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How to Choose the Right Keyword Using Keyword Effectiveness Index Formula (KEI)
By Jon | November 4, 2008
One way to analyze a keyword competition is using is KEI or Keyword Effectiveness Formula. This is a simple formula to give you an overview of the competition using the data gathered from Google Keyword Tool and Google Search Engine.
Here’s the formula:
KEI = gsr /gsc
gsc = Google Search Count
gsr = Google Search Result
Google Search Count is derived from Google Keyword Tool. Just type in your keyword and get the value of Approx Avg. Search Volume. This is the estimated searches made for that particular keyword.
While, Google Search Result is derived from www.google.com website. Search your keyword and get the number of the search results at the upper right hand corner.
The higher the KEI the better it is to target.
For example, if you’re building a website that’s about “dog training”, you can search Google Keyword Tool and Google.com website to get the following values:
| Keyword | Google Search Count | Google Search Results | KEI |
| dog obedience training | 60,500 | 3,330,000 | 0.018168168 |
| dog training tricks | 2,400 | 374,000 | 0.006417112 |
| dog agility training | 14,800 | 2,880,000 | 0.005138889 |
With these results “dog obedience training” is a better candidate
Though Keyword Effectiveness Index Formula is a good way to measure the competition, this is not the end all be all. This should be accompanied by other analysis like using Google operator (e.g. allintitle, allinurl, etc.), unique selling proposition, website authority, and other ways to identify the quality of competing websites.
Topics: Keyword Analysis | 7 Comments »
November 19th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Hi,
i am sujeet nad your formula is wrong
KEI = gsr /gsc
gsc = 60,500
gsr = 3,330,000
KEI = gsr /gsc
KEI=3,330,000/60500
=55.0413223
Reply ASAP
Thanks
Sujeet Yadav
November 25th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
From the wordtracker site: http://www.wordtracker.com/database_help/keihelp.html
Austin.
November 29th, 2008 at 5:06 am
THanx buddy for the explaination…
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 am
KEI is very important
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I’m curious where you got that version of the KEI formula. It should be “Daily Search Counts” squared, divided by “Rank”. Google’s Keyword Tool calculates per month, so divide by 30 or 31. Sujeet isn’t right either, actually, he’s way off. Whether it’s daily or monthly searches, it’s important that you give more weight to the count by squaring it.
As noted in a thread above, read this:
http://www.wordtracker.com/database_help/keihelp.html
dgsc = 60,500/30 = 2017 daily google search count
gsr = 3,330,000
KEI = dgsc*dgsc /gsc
KEI = 2017*2017/3,330,000
KEI = 1.2217
This is the actual formula for KEI…
KEI = (P^2/C), i.e. KEI is the square of the popularity of the keyword and divided by its competitiveness.
Peter
May 16th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I am not doing this formulation every time.
i will stick with wordtracker for KEI effectiveness.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
There is little or no value to KEI especially as the competitiveness of the term increases.
You can have a term with a pretty good KEI but if there are millions of competing pages it will still be very difficult to rank for that term.
When you get right down to it the only thing that really matters is the first page of results for whatever term you are considering.
If the first 10 are powerhouses it makes no difference what the KEI may be.
Your position in the SERPS will be just before the weakest page you can beat and if that is not on the first page you will not get more than a trickle of traffic if you get any at all.
Your time will be better spent learning how to analyze the strength of the top pages in the SERPS to determine the competitiveness of a particular search term.