There are just a few guidelines to follow. They are very basic and probably what most marketers would consider conservative. As you become familiar with your niche, you may very well want to make your own personal adjustments.

You will be the one that has to set your guidelines for determining if your keyword is indeed a valid possibility. But remember, you are a beginner. You only want to "scratch the surface" right now and get some general guidelines as you search for niche with prospects.

What To Look For in Number of Searches -- You are looking to establish a minimum number of searches that would qualify the term for your list. For you as a beginner this number would probably hover around 100 searches per month. Since the results are listed in daily searches, this would require no less than 4 searches.

But what about the maximum? You can be fairly sure that if the search results are over 100 per day, the competition is fairly stiff. If you really like the keyword, go ahead and put it on your list.

What To Look For In Competing Sites -- Unlike the number of searches, this number is the maximum number of competitors present that would indicate that you might have a chance to move your ranking up toward the top.

It is important to look at your phrase in speech marks (quotation marks -- "  "). These tell the search engine to match the phrase exactly. Without these the search engine will look at individual phrases within the phrase. This very likely would undoubtedly change the entire results. It would reflect data that is not relevant to your topic.

Talk to one marketer and their number might be 20,000 to 40,000. Still other marketers use a 100,000 figure. That figure is fairly high for the beginner. However, remember, the final determination is made with the combined results -- searches in relationship to competition.