If you really don't mind writing articles, couldn't you just...

Yes. Definitely go after low competition keywords and land on page 1

You will probably need a bit of backlinking to stay there, though.

This thread is the crux of what I believe is a good strategy for article marketing. This is what I'm doing with one niche and it works VERY well.

I would agree. I have 1 of my sites getting 60 uniques a day for a keyword while Google's keyword tool last told me 320 searches per month. 60x30=320:confused:

Before that it told me not enough info to display. Oh well.

Hey MATT,

Thanks for starting this thread.A lot of good tips and ideas shared by fellow warriors and I'd like to share mine as well.

Instead of going for keywords with 500 monthly search, WHY not combine 2 keywords with 500 monthly search and GET 1000 visitors a month?

It's like hitting 2 birds in a single stone

Another tip that I've recently discovered is that if you found a keyword with an EZA article in top 10, there's NO point writing another article at EZA and compete with the 1st one.It'll be hard to outrank it.

So the best way to win it is by using another HIGH PR article directory such as GO and AB.I've just realized it with 1 of my article recently. My AB article can be seen in GOOGLE's 2nd page in 24 hours but I can't find my NEW EZA article in that list.

My 2c..

Hi Matt,

I personally believe you have a great idea there...one thatI also follow. But I wouldn't suggest limiting your entire article arsenal to those thinly searched keyword phrases. You still need to target some bigger ones.

Here's a blog post where I discussed this very thing...

Keyword Phrase Monthly Search Volume - Should You Target Low Volume Keywords?

A lot, however, depends on your niche, your writing style, your target audience, your product, etc... but right now, keyword research and choice is probably the most important aspect of a successful article marketing campaign.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

Yes but only a percentage of those searches will actually click on your listing, ballpark figure on page 1 is around 5%, and only a percentage of those will actually click on your adsense or affiliate links. The percent for affiliate sales would be even lower. Don't go to low or it'll be a long wait. JMO

A lot depends on what you do with the traffic, too. We usually get so caught up in driving more traffic that we neglect making improvements to get more of those visitors to do what we need once they get to our sites. It took me way too long to get this through my thick skull, but once you test and tweak your landing page - be it squeeze page, adsense page, affiliate page, review page, sales page, whatever - it takes the pressure off of your traffic needs.

Also, since the topic here is really article marketing, I'd add that the best model I've found in many years as an article marketer is driving traffic to a squeeze page featuring a free report that's closely related to the article's topic. Done correctly, you can turn 50% or more of your visitors into subscribers to your email list this way. Article traffic is absolutely awesome for this purpose! Build that list, then tap them for sales once you've developed a good rapport with the members by giving them value in every email you send to them. It's tried-and-true and works amazingly well when the source of traffic is through your articles.

John

Great thread. I too have wondered about going after keywords with 500 or less monthly...I keep thinking about all the advice and details and outlines about choosing keywords and kept thinking how I would much prefer to write about my passions even if they are not top popular topics. Maybe only 5,000 people on earth are also interested but I'd have fun writing about these things and maybe they would be glad to find information on the topic.

Thanks Sylvia, Matt,

It really is crazy to see what some people will search for - and on a consistent level! One of the funniest ones I see consistently is "How to find out if someone is dead."

I always think to myself, "Cold to the touch, no heartbeat, unresponsive..." LOL

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

p.s. I do understand the nature of that search term, I was just making a joke.

Matt, that could work, but there are a lot of other factors to consider than simply picking keywords with 500 or less monthly searches. Not all keywords are created equal. While keyword research is important I don't see too many people talk about what to do after they submit their article. Do they take the article RSS feed and submit to rss directories? Do they create a press release and then release it PR directories / firms? Do they convert their article into a video and then submit that video to video directories / SEs like Youtube? Do they place the article on their own website? Do they take one of their articles and then write a longer report based on that article and distribute it virally?

I've found that if people use the principle of CANP (Constant And Neverending Promotion) that they will be amazed at how many visitors they can get in 2 to 4 months. My staff and I have been experimenting with a lot of different content marketing techniques, many of which we learned from this forum and the War Room, and we're discovering that you can get into the top of Google or Yahoo or MSN in some pretty competitive niches if you focus on the user experience (quality content, natural-looking back-linking, etc.). You'll notice that in certain niches on certain keywords that there are certain websites and companies that are always on top. It's because they've taken the time to age their website, get quality linking to their site, and generally have good content.

SEs are getting more and more sophisticated as time goes on, those that focus on the user experience today are going to have websites and blogs that will be around for decades and not sandboxed or penalized by the SEs.

RoD "Coffee-Makes-The-World-Go-Round" Cortez

Great thread. One thing I'll add is that when you're in the process of writing a lot of articles on a consistent basis, you'll inadvertently capture a lot of long tail keywords you would have never normally thought of. I suppose this only works if you've got the articles on your own site, but constantly going on Analytics and finding out what keywords people are using to get to your site means you can find keywords that work, and target your articles accordingly.