Keyword Research: Denting Competition with Long Tail Keywords
Written by adminMost people assume that registering a domain is the first step to setting up a blog. Hence they find a registrar of domains or head for a hosting company which provides both hosting and registration service. They select a name they think sounds nice for their blog, check its availability and register it and get hosting service.
It is after this that they start thinking of content, traffic and customers.
Problem is that this approach does not work anymore.
The Internet has been around now for some time and the mountains of content has already been created and indexed by the search engines. Hence, if you were to try and create a website or a blog now which promotes a single word such as a blog or Psoriasis, you are bound to create web content that is likely to lie buried underneath tons of content churned out daily by millions of websites and blogs that populate the Internet.
Thus, the most attractive option available to late entrants to the Internet, who want their websites to be visible amidst the clutter of information available on every subject imaginable, is to consider the possibility of using long tail keywords.
What is a Long Tail Keyword
Long tail keywords, also know as broad keywords, are a combination of two words or more words, which a surfer may key into to a search engine’s search box. Thus, an example of a long tail word would be the words, “how to blog”, “blog for money” or “how to blog for money” instead of just the narrow term “blog”.
Similarly, you would be using long tail keywords when you search for “money-making blog”, “blogging for money” “make money online” or “Seo keyword research”. On the contrary, you would be searching for short tail keywords when you for search for narrow keywords like blog, blogs, blogging, money or keyword.
Long tail keyword is the coinage of Chris Anderson. He first used it to describe the strategy used by market-savvy marketers for building websites on combination phrases which faced low competition and brought in limited amount of traffic.
Since these words had low competition, it became possible for you to rank your websites high on the search engine pages as compared to the time, effort and money you would need to get the same ranking with the more-competitive short tail keywords.
Advantages of Using a Long Tail Keyword
Long tail keywords have evolved as part of the development of the Internet. By definition, they are aimed at attracting small traffic flows rather than large ones. Some may wonder why one would like to attract smaller number of visitors, when it is possible to use narrow keywords to attract larger number of surfers.
The answer is simple. The competition for narrow tail words is severe. It would be near impossible for a new entrant with a small advertising budget and limited knowledge of the Internet to create visibility easily, if he were to build his web content on narrow keywords.
When websites are build on long tail keywords, the content is focused and is tailored to meet the requirements of those who visit your website rather than cover a wide broad array of topics.
Long tail keywords also carry an added advantage. They convert into sales far more easily as compared to short tail keywords. Hence, if your intent is to make money out of your blog, and that too with small investment over a short time frame, then it would be better to do so by building a website on a long tail keyword.
Keyword Research: Common Mistakes that People Make
Written by adminI am sure that anyone who has a smattering of the Internet jargon is familiar with terms such as Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Keyword Research, Seo Keyword Research, Keyword Research Tools and other such stuff for creating income generating streams to their web properties, including a website and a blog.
So you may wonder why I would state categorically that keyword research is the first step to creating a blog for money.
The answer is simple.
Keyword research is the corner stone to creating a money-making blog, when your goal is to blog for money.
Let me illustrate this with a simple example.
You have heard of a friend’s friend, who created a website on “how to blog for money” and made a killing by selling the website for $ 1 million dollars. You have met this guy briefly. You know he is an ordinary fellow. Understandably, you are convinced that you can do what he did.
Hence you start the process of setting up your million-dollar website.
You begin your keyword research.
You google for the term “blog”, then “blog for money” and finally “how to blog for money” with the intent of understanding how people name their blogs.
The searches results are uninspiring. It seems people don’t know how to name their blogs!
So you consult a few friends, family members and meet your mentor, who has overseen your professional growth over the years. You think the name “Mindsport” sounds good. Hence you try the name out on a few friends. They hink it is great.
You decide on the blog title: “How to blog for Money” sounds good.
You check out the domains available for registration. You celebrate when you find that mindsport is available though with a dot info tag. You think about it. Your friends think that since your aim is to create an informative site, a dot info site would actually work best for you.
You agree. You register the domain name and you are set to go.
You read up books and ebooks on SEO keywords and SEO optimization. You even hire a SEO specialist to help you find good keywords using the best keyword tools available in the market. You turn to friends for keyword suggestion and they share their keyword research findings with you.
Armed with this list of keywords, you write out the content. You now bring in a friend whose website gets 1,000 hits a day and get him to go over your content. He checks double checks your keyword research method and cross verifies the keyword density in your copy. He feels satisfied. Everything seems hunky-dory.
You publish the content, add a few ads and wait for the money to flow in…
You feel disappointed when that does not happen.
Now truly anxious, you key in the name of your website into the Google search box and feel crestfallen when your website is not on page 1 on any of the search engines for any of the search terms, “blog”, “blog for money” or “how to blog for money”.
Now terribly anxious, you manually start checking the search results, clicking page by page to discovery where your site is buried in the search pages. You cross the 1000 page mark and give up. Despite your very best attempts, neither your domain nor the urls on your page have made it to even the top 1000 pages.
You haul up your SEO expert. You curse your friends. You wonder what went wrong.
The answer is that your keyword research was poor. You didn’t do keyword research the right way before you set up your website.
