Keyword Research
Before I get too far into this little experiment, I’ll need to do some keyword research. Of course this comes from my search engine optimization (SEO) background but you don’t have to be an SEO to figure this stuff out. Obviously it will be a while before this site ranks for any search phrases that are even remotely competitive, but by doing due diligence now, I can make sure that when it does begin to rank, it will be for quality terms that will deliver a lot of quality traffic. Hence, keyword research. Now, as I mentioned in the welcome post, the idea behind this site is to get this blog to a place that it generates a full time income. Naturally terms like “make money” or “make money online” or “make money blogging” would be ideal, however, using Wordtracker I can quickly see that I’d be targeting phrases with a LOT of heavy competition.
This is a screen shot of the competition search feature of Wordtracker. The KEI score (keyword effectiveness index) takes into account the number of daily searches a term gets and the number of pages and sites competing for that phrase. As you can (hopefully) see from the image, the higher the score the better. Unfortunately the highest score for any of the 300+ words I searched was 16.379. Of course, when you have power players like John Chow targeting the same phrases, these results certainly aren’t unexpected. As just an interesting side note, Wordtracker puts John’s target phrase of “make money online” at 0.442. I guess that’s why he can call himself a dot com mogul.
Anyway, when you consider the fact that the scores range from 0 to 400+, that score of 16 suggests these terms probably aren’t terms I should expect to compete for yet. However, as I mentioned earlier, I won’t be expecting to see much search engine traffic for a while anyway. So, by laying a groundwork of posts and incoming links to this site, I’ll hopefully be able to compete for those terms once the blog is released from Google’s infamous sandbox. Also, I’ll be targeting other less popular phrases that have slightly less competition. Phrases like “make money blogging”, “earn money blogging”, and “earn money online” are all phrases I’ll likely target. However, as I said earlier, search traffic isn’t what’s going to get this blog up and running. Early on, I’ll be primarily focusing on generating traffic using the different blog networking sites, participating on other blogs, social media sites, and leveraging the blogosphere itself but that’s probably a post for another day.
If you’d like to take Wordtracker for a Free Spin, I’d love for you to do so via this affiliate link. Thanks!
Hey
Just thought I’d drop a line.
SU your site. I’m going to Rss to my YaHoo hm. page to see how you’re doing.
I was injured last year on a construction site and am not able to do that kind of work anymore. I’ve got a Myspace blog but havn’t done much with it. I’m studying SEO, affiliate marketing, blogging, ect.
I’m giving your site a thumbs ^
Best of luck!
Wayne
Wayne, thanks for stopping by! You should really check out the Making a Living in your Pajamas series that I link to in the Recommended Reading. it’s an amazing series and pretty much takes you step by step through the start up phase. Then check back in here to see what I’m up to as well as maybe subscribe to some of the other popular money makers as well.
Good luck to you and be sure to ask if you have any questions or I didn’t explain myself well in any of the articles.
As I’ve mentioned, I love your site. I’m using your advise to learn all I can about blogging. Great tips.
On this tip, I’ve tried out wordtracker, but I’m somewhat confused about what to do with the keyword information. There are two reasons for this:
1 – on a multifaceted blog, how do you decide what keywords to focus on?
2 – What do you do with the keywords in order to reap the benefits of choosing the right one?
I’ve searched around, and can’t find clear information. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Brad, that’s a good question. I’ll answer your second question first. After you find good keywords, you should then use them in the title and content of the page you’d like to rank for it. For example, if I wanted a post to rank for “blogging” I’d try to work that word into the title. Then you should try to get other sites to link to you with that word as the anchor text.
As for which terms you should focus on, that is really a difficult to say because it depends so much on your specific blog. If you had to give a few words to describe your site, chances are you should target those words or phrases. You also want to make sure those terms are searched for so you’ll get some traffic from your efforts. It’s a bit of a balancing act.
Thanks for the quick reply, Ben.
If you don’t mind, not meaning to take up your time, but could I get a little deeper input from you on my first question? To elaborate a little bit, the premise of my blog is to take some of this information overload (tv, books, magazines, blogs, podcasts, movies, ect) and (add to it i guess) write about how one takes that information and puts it into practice. Your blog is a great example of what I’m trying to do in that you encourage people to do that exact action.
Because my site isn’t just about one thing other than learning and practicing, I’m having trouble nailing down one are of keywords. Learning itself isn’t a good keyword. I’ve got posts about photography, sales, youth ministry, woodworking, home remodel, and mostly blogging.
Would you suggest seperating my catagories into seperate blogs? Or how could I keep this topics together (that would be my prefered option)?
I know you’re busy, and this is a little off topic, but that would be great. Thanks again.
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