SEO Tips for Bloggers: Brilliant Keyword Strategy
Posted on 16. Apr, 2010 by brilliantjeni in Affiliate Marketing Tips, Traffic Generation
Brilliantjeni’s Big Bang Theory.
This is a bit of an advanced blogging strategy, integrating a keyword hierarchy strategy for optimal, long term SEO success. If applied correctly, & combined with proper, ethical backlinking tactics, this strategy can ultimately place you in the position to take over any major keyword phrase, regardless of competition.
The good news is, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is relatively easy and you don’t need to be an SEO blogging master to reach #1 in the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Page) for even highly competitive keyword phrases. In fact, blogging with WordPress alone has already given you an advantage since many SEO features come integrated. I’ll be honest, I don’t go overboard with my SEO tactics. Instead, I tend to stick to a few tried and true long-term strategies that result in consistent, repeat traffic that increases over time with little additional effort. The first of these strategies is keyword research and implementation… a strategy my peers have collectively nicknamed my big bang theory.
First step…
Do your keyword research. Choosing the right keywords can make or break your blogging efforts. Most bloggers know this but surprisingly, the majority of bloggers I coach, (both beginners and experienced bloggers) don’t know that how you apply those keywords can also make a huge difference in your blog’s traffic.
There are a number of keyword research tools available these days (you youngsters… I remember back in the day when we didn’t have anything other than Yahoo’s advertising keyword tool, which quite frankly sucked for this purpose.) I know bloggers who are happy with Market Samarai, however I prefer Micro Niche Finder by James J. Jones. Not only does it allow you to easily research keyword trends but also features stats for estimating per click earnings, commercial opportunity value, etc. While these stats can fluctuate, it’s still helpful to decide if you’d rather target “Kimora Lee New Baby” which estimates $.60 per click or “Kimora Lee Simmons New Baby” which estimates $2.00 per click. Nice huh? As I said, these stats can fluctuate, but if you’ve been blogging about something for long period of time, these stats can help you know your keyword phrases inside and out, giving you an edge over the competition in the long run.
If you’re not ready to pull out your credit card and buy your keyword research software, there are other options. Google AdWords (which, by the way, is where MNF pulls data to formulate its stats) and SEO Book’s Keyword Research Tool, for example.
Implementing keyword research:
1. Learn to identify the right keywords. Let’s say there are 50k monthly searches for the phrase, “Kimora Lee New Baby.” Now let’s say, as an example, that there are next to no searches for “Kimora Lee Simmons New Baby.” You are better off writing your post to target the keyword phrase “Kimora Lee New Baby.” It should go without saying that if you’re writing about this topic, you would NOT want to write “KL’s New Baby” since chances are, no one is specifically searching for those words. This is an easy example, but believe me when I say, I talk to dozens of bloggers every month who are writing the equivalent of “KL’s New Baby” when going for “Kimora Lee New Baby” as their keyword target.
2. Make a list of your targeted keyword phrases. Main reasons for doing this: A: You can track these over time, (I keeping date-titled exported excel sheets from MNF.) Sometimes it’s helpful to be able to review keyword stats over time, to see if spikes in traffic are permanent or temporary. Afterall, maybe the 50k monthly reader stats for “Kimora Lee New Baby” was only the result of an E News Special last month. It’s also helpful to see when trends are shifting- maybe “Kimora New Baby” is rising in stats and about to takeover “Kimora Lee New Baby.” Love it when this happens- Time to place yourself in position for #1 before anyone else even knows what’s going on. B: It’s easy to refer to your list of targeted keywords for the following tactics.
3. Take that list of keywords, and create a category for each in your blog. With similar keyword phrases, select the most highly searched phrase rather than listing all.
4. Write one post for each keyword in your list (go ahead and save the post’s url in your keyword list- you’ll need that shortly.) We’ll call these pillar articles. Drop each one in the appropriate Category, or multiple categories if appropriate. Title it exactly as it reads in the list- even if you have multiple keywords that are closely related. Schedule these to be published sporadically to avoid “Kimora Lee New Baby” being published right after “Kimora Lee’s New Baby.” I will actually create an empty post, with just the title and All in One SEO filled out to get the ball rolling. I go back later and write the actual article. We all know Google loves fresh content and this includes updates- I really believe updated pages score well with Google so this also helps to raise your blog in the SERPs for these phrases. NOTE: From this point on, your goal is to get each of these pillar articles to rank #1 for their keyword phrase.
5. Interlink your blog’s pages to push your pillar articles to #1. To date, I haven’t come across a plugin that does this exactly as I’d prefer (I’m harassing Jarret Cade, code genius & all around good guy, to come out with this) but KB Linker comes close. Take your keyword list and add these to KB Linker, making each of the list’s pillar articles the url link. Now, each time you use these keywords in a post, they will automatically link to the appropriate pillar article.
6. Supporting articles. Your pillar articles are set to go- now it’s time for all those other posts, which we’ll call supporting articles. Supporting articles are not named exactly as the keyword phrases, but instead, are named preferably with the same keywords as the pillar articles but titled differently. Example: “Kimora Lee’s New Baby Named Cutest Baby of the Year by E!” All keywords are in that post, now the related keywords from your list are used within the article and automatically (ty KB Linker) pointed to the pillar article, helping it to raise in the SERP’s.
7. File your supporting and pillar articles under the appropriate categories. Remember your categories and Pillar articles will have the same names. Category pages, Tags, etc, should all be made up of words from your keyword list. Remember, when a category is created, it is its own page- giving you yet another page with the appropriate keyword phrase in the title. Since this page also contains links to your pillar page, this is just an example of how well your site will now be interlinked. In actuality, it is creating what I call a pyramid strategy, with the pillar articles at the tip of the pyramid for each keyword.
This is just a starting point for SEO’ing your blog. From here, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of ways to maximize your SEO efforts efficiently. Really, this allows you to both divide and focus: Divide, meaning you can go for dozens of keywords easily and hundreds or even thousands potentially. Focus, meaning you are not SEO’ing each and every page on your site, but rather only the pillar articles.
I realize this is a bit of a pretzel strategy. Believe me when I say I could have made it more complicated 
If this is at all confusing for you, especially if you’re a beginning blogger, by all means feel free to ask for clarification. If you’ve got it down and want to hear more… stay tuned- I’ll cover backlinking for this in the next post. Happy blogging!
Related posts:
- SEO Tips for Bloggers: Brilliant Blog Linking Strategy Part 1
- SEO Basics for Bloggers
- Paid Inclusion, PPC, or SEO for Bloggers
- Keyword And Internet Marketing Tools
- Keywords and SEO
271 Responses to “SEO Tips for Bloggers: Brilliant Keyword Strategy”
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April 16, 2010
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May 11, 2010
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A great resource of quite valueable tips and techniques. Thank you for sharing and taking the time. BRILLIANT … uummm … Jeni.
Why, thank you Seth- good to see you here! I’m wondering if you’ll be the first commenter for each post here now.
Great resource here. Now I have a place to point my clients for a very practical tutorial! Thanks for your efforts.
BTW, I get a chuckle out of the “business woman on a chair” image. So good to have the description or I might have missed it.
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #9 Join a Forum and Start Participating
I’m glad you found it useful and hope your clients do as well. A lot of my long term readers are still rather new to blogging so I tend to repeat this strategy a lot. I’ll be keeping this url handy myself and update it now and then.
I was reading your blog- love the “31 Days to a Better Blog” journal! I’ll be sending people your way myself- great stuff there!
Oh man, I didn’t even notice the tag on the bottom of that post- what a crack up. You know, I’m still waiting for the “ideal” photo plugin but in the meantime, maybe I should just add my own ridiculous tags to the bottoms of these. “Business lady sitting in the RBT waiting room.” Ya, there we go!
You removed the tag! How sad!
Thanks for the kind words.
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..Embrace Life
Forest and I are working on a few things here- after formatting is fixed, I’ll change the pics tag to “Not Alison Moore Smith” – how’s that?
Obviously, brilliant.
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..Embrace Life
Oh no- you just called Jarret a good guy. He’ll never speak to you again, now…
*lol* NOW I understand your pillar article strategy! Makes a lot of sense now that I get it.
WordVixen´s last blog ..It Must Be The Water…
Geez, too late now I suppose. Maybe I can throw him off by posting 100 lines of code with a few errors in it. He’ll be too busy fixing the code to notice anything else I wrote!
Great tips! I have been asked about this recently and was going to write a post about the same topic. I feel like you have a lot of fantastic ideas, many of which I was going to recommend myself, keep up the good work!
Jimvesting´s last blog ..Blogengage.com Goes Nanners – What NOT to Do to Increase Traffic
Always good to have more tips- if you write the post, by all means come back and post a link.
Hello Jeni,
This is a really educative article, i even had to note some points down. You made SEO’ing look very easy and put in plain english all the complicated stuff. well done
From what i read here i would say my new blog sucks at SEO’ing, i wish i read something like this before setting it up about two months ago.
Would you take a look at my blog please and suggest what i can do to remedy it. I am targeting workathome,home business online,home based business ideas, my main keyword being work at home business. I choose these keywords because they have low supply (current pages for it) There are alot of things written about On-page SEO’ing that the SEO novice like me isn’t sure which is workable. I mean i read somewhere that starting a new blog you should target less competative keywords, but also write on the very competative related keywords, the strategy is that you easily rank for the less competative keywords so that brings people to your site but as they get to your site they see the very competative keywords and click through to them. But while i’m using that strategy i realize i havent done it right.
Please i need advice, i really want search engine traffic, it’s invaluable.
My question about this strategy you discussed are: how many pillar articles is it advicable to start with?have in mind that since you suggest we choose the exact keyword for the pillar articles as the category, it means if you suggest 10 pillar articles, you also mean 10 categories. And how many supporting articles are also expected? And after that what next?
Are you saying we can target several keywords at a time?
And how many articles can one has on a blog before expecting to rank on google? How long after setting up a blog can one get ranked on google?
I’m sorry i’m asking so many questions but please i need these clarifications so i know what to do when setting up my next blog
Happy to help Karo.
First, let me ask you a few questions-
Do you have Google Analytics, Woopra, or something similar on the site yet? Also, what kind of traffic are you seeing now?
What do you mean by “I choose these keywords because they have low supply” – I think you are saying that there is low competition but I want to be sure. If this is the case, I’ll assume you’ve done some keyword research already- which keyword tool did you use for this?
Now, as far as following the advice to go for lower traffic keywords… they’re right to some extent. Personally, I will still go after the number 1 keyword phrase I want, regardless of competition, but I will ALSO go after the smaller options. The reason being, you want your site to eventually rank for #1 for the high competition keyword right? So it’s best if you lay the foundation for that now and slowly work your way up the SERPs while simultaneously reaping more traffic from the lower competition keywords.
How to:
1. Go ahead and add the big daddy keywords you want as long term goals to your keyword list. Implement them now, just as you would any other keyword in your list (ie, make a pillar article for them, a category for them, etc.)
2. Once you have your initial pillar articles ready, go ahead and start those supporting articles for the low dog keywords. ie., don’t focus all your time publishing dozens of supporting articles for the big daddy pillar article at this time. Instead, publish supporting articles for the low dog pillar articles. Make sure all of these supporting articles still use the big daddy keywords whenever appropriate.
Now regarding your keywords- you def need to review your keywords again. Some appear to have less than 100 searches a month which will bring you… well not much. The good news is, you’ve got some great keywords to work with. I would basically start by keyword researching using your (highly keyword rich- good job) domain name.
Make your list of targeted keywords. Organize them by global (not local) search volume. Long term keyword goals will be at the top of the list with the highest search volume. Short term keyword goals will be at the bottom. You will focus on publishing more supporting articles for the bottom of the list and up. As you dominate each of the lower traffic keywords, you’ll move up the list, publishing more supporting articles for the higher traffic keywords until you’ve dominated all.
Taking a look at your keyword options. You have a lot of options so here are just a few. My big daddy keywords, tend to have 50k in search volume or more. Just as examples though, we’ll start with “Work at home business” which has around 15k – not bad. Even better, it has quite a few related phrases with low competition- lots of opportunity there. It does have over 850 in competition though so that would be more of a long term keyword goal. Related phrases with lower competition would obviously be your short term keyword goals. “Online home business” has about the same numbers but half the competition. “Making money from home” & “best home based business” 25k traffic, and doable competition. You could easily “own” those before too long. “Work at home internet business” would be an immediate keyword goal. 2400 traffic, low to no, competition. Combined with similar keyword goals, you would see an increase in traffic rather quickly.
If any of this isn’t clear, just let me know. Like I said in my post though, you really don’t have to be an SEO master to dominate the SERPs. Select the right keywords & they’ll work for you, cutting your work in half so you can focus on the quality of your content rather than just pleasing the search engines.
I’m trying to follow you through this example and I’m completely lost. Maybe you can help? Using the Google Adwords tool, I search for “work at home business” (with quotes and without — same result). The closet result I get is “a work at home business” with 720 global monthly searches.
I can’t find this search phrase in the results and I can’t find anything like those numbers. Also, can’t see where the “competition” number you’re getting comes from (google just has a bar). I realize you might be using MNF or something, but I’m Mac and can’t use those tools.
Could you give some insight as to how to locate this particular info in the google tool?
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..Embrace Life
Just left the adwords site and came back and have a different result. Must have had on some filter or moved to a deeper level in the search. So hwere are my results now:
Work at home business = 135,000 monthly
All of the top 100 terms show the highest competition (in the bar).
The WordTracker tool shows about 6,000 monthly google searches.
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..Embrace Life
Definitely sounds like you had a glitch in adwords there. Glad it cleared itself up.
I’m using MNF- it does work with MAC, in case you want to pick it up. I can promise you it’s worth the investment many many many times over.
If it sounds too complicated, or even if you just have additional questions, feel free to leave them here or grab me on skype- brilliantjeni there too.
Yea, it works on Mac, but only with emulation software. I have it, but don’t like to use it. (Look at the bottom of the offer page to see the apple logo crossed out.)
So I’m trying to follow this example using AdWords.
When you say “competition” you are giving a number, which AdWords doesn’t give (unfortunately). They just have a bar graph. So when YOU use the term, are you referring to the number of indexed pages for a particular term? (Which could be found by googling the term and seeing the number of results.) If so, what ratio do you see as a reasonable amount of competition to be “doable”?
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #10 Set Up ‘Alerts’ to Monitor What is Happening in Your Niche
Yes, I was referring to specific numbers Micro Niche Finder comes up with; 1. Exact phrase count and 2. SOC (strength of competition.) Exact phrase count is what you are seeing in AdWords. the SOC is the number of sites actually SEO’d for the phrase- ie. your real competition. The SOC is formulated by MNF and unfortunately, isn’t offered by AdWords.
As for a doable number… I don’t care how high the competition is to be honest. I stick to my keyword pyramid strategy and go for big daddy keywords while making money from the little ones along the way.
Right now, my busiest site is #1 (and #2, #3, #4…) for a phrase with 90k monthly searches, and millions in competition, including Amazon. I’m telling you, there is absolutely no reason you cannot rank #1 in the long run while seeing a great deal of success from the short term goal keywords along the way.
I can say however, that I personally would not bother going for a keyword at the top of my pyramid if it didn’t have more than 20k monthly searches. MAYBE 10k if it had similar keywords with high searches as well. Ideally, I’d rather go for a phrase with 100k+ combined keyword searches.
I also include in my general keyword list ALL keyword phrases searched for, even if they only have 30 monthly searches. Trends change and one of those phrases could just be mentioned on TV (I’ve had this happen many times) and you want to be #1 for that phrase if it does!
Wow! Jeni, i envy you. My wish for now is to just rank for the low search keyword in my niche but 90k? that’s something. To be realistic this numbers are quite much for a newbie. If a newbie doesn’t start seeing some results in a short time, they tend to want to quit. I guess that’s why some adviced that they go for a keyword with very low competition at the beginning, when they rank for it, it boosts their morals and encourages them greatly.So my advice for beginners will still be to start small but finish big
Just to be sure you understand what my strategy does…
It sets the foundation for you to EVENTUALLY take on the high traffic keywords WHILE making you money from the lower traffic keywords.
That’s why I call it my pyramid strategy. High traffic keywords are at the top of the pyramid. Low traffic keywords lead up to it, and you dominate them as you climb the pyramid before going for the big daddys.
My mistake- my main keyword for that site is at 246k searches, not 90k. That was local, not global.
Thanks so much for your reply Brillantjeni and by the way i think your nickname suits you well. I was really looking forward to this response, didn’t really expect you’ll take time to give details, i really appreciate
No i don’t currently use Google Analytics, Woopra, or something similar on my site, are they free to use? because i’m on a budget. If they are, how do i go about using them?. My traffic yesterday was 11 visitors
And yea i meant i choose those keywords because they have low competition. I made the mistake of buying my domain name before doing my research, and when i did, i realized work at home business has a high competition so it become a long term goal for me. I used the free google keyword research tool so if you used a paid one, i’m sure our datas will be different because my research showed some reasonable competition for the low keywords i chosed and i checked the competition on google
Thanks for your advice on the keywords but you know the site is already running for about two months, meaning i already have some articles on it, if i change my keywords now, it means it will probably be difficult to rank for them since my earlier articles doesn’t promote those keywords. And if i work on ranking for ‘work at home internet business’ the keyword doesn’t completely reflect in my domain, or doesn’t it matter?
And since i already have articles on the site, if i change my keywords now, what do i do to rank for them?
Ofcourse i understand all you said, i’ve buying reading about SEO for sometime now, just having gotten it right
Please get back to me, thanks a zillion! lol(if there’s any word like that)
Oh please can you tell me why Commentluv doesn’t display my recent post when i comment? It keeps showing ‘No last blog posts to return’ when as a matter of fact i just made a post there now
Well to be honest, I absolutely love talking blog and especially when it means helping others reach their blogging goals. I’m just that kind of geek
Google Analytics is free and very reliable, trustworthy. Grab a GA wordpress plugin (there are a few to choose from these days) and give it a try.
Woopra is great and offers live stats which I love. They do charge now though.
The data I get from MNF is based on Google Adwords stats, but it’s just formulated to give additional stats that are useful. If you can’t afford this at the moment, it’s really not problem- just a bit more basic stats you’ll be working with but doable.
Your domain name actually is 100% keyword rich so you’re good there. The only way it could have been better, is by being in a highly searched order. You did well.
No need to change past articles to rank for different keywords. In fact, get used to changing your path by focusing on new article keywords- you’ll need to do that periodically for the life of your blog. Simply start writing with your new targets in mind, as I described above and you’re on your way.
Also, a 2 month old blog is still an infant- you are still laying the foundations so you are really ahead of the game by perfecting your strategy now. Most bloggers don’t figure these things out until 6 months or even a year down the road.
Commentluv issue- there are a few things to check for this: http://comluv.com/news/what-to-do-if-commentluv-is-not-showing-the-latest-post
If this doesn’t help, let me know and I’ll grab Andy and see what he suggests.
Karo, I replied to this message and I believe you may have read it but I just noticed it’s missing for some reason!
Let me know if you didn’t get a chance to see it and I’ll respond again.
Hello, i didn’t get the chance to read it. How could that have happened? i mean the missing message. Please post it again. Thanks
I’ve been thinking of something and not sure what to do. You said we should fill our categories with keywords we want to rank for, then create pillar articles and supporting articles for them. We know that we can’t ofcourse put all the keywords we want to rank for on our categories, simply because some are so similiar that it could be used interchangably, example would be ‘work at home business’ and work at home internet business. I already have a category for work at home business which is a long term keyword goal but one of my short term keyword goals is ‘work at home internet business’ how do i go about ranking for the short term keyword? Do i just build anchor text links for it or there is something more i should do?
In a sentence, how do we rank for those keywords that we can’t have in our categories?
Remember that your categories will consist of the highest traffic version of the similar keyword phrases. If you have 10 or 20 keyword phrases that are all extremely close to the same words, you would choose the highest traffic’d one to be your category name. You then write a pillar article for each of them (and I mean ALL) and file them under that category name.
Example:
Home based business – 201k searches
Home based businesses – 27k
Home businesses – 4k
etc.
etc.
etc.
Say you have a list of 20 similar phrases like this. Create a pillar article for each but name your category Home Based Business (201k) and file all the others under that category.
I hope that’s more clear than how I wrote it in the post and my previous response to you. I read back through it and it is a bit of a pretzel strategy.
Yes it is now, thanks so much. Just one more point for clarification, you mean we shouldn’t be afraid to go for the biggest keywords in our niche, even if the competition is 500m plus? because the example you gave of home based business has 201k searches, but 6,770,000 competiton. Though i believe i understand what you mean, even when we use the biggest keywords as categories we are not really targeting it now, we’re just setting the pace for the future, right?
Well really you’re not going for that keyword YET. You’re setting the foundation to rank for it later. At the same time, you are targeting smaller keywords to bring in the traffic in the meantime. Does that make more sense?
Wow Jeni, it never gets clearer in a first read, i just came around to check out follow up replies and read this reply and realize i didn’t quite understand like that before. I have always wondered what you meant when you said the smaller keywords will be the main target for now while the big daddy keywords are just a preparation for the future.
Well now i do. But what bothers me is that wouldn’t it seem like duplication of content if i create articles on similar keywords because i’ll almost be saying the same thing over and over again maybe just in different english. Example Home based businesses verses Home businesses . An article that would fit under both will be similar. Would that be providing value? Because i’m sure i’ll get like 5 different keywords but that are so similar like the example above, which means i’ll have to keep repeating myself. Please clear this up. Thanks
Very informative. Now that Micro Niche Finder hit 5.0, it’s phenomenal.
Frank´s last blog ..Life of a product developer
I can honestly say using Micro Niche Finder is the backbone for my keyword strategies and I’d be lost without it. If MNF could cook, I’d marry it.
Jeni what an awesome post to start with. We have discussed this technique a few times and to have it written down is great for me as I am sure it is for all readers.
I have not tried KB linker yet but I will do now until Jarret gets off his ar*e and sorts a better one out
Forest@Frugal Living´s last blog ..A Helping Hand For Fellow Yakezie Members
Talking to Jarret now about this. You know, we could keep him really busy just customizing plugins to make us happy!
I haven’t been using KB linker too long- Chris Yates, (http://cmyatesnews.com) an investing whiz & blogging prodigy I’ve coached, shared it with me after he put it to use with my keyword strategy. There are a few similar plugins out there but I’d definitely say this is the best one so far.
You mention support articles. Are you talking about publishing those elsewhere or on the blog o both? At some point, you have to have a link building strategy unless your targeting very, very low volume keywords.
I’m not new to blogging, but the above is my new project. I suggest people give themselves 1-year to 18-months before expecting good results. I see so many people think this is get rich quick and then quit when it doesn’t come overnight.
I use both Market Samurai and Micro Niche Finder. Both are committed to life-time upgrades and you can’t beat that. :O)
Chris M Duncan@Article Marketing For Adsense´s last blog ..Article Marketing for Adsense — Part I
Not to worry, I’ll be covering backlinking in the next post followed by other SEO related tactics. All go hand in hand with this first step; keyword strategy.
To answer your question:
Pillar articles and support articles are all posted on the same blog. To your readers, there won’t be any obvious difference. Pillar articles are the posts you want to rank #1 for the keyword it’s titled after. Support articles are “additional information” on that topic and link TO the appropriate pillar article(s) via anchor links in the posts themselves. This is designed to tell the search engines which page you are voting for as #1 for that keyword phrase. It also points your readers in the right direction since you’ll later focus additional features into your pillar posts, like unique ad placement, mail opt-in, etc. I’ll get into these as more advanced tactics however.
I have to agree with you on the average time frame for new bloggers. The majority test it out for a few months and decide it’s not what they thought, or it just doesn’t suit their needs. The reality is, blogging is hard work… at least when you’re getting started. The first 6 months had me working 18 hours a day, bruised wrists wrapped in ace bandages and downing Advil to get rid of monitor glare headaches. No joke. Most bloggers don’t have that kind of time, nor are they lame enough to put themselves through that kind of physical pain, so I’d say 1 year to 18 months isn’t a bad target at all.
Wow, very comprehensive list of useful info and tips. I love reading this stuff! Thanks Jeni.
Till then,
Jean
Glad it makes sense Tires! I left out quite a few “advanced strategies” I use for this because I didn’t want to make it too complicated. It’s a good start as is, but quite a few “extras” I’ll be happy to share later.
Yea, you’re right. Probably better to start off a bit light and then get into the heavy stuff as you go on.
Till then,
Jean
Do you notice that this site puts the date of the OP on all the comments? Is that by design?
Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #9 Join a Forum and Start Participating
I had just noticed that myself. I’ll grab Forest and Jarret and have them peek at the code. Takes me days to fix code- takes them 5 minutes! lol
Yup and if your not site is not so competitive try to optimize long tailed keyword
Cheat Codes´s last blog ..Free Download YoVille Cheat Engine
Absolutely agree with you! The longer the tail, the less the competition and the easier they are for short term goals.
As google says keywords are not important for seo. But I can not beleive that. All big sites use it now.
evdeneve´s last blog ..Evden eve nakliyat fiyatları
That’s interesting- I’ve never heard of Google saying keywords weren’t important for seo. In fact, I have an assigned account manager from Google and know otherwise. Google NEEDS us to use efficient keyword strategies so at the VERY LEAST, they can serve search engine users better results for queries. Can you imagine searching for “Latest iPhone News” and getting 1 million results for dog websites? Not to mention, it wouldn’t be in Google AdSense’s best interest, since keyword factors determine the types of ads that are served to sites. As we all know, the CTR’s for a site serving ads not related to their topic, well, they suck.
I have a feeling evdeneve was actually referring to the meta keywords tag. It is true that Google does not use the keywords meta tag for ranking websites. That is far from the only place to use keywords though. You need to interweave keywords everywhere on your site to make it obvious to the search engines which keywords you should be relevant for.
This information is so amazing.! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. O.K. so I have to admit that I have been working hard at trying to drive traffic and I think that part of my problem has been the fear of tackling the big keywords. I now know that I can take my blog and go after the big boys and girls. So thank you. My big question of the day is how many keywords are good to target? Is there a limit or a point at were you are diluting your efforts by having too many and is there a point at which you are losing rank because you have too few? What have you found to be the magic number of keywords to target per blog?
Thanks Brilliant One
I have yet to find a keyword list that is too long. Like I said in a recent comment for Karo- I even go for keywords with only 30 searches a month.
If it’s searched for, write a pillar article for it.
Reduce your category list (made from your keyword list) by making 1 category for all like-terms; I prefer to choose the one with the highest traffic. If this scares you, go for one with a lower number. The joy about categories is… you can change them later when you’re ready to rank for a higher traffic’d keyword.
I bleive that this is a good back bone for all SEO
Cheat Codes´s last blog ..Heroes of Newerth Cheats
Niiiiiiiice- thank you Cheat.
Truly EPIC post, Jeni. I lady who clearly knows what she is talking about
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Hey thanks Lance!
I just watched the prank call video you shared on your blog and about fell out of my chair laughing. Had to forward it to just about everyone I know- a once in a year event. You really have some talent there! Can’t wait to see another one!
http://funnyprankcalls.net/prank-calls/lance-krall-vietnamese-prank-call/
Valuable thoughts and advices. I read your topic with great interest.
I’ve been reading many SEO tips, but this article has a slightly different angle and builds from the ground up. Thanks for the good tips!
Luc J´s last blog ..A Wireless Picture Light that’s also Battery-less- CleverLite
Glad you found it helpful Luc. If you liked this, you’ll like my even more complicated, on the verge of madness, “phase 3″ keyword strategies so stick around
Jeni,
You are absolutely awesome!! Even though I have been talking with you for months, it is really great to see this laid out in such detail.
We are going to kick butt with you leading the charge!!!
Freddie´s last blog ..PRIVATE MONEY & TRADITIONAL LENDING SOURCES
Taylor!!!! You know we are!
You know, I was holding back a bit in this post, trying not to make it too complicated for beginners, but I’m really pleased with how many people are grasping it.
When are you going to write a guest post for RBT?
Jeni:
I’ve told you many a times and a few other people I wish I had done this 3 years ago when you told me to. HOWEVER, my site is finally up and doing pretty well and I want to do more.
I’ve made so many mistakes with my 1st real site I wonder how I’m ranking and make any $$, but none the less, I am and hysterically happy about every dime!
From your post I can see where I go wrong in my keyword search and how I can improve. I generally rank well for keywords no one is looking for and I know understand why I get stuck. My future sites will be more in-tuned as I have more knowledge.
IF it wasn’t for you, my nagging thoughts that I can make this work and finding Word Press I don’t know if I’d have that extra 4 figures coming in for extra fun stuff.
Sometimes it’s just about making enough to take a monthly trip or making enough to pay the mortgage or car payment. However, I want more as I hate being a slave to 9-9 job/career and the more I get into the web, SEO, and site building, the more I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!
Thanks
Better Late Then Never Show Up!
Hey, you must have been listening somewhat back then or you wouldn’t be on my toes in the SERP’s these days! & Especially for such a high comp keyword.
Really, very proud of you and can’t wait to see how you’re doing by next year.
Regardless of how many holes your first side had, it’s the experiences that pay off later so pay it no mind. My first money maker was so poorly designed and laid out, it proved to me that Google Love is blind; they look at what’s on the inside, rather than go for looks for sure! lol
All you other bloggers here, keep an eye on this girl- she’s also considering launching a blogger’s association that I’d be the first to sign up for.
the keywords strategy is very important on every plan, is not everything about getting links
Very well put Umbro!
Your right you could have made it a lot more complicated, yet your advise is good. I am constantly having to do this daunting task and no matter what you do it is time consuming.
Agreed. But at least this is only time consuming in the beginning and later, it saves you enough time, that you can take months off from working. I know, I do it all the time.
Work smarter, not harder right?
This is so smart! I think that having a strong keyword strategy is important to having a good blog.
Yes, I’d say this is the 2nd most important strategy when starting a site. 1st would be determining what and how to provide what your readers want and need.
Great post Jeni. Many bloggers & site owners do not realize the benefits of creating related supporting content. It only makes sense that the search engines would prefer a site that has several pages clustered around a topic instead of a site with only 1 directly relevant page. Doing this helps your rankings of the main page, but it also opens up more new keywords you can rank well for.
Laptop, you definitely have got a great grasp on this already. Kudos
For keywords Im using Adwords keyword tool. İts free and easy. But I can not says the datas are right! Maybe u can try!
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Micro Niche Finder uses adwords to draw its data so you’ll find the same numbers MNF will offer and it works fine. The only difference is, MNF applies certain formulas and comes up with additional stats. For example, the SOC (strength of competition) which evaluates how many sites are actually SEO’d for the phrase rather than just all sites that contain the phrase. That way, you have a better grasp on what you’re really in for.
It also has stats for measure of backlinks and commercial intent so I can take a look at a phrase, and get a feel for how much backlink work I’m in for if I go for that phrase. Then I can take a look at the commercial intent to determine if it’s better to push it for amazon or affiliate sales rather than content ads.
AdWords works great too, just doesn’t give you the extra edge that MNF offers you in addition to AdWords stats.
Hi Jeni
I stumbled on your blog as I was looking for Money making blogging tips. I like your blog because it has a lot of information for blogging especially for a newbie, beginner like me.I’m going to come back occasionally. I cant believe you make a lot of money with your knowledge. It sounds so easy like 1,2,3,4. Your tips are just what I need. I don’t have much money at all. So blogging for free seems the best way for me to go at this moment. I will focus on your tips and see how things go. Hope you don’t mind me commenting occasionally to get or understand your information.
I need to make this internet marketing system as an extra income avenue for as there is more to life than working 70 hours a week in a traditional job.
Richard´s last blog ..Blogging to the Bank for Dummies
Hello and welcome Richard, feel free to stop by and drop comments, questions, or even post requests. Happy to help any way I can.
You know, I hope I don’t make blogging sound TOO easy- there will be half started blogs by the thousands by the end of the month! The truth is, we all know blogging is hard work… to get started. But just about everything I do, I do with passive income in mind. I believe in automating as much as possible and working smarter, not harder.
The truth is though, I thoroughly enjoy my work- I love the strategy behind it all, and the challenges, and the creative outlet. Most of all, I really enjoy sharing my strategies and watching other people do well after following them. Nothing more rewarding than helping others after all.
You make valid points here and SEO can be done without being an expert. I tend to things like top com as a back up when I am first working with a project to give it a little boost while I wait for my long term stuff to catch up. You definitely put some good tips up for the newbs!
Hey thanks book! Feel free to share your own tips anytime.
Hey thanks for such a straight forward set of blogs. I am is the guilty group who thought long tail was was a keyword phrase. I will be coming back to this site. Consider yourself bookmarked!
I’m honored to be in your bookmarks Umbro
I have never used micro niche finder before but I have heard a lot of good things about it. I think it might be time to go out and buy it!
Honestly, MNF has been a god-send for me. If you really want to dominate a niche, this is the tool that will help you do that with far less effort than researching keywords online.
Very effective ideas for getting rankings for blogs. I have followed many of these strategies with my blog and they are beginning to pay off. Reading this post just reconfirms my commitment to this.
Hello Jeni,
How are you? Hope everything is going great.
I’ve been longing to see a follow up to this post, you know you’ve kind of wet our mouths so please we are waiting to be feed.
Karo´s last blog ..Starting your Own Business
Hi Karo- glad you found my post so helpful. I’m not as frequent a poster as Forest is; I travel at least once a month and blog that on spoiledtraveler.com, but on RBT, I’ll probably post about once every 2 weeks. This round, I was a bit behind schedule after a mess with GoDaddy moving my largest site to a new server that didn’t agree with it. It was going down every two minutes and ended up costing me thousands and quite a few knotches in the SERP rankings. Kept me busy doing damage control, for sure! I’ll be swapping hosting services between now and my next post but shouldn’t be such a long absence this time.
I remember wishing SEO Fast Start had a list of “commercial modifiers” such as buy, purchase, shop, etc. that would help to increase sales. Your post is timely as I now have a new approach to my main site thanks to you genius folks at NAMS.
Now I am even more anxious because I know I need to get the book before my competition does! thanks for the great ideas.
Great post I am still really new to this so I am learning at a slower rate-kindof makes me feel stupid
I am just learning MNF and I recently picked up UAW so hopefully it will all work out!!!
Kelly´s last blog ..New Niche Site Goals
Im using Google Keyword Tool. But I dont think google give us right information about search times.
wordpress seo´s last blog ..WordPress seo temaları
Just be sure not to get confused with exact match vs broad! So many people fall into that trap and end up wasting their time, for the most part.
-Jack
These are two powerful skills to have when getting into the business of Internet marketing and making money online. She has an edge on this business simply because of her natural born personality.
bean bag furniture´s last blog ..New Arrive – Casual by Paul Sebastian 120ml EDP SP Perfume Fragrance for Women – $25.95
While I use Market Samurai, most of the time the tool isn’t that important. Where most people fail at SEO is choosing the wrong keywords to target. Whether that be keywords that have no traffic, or keywords that bring lookers and not buyers.
When I called him to task, I was chastised for making personal attacks and my remarks “stricken from the record” in a forum and warned of being banned. So I just wanted to tell you…”Some lady said” is the “legal” way to correct people on the internet.
Can u show me us some niche words abouyt blogging? All webmasters says niche words. But I downt know how can I find it.
If you want to deal with the annoying sound on any flash app just check out Flashmute…I found it a couple months ago and it is so nice to just mute your browser when things like this come up. No, this isn’t spam, just trying to help everyone out.
bean bag furniture´s last blog ..New Arrive – Vtech Baby Groove and Grow Garden Music and Lights Dancing Plant with Keyboard – $49.5
If you want to deal with the annoying sound on any flash app just check out Flashmute…I found it a couple months ago and it is so nice to just mute your browser when things like this come up. No, this isn’t spam, just trying to help everyone out.
hottest deals´s last blog ..New Arrive – Vtech Baby Groove and Grow Garden Music and Lights Dancing Plant with Keyboard – $49.5
Great resource here. Now I have a place to point my clients for a very practical tutorial! Thanks for your efforts.
çizgi film İzle´s last blog ..Üçüzler Çizgi Film Seyret
For example, the high relevancy keywords for selling shoes could be: cheapest tennis shoe, affordable red basketball shoes and most comfortable shoes.
this is a the bit I hate…google inflates the results…. I have websites ranking with 18k on exact and I only get 20 a day…
Thanks for this wonderful post, this will be very useful to me.
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we are discussing how to remove the BS applications from your Facebook page. I think we can agree that Facebook is outstanding. It is by far my favorite social networking platform, however, there are some aspects of it that I don’t like.
Great article. I have a blogger blog so I usually write a post and then link to it from a future post.This seems to work but your idea is more targeted and should get even better results.
marcus@ money making ideas´s last blog ..Ideas for making quick money – $1800 in 10 days
Keyword Research is ultimately about knowledge. Knowledge about your target market, knowledge about your products & knowledge about the problems your customers have!
Excel Forum´s last blog ..reverse sum formula
need to think about the keywords users will type in at a search engine when they are looking for products or services like yours.
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