So what should you do? Your priority when it comes to keyword research is finding keywords that are actually realistic, and that will get you those conversions. What you need to do is learn how to find the right types of keywords that are going to grab your target market’s attention. With the right tools you can find the right keywords for your blog that are geared towards your target demographic, such as 18-24 year old males as opposed to 60+ year old females.

The Different Levels of Keywords

A lot of people will refer to these different levels of keywords as “the head”, “the body” and “the tail”. We’ll start by explaining “the head”.

“The head” are keywords that are pretty generic, like the keyword “real estate”. If you want any chance to ranking any where close to these generic and overused keywords, you will have to have a whole lot of money in order to do so. Otherwise there is no use in using them.

“The body” keywords are typically two or three different keywords that will have less searches per month than “head” keywords, such as “real estate guide”. The good thing about “the body” is that as these keywords have fewer searches every month, there is a good chance that there is also less competition.

“The tail” keywords are three or more keywords. The “tail” has the least amount of searches of them all, but the good thing about the tail is that if you use keywords effectively, you can target a very small specific group that will bring in highly targeted traffic. The other good thing to remember is that over 70% of all searches are made up of long tail keywords.

How to Find Keywords that Bring In Traffic

You definitely want as much traffic coming to your website as possible. If no one’s checking out your blog, then you are making zero dollars off of it.

First, start off by completely ignoring any “head” keywords. What you will want to focus on are body keywords, and tail keywords. Body keywords should have between 1000 and 100,000 searches every month, and tail keywords should have 1000 monthly searches (if not more) each month. But how does one even go about finding out about these searches so you can start optimizing your content and link building?

Step 1: Google Trends
Before you start even considering a particular set of keywords for your blog or website, it’s always a good idea to check out Google Trends to see what head keywords are on the rise. Why? This will give you a good idea of what you can expect from a particular market in the near future.

Step 2: Google Keyword Tool
The Google Keyword Tool is where you will be able to really start to whittle down a keyword list. With this tool you can compile a large list of keywords that you can use. From there, you can start to sort out both the body and tail keywords. Make sure that you choose 100 keywords (or more) and then you can begin to narrow it down.

It’s also a good idea to take any keyword or sets of keywords and just try searching them on Google. Type in your query, and note what the other suggested searches are. Write down or copy and past any more promising searches by checking out the number of searches in the Google Keyword tool. Then, you can hop right on over to Google Sets.

Step 3: Google Sets
When you have a basic lit of keywords, you can check and see if there was anything more that you may he missed by giving Google Sets your 5 keywords of choice. It will then come up with a few more predicted keywords that you may not have already had on your list.

Step 4: WordTracker
WordTracker is a favorite since there is a free version that you can use. WordTracker will help you compare Google’s data with other data (as great as Google may seem, you never want to depend on only one source of information!).

Step 5: Keyword Difficulty Tools
Most keyword difficulty tools will cost you a bit of money, but if you are serious about optimizing your website, then it is definitely a worthy investment. The Keyword Difficulty tool will give you a pretty good idea of what the competition is for each keyword or keyword set that you would like to use, so you can get a good picture of how well your blog will rank for that particular keyword.

TIP: As important as the Keyword Difficulty tool is in checking out the competition, it’s equally important that you take the time to heck out your competition manually. Some things that you want to bear in mind when you do your manual search are:

- Is the whole site keyword related or is it just one standalone page?
- Is it relevant?
- Are they a strong brand or an individual blog run by one person?
- What is the link velocity?
- What is the social branding?
- What is the user interaction?

A Final Word on Keyword Research

Keywords are the most important thing when it comes to SEO. There are a lot of tools to help you do it correctly, but it’s always a good idea to keep your finger on the Internet’s pulse. Check into social networking sites if you ever have any question as to what’s hot and what’s not. Look at trends and keep your ears open for what’s popular.

After all, if you don’t have readers for your site, how are you going to ever get anywhere with your blog? What good is spending hours (or even days) working towards a great blog post when no one is going to read it? So what are you going to do to improve your readership numbers?

The first thing is to increase your stats in the search engines and come in as close to number one as possible. But for what terms? If you have no idea what you are doing when it comes to search engine optimization, this guide is for you.

1. Google Keyword Research Tool

Google has a vast network of advertisers that are using their platform to target searchers. It’s the modern day directory. In order for advertisers to do this properly they need to target the right “search phrases.”

So how can you use this tool? It will give you the opportunity to research phrases that you might not have thought of. For instance, if you are writing a sales-oriented blog, you may not want to spend any time targeting the keyword “sales.”

A quick reference on the Google keyword tool would show you that most people searching for “sales” are looking for deals and not tips on selling.

2. Market Samurai

A tool that can help you not only do keyword research but assess the competition is known as Market Samurai. This tool will help you study the keyword alternatives that will actually bring traffic – and show you who else is using them, too. Making sure that you piece together a site that has the best keywords using this tool is easy.

If you find yourself struggling to get the best keywords with this tool, then you can always rely on their tutorials to get yourself the information that is needed. They make it as easy to use as possible and will help guarantee that you get yourself to the top of the search engines. A little effort goes a long way.

3. Micro Niche Finder

An alternative to Market Samurai is Micro Niche Finder. Developed by one of the pioneers in the Internet marketing world, this tool is considered by some to be superior to Market Samurai. You can try both and see which you like better.

Much like the Samurai, this tool gives you the opportunity to search out keyword alternatives and assess the competition. Being absolutely positive that you have the right information available is essential in the world of Internet marketing, so it may pay to actually use both of these tools on a regular basis.

4 & 5. BuildMyRank.com and Unique Article Wizard

While technically two separate tools, their functionality is almost identical. Both of these sites have a very diverse network of blogs on which you can pay to publish content. Doing so carries a small monthly fee and allows you to post regular back links to your blogs.

BuildMyRank.com provides many high quality sites through which you can publish high quality posts. Their back end system distributes the posts through sites that range from PR0 to PR9. You can publish up to 10 per day and get great benefits from this service.

Unique Article Wizard allows you to submit “spun” content, which may be frowned upon by the search engines. It can’t be beat when it comes to volume. You could easily post a few hundred articles in an afternoon – and that equates to many back links.

Working with either of these engines is geared at building back links, which is one of the most important parts of building up your website, but both of these may fall under questionable terms when it comes to the search engine terms of use, so use them at your own risk.

6. Comment Kahuna

There are many tools that will allow you to submit massive amounts of comments to many different blogs. Comment Kahuna is entirely free and will allow you to do this in a short period of time. It searches the Internet for sites that have content relevant to your niche that are accepting comments on their blogs.

You can then go to these sites and post comments. Doing so is an important way to get yourself in front of many other viewers who might be interested in your content, too. We recommend that you use it as a way to find relevant sites accepting comments as opposed to a mass commenting tool.

Regardless of the techniques you use to propel your blog to the top, you absolutely must stay focused. No matter what you are doing, do a little bit of it every day. Try to mix it up and do different things on a regular basis.

Regardless of your experience at building high traffic websites, you will find that these tools help to bring your blog up a bit in the search engines. Staying focused is the most important thing that you can do next to taking action. Without taking any action you will never be able to get your blog in the rankings, let alone to the top.

Figuring out long tail keywords to focus on will make your job a lot easier and bring in readers that will actually appreciate your blog a bit more. Having a number of people that are participating on your blog comments on a regular basis will also help to bring in more readers, but you can only do that once you have gotten somewhere in the rankings.

Don’t give up, no matter what! Many people worked on blogs as a labor of love for years with minimal traffic. As their site got older and the search engines knew more about it they found themselves ranking in first place for competitive terms that they never even focused on – so this could happen to you, too.

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Google Adwords Keyword Tool

So let’s talk about the first one, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. It’s very straightforward. It has simple to use user interface, and it’s free. You can’t beat that! You just have to make an Adwords account to use some advanced features. Did we mention again that it’s simple? It also has a really cool research tool. You can plug in a website, say one from a competitor, and you’ll be able to find all the keywords that they’re focusing on. You can also use it to audit your own blog to make sure that you aren’t missing any.

Another neat feature of this keyword analysis tool is that you can also download all the keywords that you’ve found into a spreadsheet for late usage. That way you won’t lose all the hard work that you’ve done. In Excel, you can also filter, sort, use pivot tables to manipulate the data to your heart’s content.

There are a few things that we don’t like about this tool. One of them being that you have to create a full blown Google Adwords account to use some of the advanced features such as how much advertisers are spending on each keyword. That could be really valuable insight when you’re prioritizing which keyword to optimize. By forcing you to create an Adwords Account, Google is essentially drumming up business for itself. After all advertisers are the majority of their customers. This takes you one step closer to spend money on their Pay Per Clicks.

Another shortcoming of this tool is that it tends to give short keywords or phrases instead of long tailed keywords, for example, “soccer moms who want to start a home based holiday greeting card business.” From our experience, the traffic from these long tail words add up. In fact you get as much traffic from those long tailed keywords as from the shorter keywords. It would involve a lot more work, but you’d get rewarded eventually with the extra traffic.

WordTracker

The next keyword analysis tool is WordTracker. This has been around for quite a long time. It’s the “godfather” of keyword tools. Professionals have been using this tool for keyword research, Pay Per Clicks, or whatever else related to SEO. They have a one week free trail for the full blown product. Or if you’re really smart or devious, you can go into a turbo mode, and get a LOT of research done during that week, and then just cancel. You can always sign later with a different credit card. But if you anticipate doing this for the long term, then it might not be a bad idea to keep on paying for it.

The plus side with WordTracker is that it gives you more of the long tailed keywords that we mentioned earlier, including the obscured ones. If you’re willing to invest the time, those could really pay off.

On the downside, while it has a lot of really cool features, it can also be overwhelming. For beginners who are getting into keyword research, this tool might cause them to lose confidence in themselves and think that they can never do it. It’s also quite expensive, $379 per year, or $59 per month, so definitely not cheap. And here’s the thing, its data is compiled from sources like Dogpile and Metacrawler instead of directly from the search engines, so if you’re trying to rank well in Google, the data you get here might not be quite as accurate. But overall the tool is good enough for most SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes. So it’s really not that big of a deal.

SEO Book Keyword Tool

Here’s another keyword analysis tool that we really like a lot. We use it ourselves all the time. It’s the SEO Book Keyword Tool. You can check this out by going to blogsuccessjournal.com/seobook. It’s free. Yes you have to make a login, big deal! What we love about it is that when we’in in there, it shows what the search data are from Google, Yahoo, Bing (MSN/Microsoft), basically all the top search engines, and the total per day. It gives you an overview on what people are searching for. Their data is from both Google & Wordtracker, so It’s the best of both worlds. They also have a really cool toolbar that makes it easy for you to research the keywords and conduct other SEO analysis.

The downside is that although it gives you an overview of the searches across different engines, the way it’s presented is kind of confusing with a lot of extra data. Look, all we really need is how many searches per day. Everything else is not that helpful. Anyway it’s still less complicated than Wordtracker.

So in summary, keyword Analysis tools are a crucial component to the continuing success of your blog. They help you to pick, prioritize, and write topics that people care about, instead of obscure words with very little traffic. If you want an “end all, be all” keyword research tool for professionals, then Wordtracker is your choice. For a quick peak at certain words, researching competitors’ blogs, or find out how much advertisers are spending on certain keywords, try Google Adwords Keyword tool. But most people, SEO Book Keyword Tool is more than enough to meet their needs. Hey it works for us.

Remember to leave a comment on what’s your favorite keyword tool, and why you like them.

When it comes to websites, there are literally millions of different websites throughout the World Wide Web. If you wish to compete against this massive amount of competition, then you need to understand how search engines work. Search engines rely on keywords to rank websites and web pages.

If your website doesn’t achieve the first or second page of search results, then it might as well be invisible. Internet surfers rarely go to the third page of search engine results. This means that your keywords and keyword phrases that you use should be very specific and targeted.

What Are Keywords?

If you have ever used a search engine, the word or words that you entered into it were called keywords. When you enter in a phrase, that phrase is searched in order of the words entered first. If the search engine doesn’t find an exact match with what was entered, it then relies on the main words within that phrase.

It may sound a bit confusing, but it’s really not. As an example, let’s say you wanted to find a website that sells art frames. You want wooden, hand-crafted frames for canvas.

You would type into the search box: hand crafted wood art frames for canvas. The results may hit on exactly what you’re looking for, but it might not. The results may come back with hand crafted wood frames, leaving out art and canvas.

Many users don’t get overly specific with their searches, so you need to target the main ideas. The more specific you can get with your keywords, the better. But you also don’t want to target a phrase that is rarely searched and that’s where the Google AdWords keyword tool comes in.

What The Google Keyword Tool Offers

By taking advantage of this incredible, and free, tool that is provided by Google, you can learn a great deal about the content that users are looking for with regard to your website. If you sell those art frames, type in art frames into the search box in the keyword tool.

The results will show a great deal of possible matches along with the number of searches done in a month both locally and globally. This will also give you an idea of the level of competition that you will face based on those particular keywords. As you would see with this example, ‘art frames’ has 33,100 global searches a month and the competition is around 60%.

That level of competition means that you might not get a first or second page ranking, but that would all depend on the content of your website based on that keyword phrase, as well as the other marketing efforts that you have employed. The second result is ‘art framing’ which shows 22,200 global monthly searches and much less competition. If you work with actual framing, then this would be a keyword you would want to pursue.

Developing A Balance With Keywords

As you scroll down, you will see a number of different keyword combinations based on the words that you entered. There will be some keyword phrases that have a limited number of searches combined with very little competition. Others will have several hundred thousand or even millions of global searches every month with incredible competition.

While it may be tempting to go after those keywords that have millions of global searches monthly, the odds are strong that you won’t stand a chance of being ranked within the first couple of page results. This keyword tool is powerful when you use it to its full strength. Balancing the number of monthly searches both globally and locally is important.

You may find that a keyword phrase returns 50,000 global searches every month, but only 2,000 locally. If your business relies on local customers, then this isn’t a keyword you want to focus on, even if it’s right in line with your business. Instead, look for high numbers of local searches combined with a lower competition level.

What You Can Learn From These Results

SEO tools such as this one can offer you an incredible amount of useful information. When you are building your website or marketing it, you will likely already have keywords in mind. Yet, you may realize that what you’re targeting will simply be too much in the way of competition to try to overcome.

You’ll have a certain amount of pride when it comes to building your web presence - whether that’s instructions on how to start a blog, web hosting, or a million other possible topics – and you want to focus on the high return search phrases, if you plan on being successful with your business venture, you need to take a step back and find the right balance for your particular business. Some websites have been building their presence for years and have cornered the market, so to speak, on certain keywords.

The Google Adwords keyword tool can also show you what website domain addresses might be ideal to acquire if you can. In the previous example, if you customize frames for clients, you may not have realize that art framing would have as many searches done every month and that the competition level is relatively low. Maybe artframing.com is available as a domain and when you have that domain, you are going to get those first page results that you want.

Be Willing To Adjust

When it comes to keywords and search engine results, you need to be willing to make adjustments. If you target certain keywords but you’re not getting the results you want, then consider trying a different combination of words. If you stick to your guns and aren’t willing to make the necessary changes (which includes altering content and marketing strategies), then you will likely be losing valuable time and money in the long run.

Use the Google AdWords keyword tool whenever you can. It has helped many websites attract visitors and build customer bases.

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As much as we wish there’s a machine that will make money online for you automatically, and you could just order it for $19.95 from a late night infomercial, the truth is that it is much harder to make money online than it initially appears. It involves a lot of work and dedication, but it is well worth it. Once you’ve learned how to start your own online show, it’s time to think about how to use those movies to make money online.

Here are four EASY ways to monetize your videos:

Create Unique Videos With Great SEO Titles

Good content and outstanding keywords are the cornerstone of a successful post. Ideas can come from the strangest places. If you have a camera and you have a cat that likes to flush the toilet, you might have a YouTube hit on your hands! For the rest of us without talented felines, the key is to put out good quality content on a regular basis, and build a following in your niche by becoming an expert.

Don’t forget that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are the ones that usually find your articles and videos first. So be sure to keep Search Engine Optimization, or SEO in mind when creating the content. The title should tell what the clip is about and make people really want to see it.

There’s a fine balance between SEO and copywriting. Our opinion is that you might have the most awesome headline in the world, but if the search engine doesn’t like it, then people will have a hard time finding it. So take the extra effort and research your keywords to see how much traffic there are for different variations, and then pick the best ones that you want be ranked on the first page of a search engine.

Going back to our cat example, don’t just write “My Latest Movie” as your title – nobody is going to watch that! Instead, using an attention grabbing headline such as “Incredible Cat Flushes Toilet Video!” will help you snag a lot more traffic. Think about it – which title would YOU want to click on?

Promote Great Products Within Your Niche

Some people think that promoting products in videos to try to make money online is “selling out.” However, if you’re promoting great products that you’ve tried yourself, like and would recommend to your OWN friends and family, why not recommend it to your video viewers?

For example, this is our favorite web hosting company (read our review of them here). We promote them both in the video clip and in this article. We do this because we love the product and it’s one that we actually DO recommend to our family and friends. We are genuinely recommending a GREAT product with a lot of value. Why not promote something that you actually believe in if it’s related to your niche?

You should only share things that you like, otherwise it’s not really authentic, and people will smell the BS a mile away. Basically think of yourself as a celebrity, expert, or guru lending their reputation to endorse only awesome products, and be sure to provide good solid take-aways that are valuable to your readers!

Join The YouTube Partner Program

Once you have uploaded videos to YouTube, be sure to apply for the YouTube Partner Program. Once you’re a member, YouTube will then display ads along with your video, and pay a revenue share percentage to you! It might not be a lot, but will slowly add up. And who knows you might get lucky and have an extremely popular viral clip now and then.

Here is a tip from our “top secret” source within Google. You’re going to be blown away by the insight! YouTube essentially wants “quality content released at a regular intervals.” Is that a shocker, or what!?

So, if you already have a following and a portfolio of movies that are generating views for YouTube on a regular basis, then you’re in after you fill out an application. It’s another great way to make money online passively!

Make Sponsored Videos

Now we talked about allowing YouTube to place ads in videos, but what about doing so yourself? This is also known as product ad placement in sponsored videos, or live reads. Live Reads have a long tradition that stretches back to early days of radio. If your online video show gets popular enough, you can get money from companies to feature their products in your videos, same as any movie or TV show.

For example, when the judges on “American Idol” start drinking vitamin water with the Coke brand, it didn’t just happen by accident! The Coca-Cola company paid a boat load of money for that to happen! The same applies to ragged contestants on the show “Survivor” building sometimes dubious looking shelters with handy tools and supplies from Home Depot. In the age of Online Video, Netflix, and TiVo that seriously cuts back traditional commercials, advertising is now a lot more clever and part of the content. It’s the future, and we’re living in it!

It can be quite lucrative, provided you have content that is advertiser friendly and has an audience. People often ask “I’ve just learned how to start a blog, and now how do I find an advertiser?” Well, you don’t. What really happens is that you build your audience to the right size, and then advertisers will actually come to find you! That kind of blows the mind, doesn’t it?

So be sure to have a section on your blog for advertisers to eventually contact you! It won’t happen right away, but the bigger you get, the more advertisers will approach you. Don’t even waste your time approaching them because most likely, they’d just brush you off, or simply ignore you. Once your videos have enough followers, advertisers will contact you to offer their products for you to recommend in your videos. Yes, it can be that easy to make money online!

Not sure where to begin? Start here! How To Start a Blog and Make Money Online – in 10 Easy Steps

This is not to say that you can’t make money in a popular, broad niche, but it does take more time and work to grow that kind of blog to the level where it makes good money.

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How to Pick a Niche – Passion vs. Moneymakers

So where do you start when you want to pick the right niche and learn how to start a blog? There are two schools of thought on picking a niche. Some people say that you should just choose something you are passionate about because you will want to wake up every morning and write quality content.

While that is a great thought, if your biggest hobby is underwater basket weaving, you are unlikely to make a great income blogging about it.

One often overlooked component in blogging is that you need to be able to find related products to promote to your customer base in order to make money. Of course, you could create a blog with simple AdSense or other banner ads, but it might take longer to see a profit over time.

On the other hand, some people say you should only pick topics that are known moneymakers whether you are interested in them or not. While that might work for some people, others need to have at least a passing interest in their topic in order to be successful.

In short, when you learn how to start a blog, you want to be certain that thousands (if not millions) of other people share your enthusiasm and interest in the topic and will pay money for products and/or services that you have to offer in the niche from time to time. No matter what, the key to the whole niche selection process is choosing the right keywords and getting your research together before building a blog site.

Keyword Tools

There are many free online keyword research tools to find keywords. One popular tool is the free Google Keyword tool.  After you have entered the keywords, you can check the amount of advertisers in that niche by gauging the bar in the “Competition” column.  You can even assess how lucrative the keywords are by click on the “Columns” button, and then enable the “Suggested Bid” checkbox.

This site is handy for many different tasks including your search for a blog topic. Let’s say you know that dating is a popular niche, so you want to do something in that niche. The problem is that going after such a broad niche can be the kiss of death for most new bloggers. So it’s important to find a sub-niche on dating in this case.

One way of doing that is putting in a “seed keyword”. You could start with “finding a date” and whittle the keyword options down further and further. Perhaps, in the end, you find that you would be interested in blogging about “finding a date for young professionals in their 20s & 30s.” There are many sub-topics to choose once you have a general idea of your topic.

The idea behind blogging is to develop a loyal following. To that end, it is important that you target your niche with laser-like focus so that you are one of the only people providing such specific content to a group of people. Additionally, you want to be sure that enough people are interested in your niche so that you get enough traffic.

If only 10 people per month are searching for your keyword, you need to either move on to another topic or see if there are other related keywords to create a bigger blog.

You can use tools other than the Google Keyword tool also. For instance, two other free tools are the SEObook keyword tool and Google Insights for Search. There are also other paid tools that are a lot fancier. We recommend you get a proven keyword research tool to find your keywords quickly and accurately.

The Google Insights tool gives additional information that can be very important during the niche research phase. It shows you how popular search terms are and what kind of history they have. For example, Christmas phrases would be highly searched from October through December, but most blogs would be quiet throughout the rest of the year. That can have a direct impact on your income.

Check the trends for your keywords and make sure that enough interest is there throughout the year to give you a reason to put your time and effort into the topic. This tool can also help you maximize your chances of making bursts of income at different times of the year as well.

So how do you know the proper way to research a keyword? The answer is that there is no “right” way. Everyone has their own opinion as to the number of searches that a keyword tern should have to make it worthwhile.

You can find yourself spending so much time researching that you never get around to creating quality content for your blog. Don’t over-analyze things. Often, you will find yourself with a list of keywords that, when added up, will give you plenty of potential search volume for the month.

The key is finding a way to get to the #1 slot on Google so that you can get the bulk of the daily searches for your keywords.

Once you have picked your keyword, you can also search what affiliate programs are available and check their commission.  Choosing a niche for your blog does not need to be a long, drawn out process. Use a mixture of your interests and knowledge to make your selection.

Here’s a quick tip: if you do a search on Google for a topic and people are paying money to run AdWords ads on the right side, they are making money. If you see TV commercials or magazine ads about your topic, they are making money. It’s a good bet that you will make money too!  So get started today and pick that lucrative niche that you will dominate!

Be sure to check our How to Start a Blog page to give you an overview of the process.  In our next step, we’ll be talking about our recommended web host, which comes with 1-click installation of WordPress, our favorite easy to use blog publishing platform: the one we use for all our sites.

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First, what’s the difference between Keywords and Tags?

There really isn’t a difference. Simply put, the keywords that you enter at the bottom of your article or blog post in WordPress are called tags. So for the purpose of this article we’re going to use them interchangeably.

What are the “Best Keywords and Tags?”

The tags for an article are the few words that best describe what your article (or blog post) is about. Ideally there are 5-10 keywords that specifically tie into your post.

A word of warning: these keywords have to be topics that actually relate to your article. You can’t just throw in random keywords that you think will get you noticed on search engines, as that will backfire on you. That’s called keyword spamming and it’s a one way ticket to nowheresville, population: you and your blog that no one will go to.

What are the some examples of the Best Keywords and tags?

Let’s say you had a post on your blog entitled “How to get a hot date online!” Some keywords you might use include as tags are: dating, online dating, online dating profile, get a date, get noticed online. See how those actually relate to the article we’re talking about? That’s the idea. Your job of course is to find the ones that best reflect your article AND get the most search traffic, but more on that coming up.

Also there’s no need to post 50-100 keyword tags. In fact, that’s not going to help you at all. Less is usually more, and the keyword realm is no different.  Be honest about what your article is about and you’ll be much more likely to get noticed in search engines.

WordPress “tag pages” are great for SEO

A lot of people don’t know this, but one of the (many) great things about WordPress is that for each tag you add to an article, WordPress creates a tag page. And that tag page will link to all articles tagged with that keyword. So all articles tagged with the keyword “dating” will be linked from the “dating” tag page on your blog.

For example, here are the tag pages for “web hosting” and “WordPress“ here on Blog Success Journal. And to give you a little different flavor, here are the tag pages for “pick up lines” and “sex positions” on Ask Dan & Jennifer.

Tag pages are important from an SEO perspective, because they can rank really well in search engines. Tagging your posts well will help you climb the keyword mountain faster and you’ll get noticed in the search engines and gradually move your way up in search rankings for those keywords.

Again, this is assuming you are tagging your posts accurately: if you add bogus keywords as tags, then your “tag pages” will be full of spam, i.e. non-related junk, and they will NOT help you get better search engine rankings.

Categories are not keyword tags – don’t use them interchangeably

Tags are just the natural evolution of the old category concept. Whereas years ago you had to choose 1 or 2 pre-defined categories when writing an article, these days it’s easy to just add the 5 to 10 tags, which are the topics the article is really about.

“But what about categories”, you ask? Well, for the moment you will still need them as well. We strongly recommend that you choose a single category that your article best fits into – in addition to the tags. For example, on Ask Dan & Jennifer, our 3 top-level categories are “sex“, “love“, and “dating“. Each new article is filed in one of these top-level categories, and then we add the appropriate tags to it.

We use major keywords as categories for better search engine rankings, because just like with tags, WordPress creates a category page which links to all the articles in that category. But you still need to tag your articles appropriately.

Use the same form of keywords and tags from one post to the next

As far as Google is concerned, the following keyword tags are completely different: “website” and “web site” and “websites”.

You need to be aware that those are completely different keywords and be consistent in the way you tag your articles. There’s nothing wrong with either keyword, but choosing one form and using it that way consistently increases your chances of getting ranked for that form of the keyword. So pick one and stick with it. Either you always use “website” as your tag or you use “web site”. Don’t use both interchangeably or you’ll be missing the chance for better rankings and more traffic.

Do your Keyword Research to determine with keywords get the most search engine traffic

“Website” and “web site” are perfectly valid keywords (tags), but we’ve also mentioned that search engines regard them as two completely different keyword tags.

But did you also know that each one generates an entirely different amount of search engine traffic?  Well, you do now. Fact is that not all keywords are created equal. Obviously if you are building your audience for your website, you want to only have the most effective keywords possible.

How do you that? Keyword research. That means doing your homework and looking up the number of searches each version of a keyword gets.

Doing your keyword research is crucial to have the most effective keyword tags on your blog, and it’s literally the ONLY way you will learn which keywords and tags are the most effective for you and your blog. It’s a bit time-consuming and tedious, but if you’re starting a blog you really need to start thinking of it as a business and more importantly as YOUR business. Treat it as if it is your full-time job, because well, it is and who else is going to research keywords and tags for you? That’s right. Nobody.

And here’s great news about keyword research: these results are fairly consistent from day-to-day. So you just need to do it once and save your findings in a spreadsheet – that’s what we do. Sure you’ll find yourself updating this keyword research spreadsheet now and then, but you won’t have to duplicate your work every time.

Keyword research tools – how to find the right keywords to use.

Here is a great keyword tool for you to check it. It can take a little getting used to, at first. But once you play with them a little bit they get easier to use, and it really helps to know as much about your niche as possible. That way you can hone in on the words that your audience are mostly likely to use to try and find the kind of content you have to offer online.

• SEO Book Keyword Research Tool – free keyword research option.

Tip: A very helpful strategy we use is to do your keyword research for your niche up front, find your most valuable keywords (in the right form: plural, singular, etc.) and keep track of all of them in a spreadsheet (complete with number of views per day). That way you can always refer to this again. And you will refer to it later – and you will update it later… but it’s important to have a strong starting point to build on.

Do your keyword research now and it will set you up for long-term success

Fact of the matter is that most people do the research too late after they’ve already made up their own keywords and find out they don’t work as well as others would have. But why do that? Why waste all that time (and potentially money) when you can simply do the keyword research NOW and get started on the right foot? It’s much easier to start off on the right foot than it is to get off to a slow start and get stuck in bad habits and then try to correct them. Do the keyword research now and start yourself off with the best tag habits possible and you won’t need to correct them later.

This is a very technical article, with a lot of information. It’s unrealistic to expect to assimilate all of it at once. We highly recommend that you read it several times to make the most of all the keyword and tag information above. Then, after you’ve done that, go out there and make the magic happen!

Click here to view the embedded video.

What the heck are keywords?

What are they and why do I need to know about them? Are they really that important to me and my blog? Can’t I get by without them? I mean, it’s all about the content right? So if I just write a really cool article, people will find it, right?

Well, not so much really. As with most anything in the world, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but don’t worry. That’s what we are here for. So sit back and enjoy. We’re going to give you keyword 101. If you’re an SEO expert, you won’t get much out of this video (you should be teaching it, really), but if you think SEO refers to a 70’s rock band, you’re in the right place.

Here’s the deal. You’ve set up your blog, picked a niche, installed the necessary tools to make your blog succeed, now what? Now you have to make sure that people who are searching for it on Google and other search engines can find it. But how? With keywords.

Wait, what exactly is keyword, you ask? And what’s a “keyword phrase”

Every go to Google and type in something like “How do I make money off my blog?”  or “Good pizza” or “Dry cleaners in my neighborhood” Guess what? Those are keywords.  Or, they are a “key phrase search” to be specific. Technically a single word (i.e. “dating”) is a keyword, but a phrase (i.e. “dating tips”) is a keyword phrase. Simple, right?

They can be short, or they can be long. Most “keywords “ are actually three to five word phrases. Keywords, in a nutshell, are what you are searching for. Whatever you type in Google (or Bing, Yahoo, or whatever) is a keyword or a string of keywords.

The textbook definition of keyword is a “term that encapsulates the essence of your text.” For this article, on this article “What are keywords and why do they matter?” Our keywords could include the following: keywords, keyword research, keyword analysis, keyword service, most searched keywords, SEO, blogging

Think of it this way: the content of each article can be boiled down to a few key topics. Those would be your keywords for that article.

Choose your keywords carefully.

Why? Because some keywords will get a few clicks a day while some words get a few THOUSANDS of clicks a day. The crazy part? Both keywords can cover the same topic and mean the same thing, but the more “common” term people use more often will obviously get more searches.  So every keyword gets incredibly different results and offer a completely different bang for your buck.

For example, keyword (singular), keywords (plural) and “keyword phrases” get 859, 723, 45 searches per day respectively.

How will you know the difference between the two? The way you learn everything: by doing your homework, which in this case is called keyword research. But where do you start? With a basic keyword research tool.

Keyword research tools – how to find the right keywords to use.

Here is a great keyword tool for you to check it. It can take a little getting used to, at first. But once you play with them a little bit they get easier to use, and it really helps to know as much about your niche as possible. That way you can hone in on the words that your audience are mostly likely to use to try and find the kind of content you have to offer online.

• SEO Book Keyword Research Tool – free keyword research option

Tip: A very helpful strategy we use is to do your keyword research for your niche up front, find your most valuable keywords (in the right form: plural, singular, etc.) and keep track of all of them in a spreadsheet (complete with number of views per day). That way you can always refer to this again. And you will refer to it later – and you will update it later… but it’s important to have a strong starting point to build on.

Don’t keyword spam!

Figure out which are the most searched words in your niche, then include them in your blog as much as possible, but don’t do it arbitrarily. That’s called “keyword spamming” and you don’t want to go down that road. No one will like you, particularly the search engines who you’re technically “spamming” by doing it. And that’s not something you really need to be doing anyway. Just do your homework, write your blog with those words in mind, and you’ll be all set for success.

Next steps to choosing great keywords for your blog posts.

This article is just an introduction, the very, very tippy top of the iceberg, but it is at least enough to get you started. Now you’ve got yourself a good starting point from which to conquer the internet via your master of SEO and keywords! Okay, maybe not so much, but you’re on your way. That counts, right?

Just remember: you start with the topic, the niche that you’re going to cover,  then you really need to focus on how people who are looking for your content are going to find it. Those tags you add to your blog are crucial! Those three to five words can make or break you!

And back to the cardinal rule… write great content that people actually want to read, and work with the search engines to help them find your great content. Then promote that great content.

Be sure to also check out part 2 of our Keywords 101 series: Keyword Research 101: How to Choose The Best Tags & Keywords For Your Blog Posts – And Why This Matters (Video).

Great! Starting a blog can be a solid way to make long-term income – just for doing some writing on stuff you actually like and care about. But there’s a little more to it than that AND it may not be for everyone. This is not a get rich quick or plug and play business. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is not the place for you.

Yes, you can make a lot of money online but, like other traditional businesses, it’s not guaranteed. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is not being truthful.

Our goal is to help people who are really serious about building a real online business – because you can make a little, or a lot of money. That all depends on you…

Here’s the big difference between making money online and going to a job every day. If you do it right, the work you do today, this week, and this year – will continue making money for years to come. It’s an investment rather than trading your time for money.

So how does this work? Search engines find and cache the articles that you write, and over time each post is “worth more” to the search engines. That means you’ll get more web site traffic with every passing month as your site gains credibility. This does not happen overnight. It takes persistence and even some hard work – but you can do it if you’re serious and committed…

We did it (Dan and I both walked away from our corporate jobs and now do this full time), and so can you. The good news is that you get to take advantage of what we’ve learned over the last several years and avoid the sand traps that we had to dig our way out of.

So let’s get started – RIGHT NOW!

Here are 10 EASY steps we’ll take together to help you start a blog and make money online.

Decide to start today

TODAY. No, not tomorrow, not next week, and not next month. Tomorrow always feels “safe” because you’re not having to make a decision. The power of today is that you make that commitment to yourself. And that is the first step to success.

This step is the most critical one, and it’s where most people get stuck. Don’t dream about doing something. Just get up and do it.

“The best way to live the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams Today, in every little way that you possibly can.”  – Mike Dooley, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Step #1 – Choose the right niche – What your blog is about…

Choosing the right niche for your blog is perhaps the most important choice you can make BEFORE you actually start writing. Choose the wrong niche, and it’s very unlikely you’ll ever succeed.

Some questions to help you choose the right niche

• The most important question you have to ask yourself is this: What are you passionate about?
  It’ll be very hard for you to write regularly and authoritatively and be a go-to industry expert on a topic you don’t really care about. Passion tends to make the difference between amazing success and quiet failure.
• Do you intend to make money with this blog? Would you like it to be your primary income source?
  This makes a big difference. If so, you’ll have to choose a nice that is not overly crowded. Regardless of the crowding, you’ll need to research your niche thoroughly and develop your own value proposition.

Research your niche and learn the landscape

Find the popular websites in your niche, study them closely, and visit them regularly.

Get to know the authors and regular contributors. Comment on their posts regularly so they can get to know you too.

Find the right keywords to target with your blog

Once you choose your niche, it’s crucial to find the right keywords to target. This is a delicate balance between finding keywords that get enough search traffic and keywords that don’t have too much competition.

Don’t wait until your site starts getting popular to figure out which keywords to target, or you’ll waste a lot of time and effort and end up starting from scratch.

While you can do a lot of research the manual, old-fashioned, and time-consuming way, we recommend you use a keyword research tool to find your keywords quickly and accurately.

For more details on choosing your niche, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 1: Pick Your Niche”.

Step #2 – Get a web hosting account

Your host should be reliable, responsive if you have questions, and inexpensive. $7 per month is reasonable for a reliable host; less than that and the service tends to go down a lot.

Many people try to save those few dollars and start a blog with a free platform like Blogger.com. But we strongly advise against it. It’s virtually impossible to get free search engine traffic to those free blogs, and support is completely nonexistent. Oh, and if your blog disappears overnight (as we had happen once on Blogger.com), there’s nobody to call and ask for help. Your work is all lost. You’ll also have a hard time moving away when your blog takes off. And you’ll lose all the search engine value that you’ve built up.

Take this seriously and go with a proper web host that actually has competent support people available to help you. Spending $7/month for a proper web host will also help you realize that you’re serious about your goal.

We highly recommend HostGator when your just getting started.

HostGator is great because it JUST WORKS, they offer a lot of great features, and (unlike most other quality web hosts) you can sign up for an inexpensive monthly plan, and pay month by month. Most of the other guys advertise a really cheap rate, but you only get that if you pay 1-3 years up front.

The fact Hostgator’s email support team replies to my issues in literally minutes is awesome, but that’s not the only reason we recommend HostGator. Check out all of the reasons we love them in our web hosting review of HostGator, and then go set up your own account with them today.

Are there other good web hosts? Sure, but HostGator is the only web host that we recommend to our own friends and family when they ask…

If you’re just starting out – or you’re looking to keep your costs as low as possible while working with a solid, reliable web host, do yourself a favor and get started with HostGator.

Don’t forget to check out our web hosting review of HostGator, and give it a try yourself; we’re glad we did.

Tip: Don’t forget to use Coupon Code BLOGSUCCESS when you sign up with HostGator – and your 1st month is just $0.01! That means you can start a blog today for just $0.01. Now you’ve really got no excuse to delay, so take a few minutes and do it before you get busy and forget!

For more information on web hosting, read “How to Start a Blog – Step 2: Get a Web Hosting Account for your Blog”.

Step #3 – Install WordPress

After you choose a reliable web host, you’re ready to install your blogging software. The most flexible choice available today is WordPress. It’s also free, and easy to set up and maintain.

Yes, this is a little more involved than setting up a free account somewhere, but it’ll be well worth the effort when you get more web site traffic in a month then you would have gotten in a year on a Blogger.com.

For more information and step by step details on how to install WordPress, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 3: Install WordPress to Run your Blog”.

Step #4 – Make a great first impression with a great theme

First impressions always matter. On the web, that’s even more important. A web visitor’s first impression about your site determines if he clicks away in the first 5 seconds, if he stays on to read what you have to say, and if he will ever come back again.

So it’s very important to put your best foot forward. Make your site interesting, distinctive, and engaging to your readers by using a great “theme”. WordPress themes are basically website designs that you can just download and enable for your WordPress account.

Start with a free theme and when you have the resources, consider having a custom theme made to enhance your brand even further.

For more information and how to find great free themes for your blog, make sure to read “How to Start a Blog – Step 4: Make a Great First Impression with a Great Theme for your Blog”

Step #5 – Configure WordPress and its plugins to get the most search engine traffic

What good is a blog if nobody is visiting? One of the great advantages of WordPress is the vast array of options to make your blog very yummy to the search engines. This is all about understanding what Google wants and giving it to them in the way they want it. Simple.

The most powerful SEO trick of all: “work with Google to give them what they want instead of trying to trick them”.

For our list of must have plugins and brain-dead simple SEO tips, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 5: Install These WordPress Plugins to Get the Most Search Engine Traffic”

Step #6 – Make your blog welcoming and engaging to every reader

To make your visitors stick around and come back for more – day after day – use the power of WordPress and make your blog fun, engaging, and interactive.

Use polls to get readers involved and ask their opinion. Feature the latest posts and comments. Show off your most popular articles. Get readers truly involved by getting them to comment on your posts.

To discover a few simple ways to get your readers coming back, again and again, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 6: Engage Your Readers”

Step #7 – Write your first post

OK, at this point you’ve chosen THE best niche for you, you’ve become very familiar with that niche and it’s most popular sites, and you’re basically what could be considered an “authority” on your topic.

So now is the time for that all important first post

Off the top of your head, make a quick list of all the issues in your niche that people care about. What problems do they have, what questions do they have? What keeps them up at night?

Now pick ANY one of these and write a quick article on it. This “article” can be just a simple Top 10 list, with a supporting sentence of two for each bullet. That’s it!

Get feedback

Get this first article out there and see what people think. Email it to your family and friends, and ask them to help you make it better.

All the planning in the world is no substitute for Action. It’s time to go forth and do those good and powerful things.

For detailed steps on how to get started writing great content, read “How to Start a Blog – Step 7: Write your First Post”.

Step #8 – Set up your RSS feed

Not long ago, RSS was the domain of the super-geeky. But today, millions of mainstream internet users are subscribing to RSS vibes every day.

Get set up with full-blown RSS support by setting up a free account with FeedBurner. They’ll pull a feed from your blog, make it pretty so everyone can actually read it, and they’ll even give you accurate stats on your readers. Yes, it is nice to know if anyone is actually subscribed to your feed.

WordPress also has a simple plugin that you can enable to support your shiny new FeedBurner RSS feed service.

For more information on RSS, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 8: Set up Your RSS Feed“.

Step #9 – Register your new blog with the top directories

Once you have a few posts out there, it’s time to start getting the word out. Search engines want to see links coming back to your site. Those links show that people other than just you consider your site to be important.

Well, at first you have no links. So you have to start somewhere. One of the best places to start is the endless list of web site directories and now blog directories which are just begging to give you a free link.

Here are a few to get you started: BlogCatalog, DMOZ and the Yahoo Directory. DMOZ and Yahoo Directory are very important, but your submission to them is considered just a “suggestion”, and you may never hear back or get included.

Blog Catalog has turned into a social community of bloggers, which makes it significantly more valuable than a regular blog directory, largely because of the relationships you can forge there.

For more information on blog directories, read “How to Start a Blog – Step 9: Register your Blog with Every Top Website and Blog Directory”.

Step #10 – Promote! Social Media, Internet Press Releases, Article Marketing, and more

If you don’t tell people about your new site, they’ll never know about it! Stop hoping someone will accidentally stumble upon your site. Take matters into your own hands and get the word out there!

It’s never been this easy to promote a brand new site, and to explosively grow your traffic and readership.

Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, and more

Did you just publish a great article on your site? Let people know! Social media is a great way to share your stories with others who WANT to know about it.

Share your great article on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and StumbleUpon. But tread with caution. Don’t “spam” these sites with everything you write.

To be truly successful, it’s VERY important to follow the rules and participate in these communities.

There are even some great tools like to automate the process and submit your stories to tens of social media sites! This means you save countless hours AND actually get your story out to dozens of sites instead of just one. But again, you can’t just spam these communities, it’s crucial to build a presence and participate as a real person.

Article Marketing – Establish yourself as an expert by publishing your articles

Time to get more visibility for your hard work. Article directories take your articles and provide them to the countless webmasters and eZine publishers that need what you have: good, useful, and informative content.

You’ve already spent the time and written excellent articles… Now it’s time to publish those articles on the top 10 article directories and get lots more readers coming to your website.

For more information on the best ways to promote your blog, check out “How to Start a Blog – Step 10: Promote! Social Media, Internet Press Releases, Article Marketing”.

“Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct course along the way.” – Tim Ferriss, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Next Steps: What to do RIGHT NOW – Today…
(It’s Easy, Stay With Us Here)

OK, so we’ve been through the basics, it’s time for action. If you’re going to do something, there is only “now”. Later and someday never come. So let’s do it together! Yes, today.

1.) Choose your niche.

• Ask yourself these 3 questions.
• Here’s a short video to help you choose a niche.

2.) Get a cheap, reliable web host. Regardless of your niche (topic), this is one thing you’ll need before you start.

And that little $5 commitment may actually help you get going! This is the ONLY web host we recommend if you’re just getting started – the one we recommend to our own friends and family.

Our recommended web host even comes with 1-click installation of WordPress, our favorite easy to use publishing platform: the one we use for all our sites. So you can now check this item off your list, and move up to step 2.

3.) Write your first post.

Don’t agonize over it, just do it! Start small, and keep going. Here’s some step by step help for you -
How To Write Your First Blog Post (Video)