Ok, so on to step two, which is a step a lot of people have trouble with needlessly. If you want to make money you must to DO GOOD KEYWORD RESEARCH. Your keywords affect sooooo many things from how often people will search for your site everyday, to how “valuable” your keyword is, to how high you can realistically (which I’ll talk about in step #3 ). There are a lot of tools out there, some free and some paid but all useful.
The way keyword research tools work is that they get a small bit of information on internet searches and extrapolate that into total searches on the internet. I personally use Wordze and this it is the best tool out there (Sometimes they give away free 30-day trials so sign up for my RSS and keep an eye out… I’ll let you know). Another useful FREE tool is Wordtracker.
What I will generally do is start with a very general one or two word term in Wordze. I search for my term using “broad search” and have a look down the list. Generally I target keyword sets that are 3 words and have 6,000-10,000ish searches per month (200-300ish per day). If a set of keywords look too weird to be true they probably are (If “parrot umbrella Sunday” is being searched 10,000 times a month something is probably fucked up). Secondly (because keyword tools are quit inaccurate) I use Wordtracker to verify my search volume for the topic (Note Wordtracker uses daily searches so look for 200-300ish).
**REVISED Aug 13, 2008 – One of the most important developments for SEO site makers happened when google put actual search data into it’s keyword tool. Now there is no need for these paid tools when you can get better, more accurate information here.
Ok so now you’ve found a decent keyword the last step is to check the value of your keyword using Keyword Enchanter’s CPC Tool. Who cares if you find the world greatest keyword, but it doesn’t have any affiliates and pays $0.05 per click. Don’t panic if your EXACT keyword has a high CPC, if related keywords (Keyword Enchanter shows them automatically). AdSense is the standard measure of the “value” of a keyword.
Anyway I’m away for the weekend so subscribe to my RSS feed so you get notified when I post up Step #3.
So I figured I’d do a post about something that really bugs me. I have 70 stumble friends and last time I went through and send them a post only 3 people gave my post a thumb up! When and of my stumble friends send me a website it not only gets stumbled, I comment on it in order to give them the greatest benefit possible.
I wont even start to get into the benefits of Stumble Upon, they are huge, but would take a far longer post than this to describe. The bottom line is if you’re not using it you are missing out on one of the biggest possible traffic sources on the internet.
Anyway I personally will be using this post to clear out my friends list. If you don’t like this post you’re not the type of friend I want anyway.
Every once in a while I suggest doing a post, with fairly widespread appeal, every once in a while and sending it to your full list. Look at everyone who gives it a “thumbs up”, and delete the rest. I’m personally considering using this post to do house cleaning on my list. Heck you can even copy this post and use it on your blog for all I care.
What I really want to do is share a few tips on being a good stumble friend:
1 – Thumbs up sites your friends send you **If you like it, but strongly consider it** (the basic do unto others what you would have them do unto you). It takes 5 seconds to gives a thumbs and is a big boost to your friends.
2 – Thumbs up your friends’ profile It benefits you both. The more people who like your friend the more value it has when your friend stumbles your posts. It’s a win-win.
3 – Stumble sites your friends have liked It’s as easy as clicking a button. Again this will benefit you and your friends if you all do it. They will more likely have their personal pages stumbled, and so will you. I don’t stumble random sites. I look through ones my friends have liked.
4 – Add people as friends who add you as a fan. I rarely personally add people as friends out of the blue anymore. If people add me as a fan, then I make them a friend, and will continue to do so until I hit my 200 limit. Take an interest in people who take an interest in you.
5 – When you thumbs up a post, leave a comment – When you comment on a post it gives more juice. All you have to do is as little as highlighting a piece of text from the article and use that.
*** If anyone has any more tips to being a good friend please leave a comment and add it to the list**
If everyone starts doing these thing it will add a great benefit to you and your friends alike.
If you think you may have bad stumble friends feel free to use this post. Just copy it to your blog and stumble it sending it to all your friends. Feel free to just copy it but please give me credit.
Your Stumble Friend,
DaMan
http://screwyougoogle.com
http://demerchant.stumbleupon.com/
