The Most Powerful Blogging Technique Is Actually Very Simple

This may not be that groundbreaking to many of you here...

But, for those of you that aren't doing this... trust me... it's golden.

I will make it simple...

Start doing heavy keyword research for each blog post that you create... I mean take it as serious as you would when you write articles, run ppc campaigns, and when you SEO your sites.

Center 80% of your blog around finding non competitive keywords that have great traffic. Trust me... there are non competitive keywords in every niche-even "make money online"

You will drive more traffic to your blog, in shorter periods of time, meaning your blogs will start showing up organically more often and on more pages.

Remember, it's not that hard to get indexed on the first page of the search when you find the right keywords that aren't super competitive.

This technique helps you drive more traffic to your blog and puts more people in front of your affiliate products that you may be promoting.

Admittedly, this technique requires you to go above and beyond with the value you offer. And, you will need to write more keyword dense blog posts, which means that you may need to increase the amount of content that you write to avoid over saturating your posts with too many keywords.

I know that many of you may already be doing this. However, I think that the power of blogging can be taken for granted and often times under appreciated.

If all you did was set aside the necessary time it takes doing very, very extensive keyword research before you post to your blog... you would be amazed at how much more effective your blog would become.

Before I go... let me put something in perspective for you. You already know this but, I have to point this out:

The great thing about blogs is that each post you make has the potential to get indexed in many different places. But, it still links to itself.

A hundred blog posts is equivalent to a hundred different websites.

I really hope that this sheds some light on your current marketing techniques.

Take Care

[ibringjoy]

This is a great tip. Sometimes we don't think of these things. We might do keyword research for our articles, but then when we blog we don't even think about it. I don't know why - it's articles we are putting on our blog.

Another thing I would like to add, and this is where I always fall down:

Be sure to post on your blog every day if possible, even if it is a little blurb of a thought. The search engines love your site when you post every day!

Kathryn

[Dave777]

Excellent info and goes hand in hand with a few of my comments in the following thread...

Just my opinion though...
Is IM a recession proof bussiness ?

Dave

[chicagos]

Originally Posted by ibringjoy

This is a great tip. Sometimes we don't think of these things. We might do keyword research for our articles, but then when we blog we don't even think about it. I don't know why - it's articles we are putting on our blog.

Another thing I would like to add, and this is where I always fall down:

Be sure to post on your blog every day if possible, even if it is a little blurb of a thought. The search engines love your site when you post every day!

Kathryn

really well said Kathryn

[NeelsTheron]

Great advice - I've always treated posts as articles with the additional value of the feeds, and I've had amazing success: good listings - and quick listings!

Conditioned as I am by the "article-keyword-research approach" I actually find it difficult to just fire off a quick post without the research part... the downside being that I don't get around to daily posts.

Maybe one should combine the "quickies" and the "article-posts" in a cycle, in order to get more regular posts out, but also to have good "anchor" posts in between.

[marley]

I discovered something like this purely by accident but it does produce good traffic for the keyword/post title and it is something i need to do more of.

[sree94]

Would Linkvana posts count for this?

[peteranswers]

Originally Posted by ibringjoy

Be sure to post on your blog every day if possible, even if it is a little blurb of a thought. The search engines love your site when you post every day!

Kathryn

I see lots of websites at the top of the SERPS that haven't updated in years, which makes me think that backlinks are still way more important that updating every day.

[kkchoon1]

The beauty of keyword focused blog is targeted traffic!

When your blog ranking rise, you will double or triple your effort!

However, there are another technique to build up your traffic, use ezinearticles.com to host all your keyword targeted post, but write only interesting topic in your blog!

I use ezinearticles.com and other websites to drive traffic to my blog, I try to concerntrate on "good content only" in my blog!

Either way, it works very well!

Thank you guys and gals... I'm glad you found this to be useful.

[melanied]

Originally Posted by NeelsTheron

Great advice - I've always treated posts as articles with the additional value of the feeds, and I've had amazing success: good listings - and quick listings!

Conditioned as I am by the "article-keyword-research approach" I actually find it difficult to just fire off a quick post without the research part... the downside being that I don't get around to daily posts.

Maybe one should combine the "quickies" and the "article-posts" in a cycle, in order to get more regular posts out, but also to have good "anchor" posts in between.

That's what I try to do - I try to make my blogs a combination of keyword researched articles and commentary on breaking industry buzz, with a splash of short, off the cuff, random posts thrown in for personality.

This is, of course, on my blogs that I actually keep as blogs - on my blogs that I keep as niche websites, basically, it's all articles.

[Bruce NewMedia]

Marc, thanks for this post. It's really a simple but very powerful idea.
______
Bruce

[Dan Grossman]

Isn't publishing supposed to be about helping and informing people to build a business you can be proud of, not filling the web with keyword-filled noise for search engines?

I've never needed to do keyword research or center any of my website content around search engines to attract visitors to useful information and products. The natural links good content attracts outweighs any search benefits of on-page over-optimization.

[LeviBrown]

Yup - following the longtail has always worked for me. Another way to get ranked quickly (although you lose some control) is to have you blog hosted on say Wordpress instead of just putting a Wordpress blog on your hosting service. The power of the built in traffic and pagerank for that site will get you ranked faster than a different URL.

[Ron Killian]

Great post Marc! I know I usually go after long tails and do pretty good, even in competitive niches.

[hbsjcd3]

Originally Posted by marcanthony

This may not be that groundbreaking to many of you here...

But, for those of you that aren't doing this... trust me... it's golden.

I will make it simple...

Start doing heavy keyword research for each blog post that you create... I mean take it as serious as you would when you write articles, run ppc campaigns, and when you SEO your sites.

Center 80% of your blog around finding non competitive keywords that have great traffic. Trust me... there are non competitive keywords in every niche-even "make money online"

Be more specific please. When you input a keyword in Google to get the competing websites for that keyword, is it more important to find a keyword with low competition in " " or without? For example:

Go to Google type in dog training advice ---> you get 3.8million competing websites, but if you type in "dog training advice" you get just 34,000 websites competing for that keyword.

So the million dollar question, what indicator do you look at as more important in your decision on whether to decide to optimize around that keyword? The results WITHOUT the quotes or the results WITH the quotes?

That point has always confused me.

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

Isn't publishing supposed to be about helping and informing people to build a business you can be proud of, not filling the web with keyword-filled noise for search engines?

I've never needed to do keyword research or center any of my website content around search engines to attract visitors to useful information and products. The natural links good content attracts outweighs any search benefits of on-page over-optimization.

Well... I think that it's good that you do what works for you.

As far as keyword filled noise and over-optimization... I have no comment other than; I think that most of the people in this forum understood where I was coming from.

Whatever you do to generate traffic... more power to you.

Keep up the outstanding work!

Originally Posted by hbsjcd3

Be more specific please. When you input a keyword in Google to get the competing websites for that keyword, is it more important to find a keyword with low competition in " " or without? For example:

Go to Google type in dog training advice ---> you get 3.8million competing websites, but if you type in "dog training advice" you get just 34,000 websites competing for that keyword.

So the million dollar question, what indicator do you look at as more important in your decision on whether to decide to optimize around that keyword? The results WITHOUT the quotes or the results WITH the quotes?

That point has always confused me.

Depending on what your niche is, this answer may differ.

But I will use your equation to explain my way:

Dog Training Advice-->50,000 page results
"Dog Training Advice"--> 4,000 page results

These are the keywords that I go after...

They also must receive over 100 impressions per day.

I hope that this answers your million dollar question...

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

Isn't publishing supposed to be about helping and informing people to build a business you can be proud of, not filling the web with keyword-filled noise for search engines?

I've never needed to do keyword research or center any of my website content around search engines to attract visitors to useful information and products. The natural links good content attracts outweighs any search benefits of on-page over-optimization.

By the way... you have a very nice blog

[warner444]

You can use low competition keywords and still write your post for readers.

People search in a variety of variations for any keyphrase. Writing for readers is how you get to the LSI part of using words in real language anyway.

For counts I use the adwords eternal keywords tool these days. I select Phrase match and also add the column for CPC cost because if people are paying a lot for a term, generally, it converts better.

Getting competition information can be more tricky. The ideal is the competition that is fully seo'ed. That can mean KW in title, in url, of course in text, but the quantity of backlinks needs to be considered if possible.

Putting the term just in quotes " KW" is adequate, however I think if it is going to be a major keyword for your site you should look at the sites that come up for that search. Are most of them mega sites with 10 years online top 100 and thousands of backlinks? Maybe consider a different phrase.

Even with a lot of competition results when you check the sites look for if they are really addressing that topic. Many times by looking carefully at the competition I find there is often less (or more ) than the raw numbers suggest.

I also use a tool from Kirk's Bomb Squad called INZ, it is part of his TUELZ set. I paste in the Google results and the tool analyses on in title, in url and some factors for backlinks.

[Maria Gudelis]

Marc - thanks for the post and it is so bang on!

One thing I started doing a few months ago and it is bringing in some extra affiliate sales for me is watching on my blogs, on the wordpress stats, how people are finding my site...specifically - the terms they are entering into google to find my site...and funny enough, even though one blog was all real estate focused, two words were being used consistently to find me over the last month...that wasn't about real estate, ...so capitalizing on those 2 words...

...found a clickbank product that served up the info they were looking for, wrote 2 blog posts seo optimized on the keywords (one post being a review of the clickbank product and yes, I did buy the product to give an honest review) and of course affiliate links at beginning, middle and end of the blog post....I sent a $19 press release on webwire seo optimized on the two keywords, and then the affiliate commissions started coming in!

Hope that adds to the great thread! Cheers, Mia

[xlfutur1]

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

Isn't publishing supposed to be about helping and informing people to build a business you can be proud of, not filling the web with keyword-filled noise for search engines?

I've never needed to do keyword research or center any of my website content around search engines to attract visitors to useful information and products. The natural links good content attracts outweighs any search benefits of on-page over-optimization.

good point Dan. I have found that just writing about stuff that you are interested in (and what your readers are interested in) eventually find their way into search engines via keywords you never would have really thought of in the first place.

I do think its good to have an idea of keywords in mind as you are writing, but getting too wrapped up in what is good for seo limits you on the pure writing side of things. Just provide good stuff and the karma will follow.

[hbsjcd3]

Originally Posted by marcanthony

Depending on what your niche is, this answer may differ.

But I will use your equation to explain my way:

Dog Training Advice-->50,000 page results
"Dog Training Advice"--> 4,000 page results

These are the keywords that I go after...

They also must receive over 100 impressions per day.

I hope that this answers your million dollar question...

No, still does not answer my question "

Dog training advice -----> 3.8 million competing websites
"dog training advice" ------ 34,000 websites

When you decide whether that keyword is the one that you would target, is your decision affected by the number in quotes or the keyword number without the quotes.....in other words, which statistic will be the one that makes you decide whether to use that keyword or not, the statistic in quotes or without?

or in other words

If you saw those numbers on top for the keyword, DOG TRAINING ADVICE, would you consider that keyword as one with HIGH COMPETITION or LOW competition? and why?

[warner444]

hbsjcd3 The number in quotes always is more relevant to actual competition. I did discuss that in my post above, did you read that?

"Putting the term just in quotes " KW" is adequate, however I think if it is going to be a major keyword for your site you should look at the sites that come up for that search. Are most of them mega sites with 10 years online top 100 and thousands of backlinks? Maybe consider a different phrase.

Even with a lot of competition results when you check the sites look for if they are really addressing that topic. Many times by looking carefully at the competition I find there is often less (or more ) than the raw numbers suggest."

Let me clear something up...

I over emphasize the importance of writing keyword dense blog posts to point out that it's a great way to get more targeted traffic to your blog.

In no way am I implying that blog postings shouldn't be reader friendly.

I posted this thread because I wanted to share something with everyone that works for me. And, I know it will work for others.

I understand that we all have different ways of doing things. And my way of running my business may not work for everyone.

As always it's up to you as marketers to use this method... or not.

Many of us have multiple blog sites... I know I do.

Some of my sites are very keyword focused, some of my other sites are not.

The greatest thing about marketing online is that we all have our own unique ways of doing things...

Take care guys

[warner444]

hbsjcd3 - to answer all your questions - as far as the numbers a lot of people use - a common rule of thumb is 1000 searches a month and less than 50,000 "in quotes competition"

obviously if you find a word with 5000 searches a month and less than 30,000 competition that is better.

but again - look at the actual sites too. You want to understand the real live market. You want to know what is selling and what your competitors are offering. Espacially if it a main site name, main topic, or url keyword.

Originally Posted by hbsjcd3

No, still does not answer my question "

Dog training advice -----> 3.8 million competing websites
"dog training advice" ------ 34,000 websites

When you decide whether that keyword is the one that you would target, is your decision affected by the number in quotes or the keyword number without the quotes.....in other words, which statistic will be the one that makes you decide whether to use that keyword or not, the statistic in quotes or without?

or in other words

If you saw those numbers on top for the keyword, DOG TRAINING ADVICE, would you consider that keyword as one with HIGH COMPETITION or LOW competition? and why?

My decision is affected by both numbers...

I see 3.8 million page results as high competition. I personally wouldn't even consider the results for the keyword without the quotations in your example.

This is just my preference...

Why? Because I like to find the easiest way possible to rank for a good, low competition keyword.

I don't care much for hard work... my focus is more on efficiency.

[hbsjcd3]

Originally Posted by warner444

hbsjcd3 - to answer all your questions - as far as the numbers a lot of people use - a common rule of thumb is 1000 searches a month and less than 50,000 "in quotes competition"

obviously if you find a word with 5000 searches a month and less than 30,000 competition that is better.

but again - look at the actual sites too. You want to understand the real live market. You want to know what is selling and what your competitors are offering. Espacially if it a main site name, main topic, or url keyword.

Ok... Understood. I always check competition, with and without quotes, but sometimes I run into a dilemma like a keyword (WITHOUT QUOTES)has 800,000 or so competing sites and same keyword has like 2,000 or 3,000 competing websites with the keyword (IN QUOTES).......so I always am unsure as to what keyword is the TRUE determinant of competition, with or without quotes.

Thanks for your answer.

[Chris Monty]

Awesome advice. I have started doing this more and more and it really does work.