI and/or CID will help you
determine more realistically the marketing potential of
keywords.

In conclusion, CID should be seen as an alternative to KEI
and not as replacement for KEI. The reason for this is that
CID focusses on the competitiveness of keywords while KEI
focusses on the demand.

Serge M Botans

Contact: author@cattle-ramp-seo.com
Phone: 61-03-9478-7088 or 61-0415-642424
Web Site: www.cattle-ramp-seo.com

PS. I have not currently released the CID formula. However,
you can download my program Keywords Analysis to research
your keywords using KEI and/or CID
www.cattle-ramp-seo.com/KeywordsAnalysis.zip

=====================================
Serge M Botans is the CEO of the
self-help search engine optimisation
web site www.cattle-ramp-seo.com
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About the Author
Serge M Botans is the CEO of the web site Cattle Ramp SEO Self-Help Resources.