The Turnfire Internet Marketing Blog - Learn More, Grow and Compete Online. SEO | Domain Names | Affiliates | Niches

Nearly two years ago my very own mother decided to start a blog.  The real-estate markets were steady and any guerilla marketing tactic seemed like a new and exciting new idea at the time.  My mom has always been a natural marketing talent (probably where I got my own interest in marketing) and she loves connecting with people.  However, she doesn’t have much of a tech background.

When I say she doesn’t have much tech background – I mean that I was plugging in printers and installing CD’s for her since I was about 8 years old.  Now with a blog, venturing onto the World Wide Web full of code and critics - I was both concerned and curious.

I remember her telling me from the very beginning that she was just going to persevere with the blog and at that exact moment she made the commitment to manage her blog for 1 full year no matter how it went.

So What Next?  Did it Top the Charts or Flop to the Bottom?

Now, nearly two years later I cannot help but be amazed by the results of her hard work and perseverance.  In our last time together we briefly looked over her blog, the successes and pitfalls, and discussed her journey from a lonely collection of articles to a first page blog that really connects with the real-estate market.  I asked her a couple questions, questions like:

Do you know much about SEO? “No”
Do you understand keyword relevance? “Not sure”

How about title tags? Anchor text? Outbound Links!? No, No, No.  Then the next question I was far too afraid to ask out loud – so I wondered silently, “what do you know?” I just kept asking myself, “how does a mother and real-estate agent with no technology background build a first page blog?”

The Layman’s Secret to SEO Success

After some thought, I realized that she didn’t need to know the exact ins and outs of the search engines just to become popular, build a reader base, and even climb positions.  No, all she needed was the three things she had all along: a passion for perseverance, the drive for self-improvement, and the patience for trial and error.

Over the years that she worked with her community real-estate blog, my mother developed many skills great for internet marketing and even SEO, without even knowing it.

The internet is changing daily, and more and more the people are starting to hold the power.  Web 2.0 is all about meaningful connections with such a negative connation on spamming that I dare even say the word.  So why make this point? It’s because a meaningful connection with someone can do wonders for a website at times, and you’ll never need to be a webmaster for that!

Alright so you can make meaningful connections, but what else could someone with no technology background possibly offer to the SEO table?

Quality.  I could write a thousand articles stuffed with keywords at every angle but the simple fact is that no one will end up reading the material if it isn’t relevant, useful and informative.  I sometimes ponder on that too.  How many wasted articles have been spammed with keywords, only to be rejected endlessly by the flowing crowds of uninterested prospects because it just wasn’t very good?

The Big Picture

It doesn’t take a webmaster to write gripping content; in fact, the best content will connect with the readers and leave little for them to ask – but with plenty to take away.

The big secret is that anyone is capable of smashing the online barriers and building a presence on the net.  You don’t need a background in technology, or programming, or internet marketing.  You only need some perseverance, the will to learn, and the courage to try.

I guess the truth is I’ll never stop learning from my mother.

Visit the blog that inspired it all: http://blog.collingwood-bluemountain.com

Regards,

Kris Scheben-Edey

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Everyone throws around the term “SEO,” how to use it there, apply some there – but what’s the benefit in all of this?  It’s getting your website to the first page!

Take a moment and think about what happens when you search Google (or whichever your choice search engine might be) and the results are listed for your search.

First, you’ll immediate look at the top result – does it appear to be relevant and useful?  Maybe one of the top three results?

At that point searchers might scan the rest of the results, and even dig a bit deeper – but the rest of them refine the search terms and look for a better list of results.

Getting to the First Page with Keywords

Keywords are the first step to many successful SEO campaigns, and when using them properly – you’re site can hit the first page in a matter of weeks.  Keywords help the search engines determine relevancy, and understanding how to target the keywords in your niche will give you a major advantage online.

How to Make Keywords Work for You

First, make a list of the top 10 keywords relating to your niche.  Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to pick keywords that have “exact” search traffic.  This guide will tell you everything you need to know about the keyword tool. (link to guide)

Next, take your list of 10 keywords and refine it down to three of four.  Write them down and memorize them, because you’ll be needed to reference them.  It’s important to target your campaign to keywords with traffic, so make sure you write down and use the “exact” terms you chose from the keyword tool.

Finally, optimize your site based on those keywords!  Immediately you can change title tags, descriptions, category or page names and you can even rewrite current content to include your 3 or 4 top keywords.  Optimizing your own site and content with keywords can quickly boost your search engine positions.

From this point forward use those keywords in all your new content, but don’t spam it – I’m talking about using these keywords about once per paragraph (on average).

Allow anchor text on all your links and images that reference the keywords, and before you know it you’ll be rising in the ranks for your chosen keywords. If you want to track your positions in Google based on keywords – then try using the link on the right side “Google Position Tracking.”

My Site Has Keywords… But It’s Still Not on the First Page!

Some keywords are more competitive than others, just like industries in business.  So how can you compete against the big guns?  Well, they pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into keyword advertising at times and the truth is you might have a tough time.  You’re not done yet though, you’ve still got two options to beat these guys.

Have you heard of the phrase, “If you can’t go through it, then go around it?”  Well if you can’t beat them on the top keywords you can go around them, and find the “long tail” tail keywords they haven’t targeted.

Go back to the keyword tool and repeat your search, now look at the top 10 keywords and the total search traffic they receive.  Now scroll down and look at the 40 keywords below that you didn’t want to list before.  Well, guess what… if you didn’t think to target them then chances are that no one else did either.

Long tail keywords like “marketing domains to end-users” are easier to capture and control than broad keywords like “domains.”  So find the long tail keywords that receive searches, and use them to your advantage, because in accumulation they often provide more traffic than trying to compete on the big keywords.

Your other option is to compete, to try and take them head on.  If you plan to do this, then you’ll need to be willing to learn as you go and put in a minimum of an hour a day towards marketing and promoting your website.

Aside from optimizing your own web page content for keywords, other factors play a big role in your search engine positions.  Let’s talk about linking.

Internal links on your site are the ones that source other pages on your website, and the internal link structure needs to be solid if you plan to compete.

Draw out your site, generate a sitemap and submit it into the Google webmaster tools.  Providing a solid and stable website structure is not only important when the search engine spiders crawl your site, but your visitors will appreciate it also.

Next on your list if you want to compete is networking, mainly online social networking.  By meeting new people and creating a band of followers on social networks like twitter, digg, and facebook you are also creating a network of links to your site and building awareness.

Successful social networking can provide you with an expert status among your followers and allows you to promote your own content to the masses.  Never engage in social networking if you don’t plan to put some time aside for it.  It’s important to make meaningful comments, make positive connections, and provide value to your new band of followers through more than just spam.

Social networking can become addictive –so be careful, and yes I’m speaking first hand.  I look forward to writing an article on successful social networking in the near future, but for now there is countless articles that will enlighten you on the many niches of these networks.

Social networking is a great way to drive traffic, gain outbound links and boost awareness to any website.

Ok, I’ve Been Networking My Butt Off – And I’m Even Using Keywords, but I’m Still Not Seeing Results!

When building an effective search engine optimization campaign, it’s simply not enough to rely on keyword and links.  If you want to get you website to the first page, and if you want to dominate the competition then you need to have quality content.

Give your visitors a reason to come back and don’t make a sloppy first impression.  Keywords and links can get you onto that first page, but if you ever want to own your niche or category then you need to have quality content, and you should give every visitor a reason to bookmark or save your site for the future.

So there you go, you want to take your site from nothing to first page in a couple of weeks?  Then do these three things:

1. Chose 3-4 top keywords and optimize your site with keywords and internal links.
2. Capture and control you chosen long-tail keywords, and engage in meaningful social networking.
3. Create quality content, offer tool sets, or provide something completely unique.

Before you know it, you’ll be telling all your friends to search your keywords in Google – displaying your site proudly.

Marketing research for internet marketers – keyword research is a powerful tool for online marketing.  With a suite of free online tools, Google has provided numerous services to increase the scope and depth of keyword research within their search engines.

So how am I supposed to use these services?
The Google AdWords Keyword Tool(https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) is one of the most useful tools for keyword research, and Google provides it for free.  When you first enter the page you can enter keywords or keyphrases and the Keyword Tool will provide you with search data based on your chosen keywords.  I know it sounds a little tricky right now, but I promise by the end of this, you’ll be an expert.

After entering your keywords, which you can separate by hitting enter, or breaking the line – press the “Get Keyword Ideas” button to start the search.  You can also choose to “Use Synonyms” which will give you a broader range of keywords in your search, related to your chosen keywords.  There are a few ways to filter the search results, you can explore them if you choose but they are not generally needed.

Ok I have a list of words and numbers, but how can I use them?
The first thing you should do when you’re getting started with the Keyword Tool, is to change your search results to only show the keyword and the approximate average search volume columns.  You can change these in the “Choose columns to display” drop-down box.

After you have a simple two column chart it makes things a little clearer, where the numbers represent the average monthly search volume (in Google) for the keywords on the left.  Note the drop-down box above the results on the right, which currently says “Broad.”  Change this to “Exact” and resubmit your search.

Changing the “Match Type” to exact will give you a more accurate snapshot of the keywords you’re interested in.  The difference between broad and exact, is that broad will display data that is reflective of anytime your keyword was used.  For example if our keyword was “Marketing” and the match type was broad, then it would display results on that keyword for any phrase including Marketing.  This could be anything from “domain name marketing” to “marketing my banana flavored gum.”

When you change the match type to exact the data is reflective of the exact keywords, so if it says 450,000 beside the keyword “marketing” then that means 450,000 searches are completed monthly, on average – and for the exact keyword “marketing.”

Alright it’s making sense, so how can I optimize my results to reflect what I really want to know?
That all depends on what your goal was with the keyword research.  The main reason for researching keywords is to optimize a website or internet material for search results.  Assuming that the overall goal is optimization – keyword research plays two crucial roles in search optimization:

1)    When a search spider is crawling your site, keywords are a major source in determining relevancy.  As a result when you type your search into Google, most of the sites you find are planning to be there – through use of the common keywords in their website content.
2)    When planning for a website or online campaign, domainers (domain dealers/marketers/developers) use keyword strength to select a formidable domain name.

With this new knowledge you should have the ability to understand your markets, what they are searching for – and how many of they there are.  Monitoring and performing keyword research is the key to connecting with customers, establishing a strong online presence and optimizing your content for search engines.

Check back this week for an exciting post, “First Page Frenzy – The Steps to Effective SEO,”
on how to optimize your site for the search engines.