Google’s WONDERful New Search Tool

I’ve been meaning to write about this sooner but I had another “bout” with my recurring health issues and I got behind and this slipped through the cracks.

Anyway, Google recently released a new search tool they call the “Wonder Wheel” and it is more than a cool new tool, it may just change how keyword-related research is done.

It definitely is a great tool, particularly when you’re looking for niche ideas, product ideas, relationships and things like that — or if you prefer a visual look rather than just a list of numbers — and the potential this brings to the direction of research and research tools is really awesome.

Now, using this is not as fast or easy if you are just looking for a whole bunch of good keywords to use; of course, the paid tools like Keyword Elite, Market Samurai and others are even better because they save you time by organizing things nicely and do it much more quickly than you could.

But what Google’s Wonder Wheel can do by showing the relationships is where you get the real value.

Back to Google’s Wonder Wheel, here is a picture of one so you get a sense of what it looks like. Here is what a Wonder Wheel looks like on a search for “Web Traffic”:

As you can see, a “Wonder Wheel” takes your search phrase and put it in the center and the most important “topics” related to that are shown as “spokes” of the Wonder Wheel.

Before we get into this more just take a minute to look at what Google is telling us.

Google is saying that the 5 most important subtopics of “Web Traffic” are (1) instant web traffic; (2) web traffic rankings; (3) targeted web traffic; (4) social bookmarking; and (5) monetizing web traffic.

Already your brain should be working and you should have learned something. Maybe you didn’t understand the importance of social bookmarking before or you find it intriguing that web traffic rankings is so important or you get an idea for a new product or…

You’ll also notice that those spokes are links and you can keep drilling down, for example, if I click on “monetize web traffic” this is what Google shows:

Here you see that the 6 most important subtopics of “monetize web traffic”, you can continue drill down getting “longer tail” until you get what you need (or have so many ideas you brain explodes

How to Access the Wonder Wheel

Google has made it really easy to access the Wonder Wheel, it is now just a search options along with some other interesting options.

To access just go to Google and do a regular search, one you might do normally many times a day, something like:

When you do the search you’ll see results like this:

Notice the “Show options…” link? Well click it and you’ll see:

You can see it is the same search with lots of nice new options. We’re going to focus on the second on from the bottom, the “Wonder wheel”.

When you click that link, to change to view, you’ll see this:

The obvious thing to notice is the Wonder Wheel but the less obvious thing is that you don’t see any AdWords sponsored links just the free, organic search links.

As I showed above you can drill down, for example:

And clicking to drill down some more we see:

Why Should You Care?

So you might be thinking “Yeah, so?”

Well, what this does is show the intent of the searchers. For example, if someone searches for “monetize web traffic” the most likely things (that is, their intent) they are looking for is the 5 subtopics shown above.

One of the ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT things you need to know is what the person who is searching is looking for, that is, their intent. This can’t be overemphasized.

If you know what is in their head and you can enter their internal conversation you are so much likely to a sale or on your list.

I don’t recall the statistics but it may be a 3 digit improvement, even if it is just 100% improvement that is doubling your sales by doing nothing more than understanding the intent of the prospects and, just as important, making them realize that your understand.

Notice, no more traffic, no additional cost, just more sales and Google is giving you deep knowledge into the historical basis for searches and we are talking about more searches than McDonald’s has sold hamburgers! That’s a lot of data…

What You Should Do?

You can use this for lots of things, I’m still exploring it myself but here are some of the things I’ve found were easy and, truthfully, obvious ways to use the Wonder Wheel.

Clean Up Your Act

Browse around on your important keywords and see what the intent of the prospects who use those keywords is, not what you thought it was but what Google is telling you, based upon huge amounts of actual searches, the intent was.

If the intent is not what you expected then you need to either (1) target different keywords or (2) change you landing pages to make sure you are addressing the prospects intent, their desires, not what you think they are or what you want them to be.

This can make a huge difference in your business, HUGE.

Consultants and market researchers charge 4, 5, 6 even 7 figures to get this type of information and Google is giving you all this for free; admittedly the consultants help you understand, analyze and act on the information but a big part of their time spent (and the subsequent cost) is actually getting the information.

Find New Niches

This is such a great tool for idea research, for example, my niece is an avid photographer (see http://www.takefamilypictures.com/) so I thought I’d look at photography, here is what I found:
Immediately I am struck by “photography history”, I wouldn’t have imagined it was one of the main intents of searchers for photography. Now this could be my naivety and lack of knowledge of photography but this piqued my interest as maybe a niche with potential.

So I looked and found:
I don’t want to do niche research here and now, I’ll save that for another time, but my initial look shows me this is something that goes into my journal as something to follow up on.

And I probably wouldn’t have seen it if I didn’t have the Wonder Wheel, just think what it can show you as you drill down more!

Do Competitive Analysis

You’ll notice as you use the Wonder Wheel that the right column updates itself everything you click on one of the links; it does a normal Google search and shows them there.

You can use this to more quickly do a competitive analysis, finding competing products and potential partners and affiliate opportunities (nothing wrong with using someone else’s product as a back end to your own and picking up some nice commissions from it).

Conclusion

Google’s Wonder Wheel has the potential to make the ways we do niche and keyword research change dramatically.

While the user interface isn’t a Google invention — it has been around for several decades at least — it is the first consumer mass market example of it I have ever seen and is a very good Version 1.0 product.

Even the information isn’t new, Google has been providing it for some months now under their “related searches” section in many search results pages.

But the combination of the information and the way of viewing that information is where the power lies.

The information it provides, in a simple visual format, about the intent of the searcher and prospect is invaluable if used properly; it alone is makes the tool well worth using.

Using it to look at your existing keywords should also show you what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong and guide you to making changes that could have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Using it also to find promising new niches as well as potential partners and affiliate opportunities are WONDERful additional side benefits; sorry I couldn’t resist

You should also play around with the other options and, in the future, I’ll look at some of them but don’t wait for me give it a go yourself!

Leave a comment and tell me what you think and how you see the Wonder Wheel helping you. I’d love to hear about things I haven’t thought of yet (and, of course, you get another link to your site!)

Talk soon,

David
The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer

http://www.8-8-8Sale.com

http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com

http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com

O.Y. If you’d like some good niche finder tools, one I use Micro Niche Finder and Market Samurai. For keyword research I use Market Samurai and Keyword Elite.

O.O.Y. If you want to know more about getting Web Traffic or want Web Traffic products you can sell just go to 8-8-8 Sale’s Getting Traffic site; use the coupon code SGTWTSpecial to get 27% off just for readers of Street Guide to Web Traffic.

Popularity: 1% [?]