The first thing to do is to create a list of key words relating to your start up's market. What would your typical customer search for? Try creating a combination of common search terms and less common (long tail) search terms, as the latter will likely have less competition.
Step 1. Log on to Google Keyword Tool. https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=2457211928&__u=4142450228&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none
It's no good using the tool without being logged in, as it will give you different and more constrained results. If need be, sign up for a Google ID.
Step 2. Paste your search terms into the Word or phrase box. These should be anything you can think of that is related to your start up business model. Be creative. Sometimes even tangential ideas can be used. You may want to opt to show only ideas closely related to your search terms, if you have a very clear idea of what you want, or have a very specific product. Otherwise, to explore a general market space, keep this option unchecked.
Step 3. Run your query and evaluate the results. The first query will report broad results. To translate into actual search terms requires you to click on the 'Exact' under the Match Types on the left. Now you may have some useable data for your start up market sizing.
I like to check the results first to see if they are relevant. If tweaks need to be made then I may add or modify the search terms and rerun the query. Once I am happy with the broad representation, the analysis begins.
Step 4. Download all the keyword ideas as a CSV file. This will enable you to do some nifty sorting and ranking in Excel
Step 5. Once you have the CSV file opened in Excel, you should insert a new column in between the global monthly searches column and the first local searches column. Call this new column 'Score'.
What we want to do with this column is calculate a number that takes into account both competition for a keyword and the volume of traffic associated with it. We then want to be able to rank keywords according to this blended number. This will tell you a) what your start up might achieve in terms of traffic based on organic search terms and PPC b) give you an idea of the time and cost required for your start up to achieve that traffic level.
Step 6: Calculate your blended keyword score using the formula = 1/competition * traffic. Once this is done for one cell, you can copy it down the column to the rest of the worksheet.
Select all the data on the sheet by pressing CTRL Shift *, and go to Sort on the Data menu tab in Excel. Select to sort by Score, from highest to lowest.
Step 7. Highlight the keywords with the highest score that meet your start up's minimum traffic criteria as well as a maximum competition level, eg 0.01. Generally you want to choose keywords with search volumes ideally at least of at least 1,000 and competition of less than 0.01, and that are sufficiently specific to be meaningful to your customer base.
Step 8: Analysis by SEODmoz shows the traffic share of search results depending on position. If your start up reaches first position for a particular search term, you can expect over 40% of the traffic for the term to come to your site. If you achieve position 5, you can expect just 2% of the traffic. How do you know where you're going to end up? Well, the key thing to understand is that there is a correlation between the search results position that you achieve and the amount of cost that you incur to get there.
In the next post, I look at some considerations you have to take into account when using this method to size your start up's potential market.
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