Surely you have heard that the right keywords can transform your blog from one that is receiving little traffic or commenting, into one that is popular and successful.
Selecting the right keywords is more than just sitting down and thinking them up, performing Keyword Research is imperative for your blog to become successful and profitable.
Perhaps the most important thing to determine is what you want to achieve with your blog. Do you simply want it to be popular and obtain lots of subscribers? Or do you want to monetise with Google Adsense or other search engine affiliate programs? Your ultimate goal determines the best keywords to achieve it.
Blogging For Traffic
So, if you merely want to attract new visitors to your site or increase the general amount of traffic, how do keywords play a role?
Obviously, people who surf the internet are looking for information of some kind. If you use keywords properly, your blog will get closer to the top of the search engine results page. And that is what increases your traffic.
Determine what you want to write a post about. Perhaps your blog is about boating, and you want to include a post that relays information on how to find boating products.
There are several free Keyword Research tools you can download online for free to determine the best keywords for this post, such as the Wordpress Master Blogging Keyword Tool. Plug in your overall subject matter, in this case ‘boating’ and it will return a list of related keywords. Of the many you will find for this particular topic, try to use as many as you can in your post text.
A couple things to keep in mind: don’t indiscriminately stuff the post with all the keywords and be sure to include the top keywords in your post’s title for maximum effectiveness.
Blogging For Dollars
When your goal is to monetise your blog with pay per click ads, there are some additional factors to keep in mind when selecting keywords. With Adsense, you will want to look at the number of bidders for certain keywords, as well the number of advertisers associated with them. Less demand equals greater opportunity, but beware, it could also relate to less clicks because fewer consumers are interested in the products.
High demand keywords equate to more competition, and more consumers demanding the products – with the ads on your blog more likely to receive lots of click-throughs.
Capitalising on niche keywords which are not very competitive presents a good opportunity to make money, too. The more you can narrow down keywords to specifically reflect your niche, the less competition you have for clicks.
Consider your competitors. When you search keywords based on your niche market, realise that the listed results do not accurately all of your competitors, many of them are spamming sites that merely stuff keywords into the content.
Narrow down the list based on which blogs are truly in the business of making money through online advertising. You can do this with another search that includes the terms ‘intitle’ and ‘inanchor’ along with the words in your key phrase, for instance input “intitle: boating inanchor: boating intitle: supplies inanchor: supplies”.
The results from this more specific query are your direct competitors. With this new list, you can determine if your keyword is a good one – too much competition and it might not be worthwhile. Too little traffic, and it might not be profitable.
While by no means comprehensive, this Keyword Research information should give you a good starting point in deciding on the keywords which will prove most effective for your blog and its performance goal.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Sean,
Wise advice as usual. If you are blogging for traffic wouldn’t just having a large amount of traffic result in ppc conversion anyway?
Not necessarily. You need targeted traffic
Very well explained and I learned a lot from this post. Keyword seems to be the life blood of internet marketing. Keep posting.
Hi Nicholas,
Blogging for free traffic and PPC conversions are totally different things. I personally prefer using good SEO strategies for free traffic rather than paying for it! If you can get enough free traffic, you do not need a huge conversion rate to make your blogging profitable.
Hi Sean,
I think many others are like me when first starting out that you have to do PPC to get anywhere, but I have learn’t that is not the case, the SEO on your site along with Social media is better.
Yes Rita. Have to be careful with PPC if you don’t know what you are doing. With all the options available especially with social media there is probably no need to go for paid traffic.
Unless your in a hurry of course
Hi Sean,
Researching keywords thoroughly and using social media correctly to advertise your blog posts makes it easier and less likely to be needing a PPC service, …….as I see it?
Hi Jill
I never thought about that possibility. I thought that at some stage to be a successful internet marketer that PPC campaigns were a given at some stage.
Your suggestion about mastering keyword research and SEO makes sense. I would like to know the answer to your question too.
Hello Sean,
I am impressed that there are two different ways to blog – blogging for traffic, or blogging for money. Combine the two and imagine how fast your blog could grow? Keywords are really important, without them you will not be found
Cheers
Lisa
Hi Sean,
I think learning how to choose the correct keywords is incredibly important They are the cornerstone of everything you do to optimize your blog. If you get it right you can get some magical results.
It’s a great feeling when you see traffic coming in on your keywords. I still have a lot to learn but I’m starting to get some small results.
Hi Sean,
I find Market Samurai an excellent tool for keyword research, it certainly pays off in the long run to do some keyword research before you start and identify the high value, less competitive keywords.
Cheers
Cade