I will break this tutorial into parts so your brain can handle the information easier.
Today, I will talk about keyword research as this is the most important step to successfully rank high in the search engine for competitive phrases, and ultimately, to MAKE MONEY ONLINE! Many beginners make the mistake of making a website and not knowing how to compete in the search engine for competitive phrases. You don't want to be that newbie to make that mistake. Always do keyword research FIRST!
TWO FREE TOOLS THAT YOU WILL NEED
If you do not have SEO For Firefox, then you will need to go get it NOW because you will need it to understand what the hell am I talking about. Oh, and don't worry because the tool is absolutely FREE. We all love free stuff right?
After you install it and restarted your Firefox browser, you should see the SEO logo on the bottom right corner of your browser. If it is in grey/white color, then that means it is turned OFF. Make sure it is in blue and orange to use the tool.
Next, you will need Google Keyword Tool. It is a free tool so make sure you bookmark that site!
Note: Don't listen to people who tell you to buy this and buy that stupid keyword tools out there. These people are just trying to make a commission off you when you purchase the product through their "recommendation" link. The best keyword tool is Google's free keyword tool itself.
NEXT STEP: GOOGLE'S KEYWORD TOOL
Now, in Google's keyword tool page, I will show you how to use it EFFECTIVELY with an example. In this example, I will use the keyword "Stupid". If you have no idea what keyword to build a site on, simply type in ONE word in the box. Type in the word Stupid in the box.
Sort the column that says "Global Monthly Search Volume" to highest to lowest. Also, you see "Match Type: Broad" on the right hand side? Change "Broad" to "Exact".
It should be something like this:
If you have sorted "Global Monthly Search Volume" to highest to lowest, the first keyword should be "Stupid". It has an estimate of 368,000 searches per month. Wouldn't you like that? Let's look at the 2nd one, "Stupid People", and it has 301,000 searches per month. That is not bad either. Generally, the more words in your keyword, then the easier it is to rank in the search engine. Let's analyze the keyword "Stupid People".
NEXT STEP: GOOGLE'S SEARCH ENGINE
Go on Google search engine now, and type in "Stupid People".
You should see something like this:
You can IGNORE the #1 result. You can ignore anything that says "News/Videos/Images/Shopping results for (your keyword)". Those are just Google's suggestions and they are worth nothing.
The real #1 result in this example is the one in #2 spot which is darwinawards.com. If you look underneath the site, you will see tiny information about the site. The first one says PR: 7 (The 7 shows up as ? when you first load look up your keyword so just click on the ? and it will reveal the PR). Do NOT be intimidated by the PR 7!
YOU CAN BEAT THIS SITE BUT WILL TAKE TIME
The site is not optimized for the keyword "Stupid People" at all. Why?
-The title of the site is "The Darwin Awards"
-The domain has no keywords for "stupid", "people" or both words.
Here are TWO major reasons why this site is ranking so high for "Stupid People":
- A lot of high authoritative sites are linking to that site. To check who is linking to that site, look in the same small toolbar area where you found the PR:
Click on "Y! Link" and it will open up a new window. This will reveal who is linking to Darwin Awards. I randomly clicked on one of the sites, and the first site I saw had a PR 8 that is linking to Darwin Awards.
- A lot of people are linking to the site with anchor text link "Stupid People"
You can BEAT THIS SITE! You can take over the #1 spot. Just because it is PR 7 doesn't mean you have no chance of beating it.
PAY ATTENTION
What four main important things you will need to beat this site:
- Get a domain with the words "stupid" and "people" inside it. It could be www.stupidpeopleohmygodlol.com. Whatever you want, but those two words must stick together. It doesn't matter if it is .com .net .org .biz .whatever. Don't listen to people who tell you that it does matter because it doesn't. If your site is not .com, .net. or .org, your site will just be indexed later than others. Just because your site will be indexed later doesn't mean you will be far behind in terms of SEO. If you are going for competitive keywords, your site will take a long time to get to first page anyway so might as well be patient and start building up links.
- The title of your site must be Stupid People. Do not be fancy with it. I don't want to see Stupid People - Homepage... Stupid People - Quote... etc. Your title must be 100% matching with the keyword that people will type into the search engine. In our example, it is "stupid people".
- Slowly building up your backlinks to get to PR 4 or 5. I think you can beat that site with a PR 4 if your site is fully optimized (domain name, title, etc.). I would say PR 5 to be on the safe side.
- Most of your backlinks must have anchor text link "stupid people". The reason I said most instead of ALL is because if Google knows all the backlinks to your site say Stupid People, they will know that you were up to no good with your linkbuilding scheme. They will penalize your site to rank lower.
PREVENT PENALIZATION
Here is a suggestion to combat Google: Go to Google's keyword tool again, and type in "stupid people". Make sure Match Type: is on "Exact". Sort the global search again so it is highest to lowest. The 2nd highest should be "Stupid People Doing Stupid Things" and 3rd is "Funny Stupid People". You can mix some of those as anchor text links pointing to your site.
Two benefits for doing that:
1.) Looks more natural than just 100% anchor text links "Stupid People" pointing to your site.
2.) Helps you rank higher for those other two phrases as well so you can dominate the niche more.
THIS POST IS SO LONG
I am going to STOP here today! I just scrolled up to see how long this post was, and it is EXTREMELY long! I will continue this on my next post. Stay tune for my next SEO tutorial!