Conducting Keyword Research
Note: DO NOT NEGLECT THIS STEP!
Too many readers skip the above portion and go straight to the ‘meat’. Trust me, YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. Keyword research is a very important part of getting traffic.
What makes you think the topic or product you've decided to promote has any chance of actually generating traffic? Furthermore, what makes you think that that there is even a market for your site or product? If your answer isn't “thorough, unambiguous research,” you should think twice before you attempt to get traffic.
The amount of traffic you can potentially receive will be directly related to the amount of people who are actually interested in your product or service. If your site is focused around an obscure, unpopular topic or niche, you can expect to get little or no traffic.
While it isn't impossible to promote such sites and receive targeted traffic, it is much, much harder than it would be for more popular topics. This is why it is crucial to laser target the right audience before you even building and promoting the site; however, if you already created your site, don't worry. You can still use these same methods. It may be a little harder, though.
So how do you conduct basic keyword research? What should you look for when selecting keywords? And how do you know when your results indicate a bad choice?
Your first goal in conducting keyword research should be to determine whether your there is a “good amount” of traffic for your keyword and for related keywords. Unfortunately, a “good amount” is completely subjective. I would personally suggest looking for base (or main) keywords that get a minimum of 80,000 searches per month according to Overture.
For example, let's say you decide to make your base keyword “sandwich” because you're going to start a business that teaches people how to make the best sandwiches they've ever eaten.
When you type “sandwich” into Overture's Inventory tool, you find out that “sandwich” was only searched for 46,032 times last month, which was lower than your “good amount” figure of 80,000 searches per month.
This means that you will want to look for something else. Perhaps you will decide to create a site about hamburgers instead. A quick test on Overture reveals that there are well over 80,000 searches for this keyword, so you decide to stick with it.
In addition to the results you received for hamburger, you find the following results for the related keyphrases:
13276 Hamburger Recipe
3404 Hamburger restaurant
2503 Hamburger Press
2076 Hamburger Marys
2052 Hamburger Helper
1673 Hamburger Hill
1536 Hamburger Meat Recipe
1362 Frozen Hamburgers
1112 Grilled Hamburger Recipe
1080 Hamburger Casserole
1077 White Castle Hamburgers
1020 Wendys Hamburger
These keyphrases, in addition to the other results
Optimizing for Natural Search Engine Traffic
There are two ways in which you can optimize your site for natural search engine traffic. In this section, we are only going to cover tweaking your “on page factors.” A good amount of the remaining report will discuss various “off page factors,” including linking campaigns.
On page optimization is relatively simple. It consists of two things: optimizing tags and optimizing content.
As far as tags go, you will want to use your targeted keyword in your title tag and in your header tags. You will also want to use it as your page extension. These three simple steps will tell search engines what your pages are all about; of course, you want them to be about the keywords you are targeting.
When creating title tags and page extensions, you will want to use the keyword only – and nothing else if possible. When creating header tags, you will want to use the keyword and some other words. Perhaps you can use the title of the page or article as the header.
Now, when it comes to optimizing the body of the page – or the “content,” you will want to put the keyword in question in the first and last paragraphs. You will also want to optimize at a rate of approximately 1.5% -- or 6 uses per 400 words.
There are a bunch of other little “on page” factors you can tweak, but for the purpose of this report, we will skip over them.
Optimizing Content for Your Site
Now, when it comes to actually getting the optimized content to put on your site, you can either create it yourself or purchase it from a ghostwriter. Borrowing articles from directories is a good way to provide more content for your visitors, but it won’t actually help your search engine rankings in reality.
How can you generate it yourself? Write 300-word articles for each of your selected keywords – or find some other type of suitable content that you could use instead.
For instance, in our hamburger site example, you could talk to everyone you know who grills and ask them for a hamburger recipe. You could then optimize each recipe for one of the keywords you have on your list.
If you're not up to the challenge of creating your content, it might be considerably easier to hire someone else to write all of it for you.
You can do this by finding ghostwriters who need jobs. One reasonably good marketplace for freelance writers can be found at the following URL: http://www.elance.com. Another option is http://www.guru.com.
You can find writers on these sites by opening a project publisher account and advertising a project for however many articles you need. You will want to set a budget and clearly state how many articles you need to completed. In general, a good 450 words article will cost you about $8-$10.
There is another easy way for you to get good quality writers: Students. There are many students who are good in writing and they would want to make a few quick bucks just by writing. The students don’t really mind spending one evening writing 20 articles for even as low as $4 each for a 500 words article. Check it out with your local education institutions.
When you select someone to write your project for you, don't forget to check that person's portfolio and feedback thoroughly. A good amount of ghostwriters write borderline plagiarized content and try to pass it off as completely original.
Additionally, select a writer who is selling his/her writing for a reasonable amount of money. Those who are offering extremely low bids on the project more than likely will do a sloppy job, will borrow content, or will use a “content mixer” to disguise theft and plagiarism.
Conversely, those who are asking an unreasonably high price usually aren't even worth it. You may find that those offering reasonable, mid-range prices will actually produce content that is just as good for considerably
less.
Now, with this being said, there is one other way in which you can generate original content without writing it yourself or without paying someone else to do it – and that is to create a “revenue-sharing” deal with a partner.
You can do this by contacting a writer and asking him/her if he/she is willing to accept a portion of the profits you generate, rather than direct payment. If you plan to do this, though, you will want to make sure that you are actually going to generate a return on your articles. The writer's responsibility is to do a good job; and yours is to market it properly to ensure that both of you actually end up getting paid for the work you have done.
Once your site is receiving traffic, there are a number of methods you can build-in that will generate traffic for
free; however, we will cover those later in the report, not now.
Getting Indexed By Search Engines
You now have a functional website with useful content. The next step is getting the search engines to actually find and index your site. Without this step, you could have a massive site filled with excellent content – and it wouldn't matter.
So how can you get indexed by search engines quickly?
The fastest way to get indexed by search engines is to get a direct link to your site on a high page rank authority site. Next time the authority site gets spidered – provided that the page your link is on does not use “no follow” tags – the search engines spidering it will follow the link to your site and index it.
You're probably thinking “great, but how the heck do I get a link on an authority site?” It's actually pretty easy.
One easy way to get your link on a high page rank authority site is to use http://www.craigslist.com. Go to the San Francisco Bay Craigslist and then select “classified ads.” Under classified ads, find a section related to your product or site, and then post an advertisement. You probably won’t get a lot of traffic, but you will get indexed, provided that you pay attention to the Craigslist rules and do not spam.
Another good way to get on an authority site is to post your link as a resource on http://www.wikipedia.org.
This is a human-edited encyclopedia, which you can even edit. All you have to do is create an account and add your link in a relevant section. If you created a clean, high-quality site, your link will more than likely stay in Wikipedia.
Again, while this might not get you traffic – at least not immediately – it will get you indexed in the search engines quickly, which is a must if you want to be able to generate 100+ unique visits per day in a mere 3 weeks.
What should you include in your link?
