Is it picking keywords with a certain minimum KEI? How about a minimum number of searches per day? Or maybe a long-tail phrase with at least 3 keywords in it?

Well, I hate to burst your bubble but none of those kind of measurements are going to tell you what keywords are going to make you the most money.

They might give you an idea of how much traffic you can generate, but all the traffic in the world won't do you an ounce of good if it doesn't convert.

What is the ultimate keyword list, anyway? Is it the keywords that will bring you the most traffic or the keywords that will make you the most money?

I know which of those two it is for me.

The vast majority of the information I see about picking your keywords is all about getting the most traffic. Most people who struggle with generating keywords are looking at it this way as well.

But why would you spend time and most likely money building a website to target a list of keywords that you don't even know will convert?

So are you ready for the big secret?

Before you start really building your site and promoting the heck out of your keyword list, you should test them to see which ones convert the best.

That means sending fast traffic to them to see what kind of results you'll get. Yes, it's probably going to cost you some money - pay per click advertising is one of the fastest ways to test.

But there's just no substitute for cold hard data. And that's what you'll have when you're done with the initial testing.

If you start with 50 keywords and find that 5 of them convert like crazy, 10 convert okay and the other 35 don't convert at all, which ones are you going to focus on?

I hope you said first the 5 and then the 10…

Quit using the scattergun approach and hoping for the best. If you start testing your keywords before you start trying to get ranked in the search engines, you'll know which keywords really matter and which ones to focus on.

Bottom line - you'll make more money in less time.