Wednesday, August 20, 2008

What are Keywords and how should you use them?

At first, I had trouble getting a grip on the "keyword" concept. Here are some thoughts that help me deal with them, followed by a guest post on the subject. Please don't be offended, if this is all rather obvious to you.

Keywords can have a great impact on your blog visitor count, as we saw in the last post. But what is a keyword? It seems to be some magical device or incantation for attracting visitors to your blog. If you use keywords skillfully, they can bring you lots of traffic from people who seek what you are offering.

You can think of a keyword as a label that may or may not be explicitly spelled out. Visualize a keyword phrase as a way of distilling the essence of a web page into just a few words. Sometimes people do write keywords out as labels, in navigation links, in titles, or even as domain names. This is an excellent way to use them.

Another useful way to think about keywords involves search strategy. Keywords are phrases that a search engine focuses on to lead people to the web pages that are most likely to contain the content they seek. Here are some examples of keywords and keyword phrases: "blog," "money," "make money," "make money blogging."

When you search for these phrases, the search engines usually find an incredible number of web pages. What can you do with a list of 100,000 web pages? After the first few pages, many people just ignore the rest of the list. Therefore, if you want a search engine to help people find your web site, you need a high position on the list. Short keyword phrases usually produce longer lists of search results. Long phrases tend to be impractical and take more time to type. But a short, unique phrase that is easy to remember can give you advantages, including top position on the list!

Here are some search results for our example keyword phrases. (You may get different results, depending on your geographic location and when you search. Remember, the Web is dynamic and always changing.)



Keywords

blog

money

make money

make money blogging

make money blogging with Aaron

fulltiltblogging

Google hits

3,500,000,000 

1,300,000,000 

108,000,000 

25,300,000 


382,000 



3,550 

Yahoo hits

9,860,000,000

4,680,000,000

2,880,000,000

125,000,000


6,750,000



25,000



These searches provided some interesting results -- far too many! But notice the trend towards fewer hits when you use a more specific keyword phrase. This is useful. Both Google and Yahoo listed www.fulltiltblogging.com at the top of the list, when the search phrase was "make money blogging with Aaron" or "fulltiltblogging."

Yahoo displays an interesting real-time keyword phrase search, while you are typing the search terms in. Maybe you've noticed -- as you are typing, Yahoo comes up with new keyword phrases including the words you have already typed, and suggests them in a drop-down list. (This could be useful.) Yahoo Search narrows it down as you get more specific. Google suggests keyword phrases for alternative related searches after you hit Enter.

The keywords you select have an immediate financial impact on your business if you use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or Microsoft adCenter. Each time a visitor clicks on one of your sponsored links, you must pay the PPC provider!

So, how do you select the right keywords? And what is "page rank?" There are some powerful keyword tools available online for free. www.fulltiltblogging.com/keywords contains an excellent video that explains page rank and how to use these tools.

The following guest article talks about factors that Google uses to determine page rank (which is not the same thing as your position on the list):



How Many Keywords Per Page?
by Aaron Abber.

Alan Smith emailed to ask a question about his site http://www.armor-solutions.com/:



I have just watched your excellent video on keywords and Page Ranking, I had no idea! At present I am paying a fortune for Adwords and don’t seem to be getting much normal traffic, could you possibly take a look at my Site? How many keywords for instance should I have per page etc.?



Here’s the surprising answer:

“Target As Many As You Like”

Google looks at two things when it decides to rank one of your pages: On page factors and Off page factors.

For Alan’s site he probably has lots of keyword phrases he would like his main page to score highly for–”buy armored vehicle”, “armored vehicle”, “protective vehicle”, and probably a dozen or so more.

“He Can Change his On Page Factors Pretty Easily”

First he needs to pick his top 5 to 10 phrases and make sure they are placed on the page. If he can use them in text link navigation (the blue underlined part of the link), headline tags (<H2></H2>,<H3></H3>) and content, even better.

He should also create a longer, multi-keyword phrase enabled title for his main page (something like “Buy Armored Vehicles and Protective Vehicles for Executive Protection: Armor-Solutions).

This will take care of much of the “on page” factors. But on page factors are actually a small part of what Google looks at when deciding to rank a web page. The real key is…

“OFF Page Factors are the Key”

Google is an attention-whore, just like that unpopular kid in Junior High. Google has no opinion about your page, it just listens to what the cool kids are saying and repeats it to others.

Otherwise, Google looks around the web to see what other websites who link to you are saying about your page–taking note of how “popular” (in terms of Page Rank) those sites are.

“You Need Incoming Links”

Two things you need to do right now:

First, start putting up articles at EzineArticles.com using the exact keyword phrases you wish to score highly for as the beginning of the titles of the articles as well as in the text linking back to your site.

Second, put up a link section on your site where you can trade links with other websites–especially sites related to your market niche.

“Other Pages on Your Site”

Once you have the main page getting its due, next move to other pages on your site. Each product should have a page and you should use the same tactics for each product page: Optimize the “on page” factors then get incoming links (or create them from articles).

“Here’s the Easiest Way...”

The easiest way for anyone to get all this done is simple: Email me and have me do it for you–the keyword research, creation and posting of articles, setting up and getting link partners.

It will make you money.

“Tomorrow...”

Guaranteed Success for Your Next Promotion. You need to get here tomorrow and pick it up.


*********************

This is a guest post by Aaron Abber of FullTiltBlogging.com. I am a part of Aaron's mentoring program where he is teaching me and others how to make money blogging. Go visit the site now and grab his free report "How to Retire on 200 Visitors a Day".

About The Author:
Aaron Abber is the creator of FullTiltBlogging.com: "... a platform for regular people just like you to learn how to have fun, make friends and even make money from your blog." He has been active as a full-time internet business owner and online writer since 2001. Aaron has enjoyed outstanding success and has published a variety of articles, books and newsletters.

Original article:
"Google SEO Tips: How Many Keywords Per Page?" by Aaron Abber, first published: June 19, 2008. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Is Anybody Reading My Blog?

You can get the answer to this question with the help of Google Analytics. This is a sophisticated tool that provides aggregated information about your visitors, where they come from, and how they interact with your site. And by the way - Google Analytics is free.

The following guest article explains how it works:



Google Analytics
by Aaron Abber.

You already know your visitors are the life blood of your business. The more you know about them, the more you can target offers to them that will make you money.


One of the best tools for doing that is a free tool from Google called Google Analytics.


Once you sign up for Google Analytics you simply place a small piece of code on each of your web pages (this can be easily done in WordPress by simply modifying the footer) and from that point on Google watches every one of your visitors and gives you tons of stats.


What does Google Analytics tell you? This is a brief list.

  - Where your visitors came from

  - How long they stayed on your site

  - What keywords are being typed into what search engines to get to your site

  - How many pages and the exact pages your visitors visited

  - Whether they bought a product or not

  - How your PPC or other advertising campaign is performing

  - Whether someone joined your list and who sent them

  - What links people are clicking on your site

  - Hundreds of other things


The best way to get to know Google Analytics is to try it out for yourself. It’s free. It’s fast. It’s cool. What more can you ask for?



*********************

This is a guest post by Aaron Abber of FullTiltBlogging.com. I am a part of Aaron's mentoring program where he is teaching me and others how to make money blogging. Go visit the site now and grab his free report "How to Retire on 200 Visitors a Day".


About The Author:

Aaron Abber is the creator of FullTiltBlogging.com: "... a platform for regular people just like you to learn how to have fun, make friends and even make money from your blog." He has been active as a full-time internet business owner and online writer since 2001. Aaron has enjoyed outstanding success and has published a variety of articles, books and newsletters.


Original article:

"Tuesday Tool: Google Analytics" by Aaron Abber, first published: May 13, 2008. Reprinted with permission from the author.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

How Can You Possibly Make Money by Blogging?

There is an experienced Internet marketer named Aaron Abber who publishes a fascinating blog about "...cutting edge ways to profit from blogs." Among his stated goals is : teach people to make money from blogging. The how is not obvious, is it? You can read about his ideas at FullTiltBlogging.com

Here are some musings on the subject : Robin Good on the long tail, RG on AdSense and contextual advertising, Darren Rowse, Tristan Louis, RG on the best ways to make a profit on your blog, and The Washington Post .

Much of it seems to rely on archiving and the use of search engines. I will be looking into this business. Why? That is a philosophical issue...