Blogging is, in general, an easy thing to do. At least the concept of blogging is easy. All you are really doing is writing about things you like. So, why does anyone really need blogging tips? Well, because removing an engine from a car is easy, but you cant lift it out with your hands. Learning to blog successfully is a process, it requires practice and understanding and it requires help. Tips for beginners are always useful, so I decided to offer you 5 basic blogging tips for beginners today, to help you get started.
Showing posts with label understanding keywords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label understanding keywords. Show all posts
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Keyword research tools and variables to consider for beginner bloggers
It is a problem I deal with every single day when working on my blogs. And that is keywords and keyword research. And although I have quite a bit of knowledge on the subject and I understand the principals behind it, even for me, I find it to be a struggle when deciding on keywords. Today, at blogging for beginners I would like to spend some more time on the subject. I know I have talked about it a few times, and I will continue to talk about it, until I feel I have completely exhausted the issue.
And for someone like me, someone who can ramble on and on about almost anything that I have a little interest in. This may take a while.
In particular, today I would like to delve a little deeper into good keyword research and some of the tools I implement in building a solid core of keywords to use as my jumping off point for my blogs. And really for any content I may be planning to add to the internet. Because keywords are not just unique to bloggers. They play a role in all forms of internet content. And should be a key factor in deciding on topics that you would like to talk about on the internet.
So, just to refresh everyone. Keywords are the words that search engines use to help classify your content. Keywords are the common words that internet users will type into the search engines in order to find specific information on a certain topic. Some keywords are searched more often than others, some keywords have MUCH more competition than others. And it is all a big balancing act between ad cost and supply and demand. While there is not necessarily a direct correlation between keyword competition and search frequency, there is almost always a direct link between keyword ad cost and competition.
Keywords like loan, and money are high ad dollar keywords, this means that these words are highly competitive and that chances of a blogging beginner cracking into page one on the search engines are really really slim. This leaves us searching for the perfect balance of competition/ad cost/and search frequency.
And one of the primary places I do most of this research is with Google's Adword Keyword tool. With this tool, you can see how many times a specific keyword is searched, along with what google charges for that keyword. For individuals who are trying to make money through advertising, these are important bits of information. Through those to pieces of information you can assume what sort of value that specific keyword will have to you if you advertise on your blog. The Google charge is not a representation of what you will earn per ad click, being a third party advertiser, you only receive a portion of that cost.
Basically, you want keywords with high ad rates, high traffic rates, and low competition. And that is much harder than you may think. Competition is fierce in most instances. Meaning something will have to be sacrificed.
There are options here though. If you would prefer the high traffic count at the cost of ad rates, look for that, if you would prefer low traffic volumes for the home run hits on your ad dollars, then you can go for that. But even at lower traffic volumes, if the keyword has value, you will have competition.
In most instances, for someone who is just starting out with all this. I would recommend you look for keywords that are highly searched but have little keyword value. Because this in turn usually brings less competition.
So, what do you really need to be looking for?
Usually keywords that are worth less than a dollar, and are searched between 500-2000 times per month is a good place to start. But even after you find these keywords, there are more steps to consider when deciding on keywords.
After you have found a keyword, google-it. This is going to give you some insight to your competition. What are we looking for here is, the total results of websites that appear on the page. This will vary greatly, from a few to millions, lower numbers are always good, as long as you followed the first step and found words that are actually searched more than a few hundred times per month.
The next thing you need to look at is the top 5 sites that appear in the results, because these are your primary competition. Can you beat these sites or at least compete with these sites? There are a lot of variables that will help you determine that.
First thing you will want to do is find out what each of the top five's page rank is. Remembering that anything above a 4 is going to be hard for you to compete with. Sites that are highly popular, or sites that have been around for a very long time, or Wiki's will always pose a serious problem when trying to compete for top spots.
After you have these sites page ranking, the next thing you will want to do is visit them. Take a look at the page and try to understand why it ranks so well, look for the keywords withing the content, read the page and just get an understanding of the approach that the page takes to the specific keyword. sometimes you will find that the site doesn't seem to be targeting that specific keyword at all, it just happens to be a very strong site and naturally will rank well for that specific keyword if it is included somewhere within the page.
The last step for right now that I want to talk about it checking the quantity of inbound links that the specific page has. The easiest way I have found to do this is with Yahoo's Site Explorer. With Site Explorer you can copy and paste the URL, and it will count backlinks. Remember, backlinks can be tough to come by, the higher number of backlinks a specific page has, the more backlinks you are going to need in order to be competetive. This number can vary greatly also, from a couple, to tens of thousands. So, be very wary of what you are getting into by choosing a specific keyword.
Another very nice thing that site explorer tells you, is where the links are coming from for the specific page. This gives you the chance to use some of those sites for backlinks yourself. so check them out, look to see if there is an opportunity to comment and add a link.
So, bottom line here is, "keyword research" is critical in the success of your blog. Going after the big dogs right out of the gate is going to lead to failure. No doubt about it. Find words that you feel you can handle and don't be afraid to start small and work up to the bigger words.
A common practice I try to use is, I base my blog's primary keywords around words that are searched more frequently, and from that, I write posts with keywords that are easier to achieve, in the hopes that I will pull readers through the back door of one of my older posts. It is a method I find to work, and one you may find useful also.
Well, that is it for today, I hope you enjoyed this blogging for beginners presentation and I hope to see you back soon!
And for someone like me, someone who can ramble on and on about almost anything that I have a little interest in. This may take a while.
In particular, today I would like to delve a little deeper into good keyword research and some of the tools I implement in building a solid core of keywords to use as my jumping off point for my blogs. And really for any content I may be planning to add to the internet. Because keywords are not just unique to bloggers. They play a role in all forms of internet content. And should be a key factor in deciding on topics that you would like to talk about on the internet.
So, just to refresh everyone. Keywords are the words that search engines use to help classify your content. Keywords are the common words that internet users will type into the search engines in order to find specific information on a certain topic. Some keywords are searched more often than others, some keywords have MUCH more competition than others. And it is all a big balancing act between ad cost and supply and demand. While there is not necessarily a direct correlation between keyword competition and search frequency, there is almost always a direct link between keyword ad cost and competition.
Keywords like loan, and money are high ad dollar keywords, this means that these words are highly competitive and that chances of a blogging beginner cracking into page one on the search engines are really really slim. This leaves us searching for the perfect balance of competition/ad cost/and search frequency.
And one of the primary places I do most of this research is with Google's Adword Keyword tool. With this tool, you can see how many times a specific keyword is searched, along with what google charges for that keyword. For individuals who are trying to make money through advertising, these are important bits of information. Through those to pieces of information you can assume what sort of value that specific keyword will have to you if you advertise on your blog. The Google charge is not a representation of what you will earn per ad click, being a third party advertiser, you only receive a portion of that cost.
Basically, you want keywords with high ad rates, high traffic rates, and low competition. And that is much harder than you may think. Competition is fierce in most instances. Meaning something will have to be sacrificed.
There are options here though. If you would prefer the high traffic count at the cost of ad rates, look for that, if you would prefer low traffic volumes for the home run hits on your ad dollars, then you can go for that. But even at lower traffic volumes, if the keyword has value, you will have competition.
In most instances, for someone who is just starting out with all this. I would recommend you look for keywords that are highly searched but have little keyword value. Because this in turn usually brings less competition.
So, what do you really need to be looking for?
Usually keywords that are worth less than a dollar, and are searched between 500-2000 times per month is a good place to start. But even after you find these keywords, there are more steps to consider when deciding on keywords.
After you have found a keyword, google-it. This is going to give you some insight to your competition. What are we looking for here is, the total results of websites that appear on the page. This will vary greatly, from a few to millions, lower numbers are always good, as long as you followed the first step and found words that are actually searched more than a few hundred times per month.
The next thing you need to look at is the top 5 sites that appear in the results, because these are your primary competition. Can you beat these sites or at least compete with these sites? There are a lot of variables that will help you determine that.
First thing you will want to do is find out what each of the top five's page rank is. Remembering that anything above a 4 is going to be hard for you to compete with. Sites that are highly popular, or sites that have been around for a very long time, or Wiki's will always pose a serious problem when trying to compete for top spots.
After you have these sites page ranking, the next thing you will want to do is visit them. Take a look at the page and try to understand why it ranks so well, look for the keywords withing the content, read the page and just get an understanding of the approach that the page takes to the specific keyword. sometimes you will find that the site doesn't seem to be targeting that specific keyword at all, it just happens to be a very strong site and naturally will rank well for that specific keyword if it is included somewhere within the page.
The last step for right now that I want to talk about it checking the quantity of inbound links that the specific page has. The easiest way I have found to do this is with Yahoo's Site Explorer. With Site Explorer you can copy and paste the URL, and it will count backlinks. Remember, backlinks can be tough to come by, the higher number of backlinks a specific page has, the more backlinks you are going to need in order to be competetive. This number can vary greatly also, from a couple, to tens of thousands. So, be very wary of what you are getting into by choosing a specific keyword.
Another very nice thing that site explorer tells you, is where the links are coming from for the specific page. This gives you the chance to use some of those sites for backlinks yourself. so check them out, look to see if there is an opportunity to comment and add a link.
So, bottom line here is, "keyword research" is critical in the success of your blog. Going after the big dogs right out of the gate is going to lead to failure. No doubt about it. Find words that you feel you can handle and don't be afraid to start small and work up to the bigger words.
A common practice I try to use is, I base my blog's primary keywords around words that are searched more frequently, and from that, I write posts with keywords that are easier to achieve, in the hopes that I will pull readers through the back door of one of my older posts. It is a method I find to work, and one you may find useful also.
Well, that is it for today, I hope you enjoyed this blogging for beginners presentation and I hope to see you back soon!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Using Longtail keywords for blogs
Many of you who read this may not even understand what keywords are, let alone using longtail keywords for blogs. So, being that this is "blogging lessons for beginners", we will start at the beginning.
Keywords are words that Google picks up on to determine search engine results. What I mean is, Google and all other search engines have tools called spiders, spiders crawl websites and blogs and anything else they can find on the web. They use the sites URL, Description, Titles, and Content; they determine what are the primary keyword targets for that site.
So, what does this actually mean to a beginner blogger? If your site has no real purpose other than talking about yourself, it means nothing. But for most bloggers, we want to be found, and we want to be read. And whether your niche is video games or making money online, or anything else you can think of, when a person searches through a search engine, our goal is to show up on that first page of search. Because anything after page one is a crapshoot. Most Internet users will not search past the first couple of pages.
So, this brings me to my real issue, Longtail keywords. Single word keywords like Money, or Loans or Football are killers. Try searching those types of things in google and you will get some real powerhouse websites. Chances of a little old free blog to show up for keywords like that are almost non-existent, but never fear, this is where long tail keywords will work for our blogs. Take this blog for example:
This site is for about blogging when you come right down to it. But what happens if you search the term “Blogging” in google? This is what happens. You get over 49million results and the top 10 are:
Wikipedia.org, Page rank (7)
Blogger.com, Page rank (8)
Blogspot.com, Page rank (6)
Problogger.net, Page rank (6)
Problogger.net, Page rank (5)
Wordpress.org, Page rank (6)
Marketingterms.com, Page rank (5)
Wordpress.org, Page rank (9)
Thoughts.com, Page rank (6)
Guardian.co.uk, Page rank (5)
Top 10 spots are almost unbeatable. I guess if you worked incredibly hard, you may break into the bottom of that list. But I doubt it. Not very likely at all.
We will talk more about pageranking later, but understand this first and foremost. Even really popular free blogs rarely break pagerank of 3. Now page ranking is not everything, but it is a big deal. And for most of us free bloggers out here, we have to be in a market with sites that rank no higher than a 4 to be competitive.
So, Just calling my site a blogging site was not gonna work for me, so, how about I try something else. I figured since it was gonna be a learning type blog, we would go for terms that the average person my use to search when trying to learn to blog. “How to blog” is a though, what happens?
456,000 results, way better than millions
page ranks are 2’s, 3’s and 4’s with a couple 6’s and an 8 in there. Better, not great.
So I went a little further.. Now I am giving away my keywords for this site but, whatever…
Blogging Lessons for beginners
And
Blogging for Beginners
The first one, has 8 results. This is perfect!!!! But problem is, it is not a highly searched keyword, and that is with it in “” meaning it has to show up just as I search it, but I will take it!!
Second is still perfect for me.
36,800 results
the highest site is pulling a Page rank of 6, but that is in the first spot.
So, longtail keywords for blogs is very, very important if you have any aspirations of ever being found. This does not mean that as soon as you add a specific set of words you will be indexed for them, not at all, it is a process, you need keyword density and you will need lots of content before google will even consider your blog as relevant.
My main point with this post is, when you are writing on the internet, quality content is very critical, people still want quality, but, it is also important to remember that keywords are also critical, and choosing the right keywords are very important.
And while it is really tempting to shoot for the stars, it is ok to go after small fish.
Keywords are words that Google picks up on to determine search engine results. What I mean is, Google and all other search engines have tools called spiders, spiders crawl websites and blogs and anything else they can find on the web. They use the sites URL, Description, Titles, and Content; they determine what are the primary keyword targets for that site.
So, what does this actually mean to a beginner blogger? If your site has no real purpose other than talking about yourself, it means nothing. But for most bloggers, we want to be found, and we want to be read. And whether your niche is video games or making money online, or anything else you can think of, when a person searches through a search engine, our goal is to show up on that first page of search. Because anything after page one is a crapshoot. Most Internet users will not search past the first couple of pages.
So, this brings me to my real issue, Longtail keywords. Single word keywords like Money, or Loans or Football are killers. Try searching those types of things in google and you will get some real powerhouse websites. Chances of a little old free blog to show up for keywords like that are almost non-existent, but never fear, this is where long tail keywords will work for our blogs. Take this blog for example:
This site is for about blogging when you come right down to it. But what happens if you search the term “Blogging” in google? This is what happens. You get over 49million results and the top 10 are:
Wikipedia.org, Page rank (7)
Blogger.com, Page rank (8)
Blogspot.com, Page rank (6)
Problogger.net, Page rank (6)
Problogger.net, Page rank (5)
Wordpress.org, Page rank (6)
Marketingterms.com, Page rank (5)
Wordpress.org, Page rank (9)
Thoughts.com, Page rank (6)
Guardian.co.uk, Page rank (5)
Top 10 spots are almost unbeatable. I guess if you worked incredibly hard, you may break into the bottom of that list. But I doubt it. Not very likely at all.
We will talk more about pageranking later, but understand this first and foremost. Even really popular free blogs rarely break pagerank of 3. Now page ranking is not everything, but it is a big deal. And for most of us free bloggers out here, we have to be in a market with sites that rank no higher than a 4 to be competitive.
So, Just calling my site a blogging site was not gonna work for me, so, how about I try something else. I figured since it was gonna be a learning type blog, we would go for terms that the average person my use to search when trying to learn to blog. “How to blog” is a though, what happens?
456,000 results, way better than millions
page ranks are 2’s, 3’s and 4’s with a couple 6’s and an 8 in there. Better, not great.
So I went a little further.. Now I am giving away my keywords for this site but, whatever…
Blogging Lessons for beginners
And
Blogging for Beginners
The first one, has 8 results. This is perfect!!!! But problem is, it is not a highly searched keyword, and that is with it in “” meaning it has to show up just as I search it, but I will take it!!
Second is still perfect for me.
36,800 results
the highest site is pulling a Page rank of 6, but that is in the first spot.
My main point with this post is, when you are writing on the internet, quality content is very critical, people still want quality, but, it is also important to remember that keywords are also critical, and choosing the right keywords are very important.
And while it is really tempting to shoot for the stars, it is ok to go after small fish.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Understanding Keywords and Phrases for Beginner Bloggers
So what are Keywords?
Keywords are describer words that search engines will use in order to properly categorize your content within the search engines result page. What this means is, words like Football or Fishing, or a billion other possibilities are basic keywords. And if your Blog has a specific niche, you will need to be conscious of the fact that some of these keywords will need to be in your content.
Then, what are keyword phrases?
Keyword phrases, also known as longtail keywords are statements, questions or other groupings of words to help describe your Blog or website. Phrases tend to be much specialized or focused. For example, Fishing is a very broad term, but river fishing is much more focused, and river fishing for beginners, is even more specific.
So why use keyword phrases?
If you try to search the term “Fishing”, some very heavy competition is going to show up. Competition that a beginner Blogger is not going to be able to compete with. But a term like river fishing for beginners, there is a word with much less competition. One that a Blogger is going to have much better luck with ranking well in search engine results.
So, how do I find Keywords and Phrases?
Google just so happens to have a very useful tool called Adwords Keyword Tool. With this tool, you are able to punch in your basic keyword, and from that, Google is going to generate for you, how many times that keyword is searched, and will also give you a whole list of alternate keywords and short phrases, with their traffic values.
So, how does this all work?
Ok, so you now have a basic understanding of what keywords and phrases are, but how are you supposed to use this information? It is tricky. I will explain how I usually use keywords as best as I can.
When I start a new Blog, I have a specific topic in mind. Let’s take this blog for example. This blog is about blogging. But the keyword Blogging has way too much competition; I would not be able to compete with that. So I narrow it down. I make my blog about blogging for beginners, there is much less competition there. So, I make sure that all my posts draw some focus to the fact that the overriding factor here is “blogging for beginners”, or, my alternate keyword “blogging lessons for beginners”. So, The majority of everything I write about here will go back to those basic keywords.
But every post is not going to be called Blogging for beginners or blogging lessons for beginners, that would just be ridiculous. But it will always come back to that. In this post, I have focused on “Understanding Keywords and Phrases”, and those are my primary keywords for this specific post, all the while referring back to my primary keywords for the entire blog.
Does that make sense? It was not something I just learned overnight, and it is not something that people really explain in detail. For one reason or another, since we are all on the Internet competing with each other in one way or another, some tricks are not completely explained. Understandable, but it makes it very difficult for beginners to learn what they need to know in order to become productive.
So…What did I learn today?
You learned that understanding your goals and Niche topic is very important when establishing keywords. That there are tools available to us in order to find good core keywords for our blogs, and for out posts. And you have learned that it is important to include your keywords within your content, in order for search engines to know how to classify your blog. If you’re writing about fishing you do not want to somehow show up in off roading or something.
I hope this helps you and gives you a basic understanding of keywords and phrases. And come back soon to get more blogging lessons for beginners. (See I squeezed it on one more time, and it’s not too forced)
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