Unless you already have several years of marketing in a particular niche and have loads of articles, blogs, books and seminar appearances, you probably have not “arrived” as the authority within your niche.

For that distinction, you need to do several things:

1. Make sure that your niche is small enough that you have some hope of making a dent in natural search rankings.  You will have a much easier time moving your blogs and other content sites into the first page of search results for a keyword in a micro-niche.  For example, you are more likely to dominate your market with a keyword like “foreclosures in Cedar Rapids, Iowa”, than trying to compete in the “Foreclosure” market with general keywords nationwide.  You’ll do better in a sub-niche such as “Dog Kennels” than you will with a keyword like “Dogs.”

2. Do keyword research that will narrow in on keywords that are in a “sweet spot” of bringing in at least 80 searches per day, and having no more than 30,000 competing pages.  You can broaden those parameters somewhat, especially if there are several vulnerable websites in the top 10, and the search term shows that there is some activity of people buying PPC ads for that keyword.  If there is no PPC activity, then the keyword is probably not a “money” keyword and will probably only be good for building a hobby, not a business.

3.  Examine competing websites.  Look at their traffic patterns, the keywords they use, the strength of search engine optimization that has been done for their main site.  If they have done a poor job at SEO, then there is a good chance you can put together a group of web 2.0 content that can, over a period of three or four months, knock them out of the box.

4.  Build a cluster of blogs and other websites and articles around the keywords that are most competitive and position your products best within your niche.  You want to be seen as quickly as possible as a leading authority within your niche.  With that recognition will come great search engine placement (if your niche is competitive at least) and sales.

5.  These Web 2.0 properties must be maintained.  Unless more content is added on a regular basis (at least once per week), you will not maintain your search engine placement for your keywords. This is another of the areas where busy marketers tend to fall down on the job.

6.  Backlinks, commenting on other related sites, and syndication (or republication) of your article or references to your article in sites such as Digg and Delicious, will enhance your search engine ranking.  It is time-consuming to build authority on sites by attending to the “buzz” about your content, but it is important to building a permanent, enthusiastic following.

Now, most people do not have time, and many do not have the writing talent, to build a content empire around a main hub site.  This is a job that can be outsourced successfully, and most major marketers do outsource this function.

This is exactly what MyBlogBuilders was meant to do for clients.  Because clients are at different stages and need variations on the services we have available, we will put together quotations on a case by case basis.

We do charge pretty standardly $197 to do a keyword analysis for one niche, website or product.  This includes a report and consultation to give clients direction.  We will soon have an order page developed for this service.

We also will develop a cluster of 3 Web 2.0 sites, post 2-3 times per week on these sites, build connections to your “money” or “hub” site, contact forms, write longer articles and do syndication, backlinking and commenting for one hub/money site at $497 per month.  Clients who commit up front to a three month trial will receive free keyword analysis, as will those who sign on for content managment of multiple sites.  Again, we will have an order form very shortly for these standard packages soon.

In the meantime, please call or request contact if you are interested in exploring our services.  We can work up a special quote, or set you up with one of our standard packages.

Liz Nichols

MyBlogBuilders.com

lizdnichols At gmail.com

Technorati Tags: Content management, niche authority, search engine optimization

My supposed “niche” ‘new online income opportunity’ had a 24-hr search result of 580 according to a very popular keyword research tool when I started optimizing it. For the past 4 months, it has been fluctuating between 450 to 650 which is fine.

Now, for the past 1 week or so, I find that there are “zero” searches being shown in the 24-hr count. On the contrary, my own website is recording more than 100 hits per day through Google organic search itself.

Likewise another of my keyword ‘where is dubai’ that is drawing a traffic of average 150 visits per day through Google organic search has a total search of 20 per day according to this super tool.

Any comments?

I thought I was pretty good in using such tools, but now I wonder if I know to use them at all. For how can such well reckoned and vastly used research tools be wrong?

Regards,
Joseph Ponnou
http://www.internetmarketingtoolsntips.com

I am not aware of any keyword research tools that are “very accurate,” and at best they tend to be “somewhat helpful.”

There are several issues here. First, no tool is more reliable than the data it is “fed,” and neither Google nor Yahoo provide their search data to third parties. WordTracker uses data from a pool of smaller search engine sites, and often shows high traffic levels for very bizarre search phrases. (In my experience, WordTracker’s data includes “fake traffic” including traffic from other keyword-research bots.)

In addition, even your own data is not complete: you may find that your bidding draws 150 impressions per day for searches for “where dubai” but in fact, your ad might not be shown for 1,000 other searches done each day. (Your data may also be “over-inclusive,” as you may be including searches through the Search Network, which aren’t done at Google, or traffic on the Content Network).

Second, search patterns change over time; the number of searches for “Santa Claus’ address” rises in December and probably zeroes out from January to October. In addition to predictable seasons like that, there are random fluctuations as well as “surges” (when Jay Leno mentions widgets, there may be a bunch of web searches in the next 24 hours).

There are also “cycles” for certain search terms. For example, searches for “porn” peak on weekends (Friday and Saturday night), while searches for “football scores” peak on Sunday and Monday. For some search terms, it’s possible that 80% to 90% of the total searches occur on a single day each week (”lotto numbers”), or even a single day each month or each quarter (”Fed interest rate change”).

Another crucial factor to consider is the activity of “fraud operators,” who use keyword research tools to identify high-bid keywords; when bid amounts rise, those terms attract more fraudulent activity (because fraudsters can make more money from each click than for low-bid terms), increasing volume.

The bottom line is that you should absolutely NEVER rely on any tools to be reliable — not even within an “order of magnitude” — in predicting search volumes for specific keywords or even “keyword families.”

Mark Welch
Internet Marketing Consultant
http://www.MarkWelch.com/

The comment from Mark Welch not withstanding, it is a good idea to research your niche as thoroughly as possible, and that includes doing keyword research.  Google’s free keyword tool is pretty good now in giving you perhaps a picture of relative keyword activity.  I also use the new research tool built in to Market Samurai, which is in beta test and available only to those going through Ed Dale’s 30 Day Challenge (which you can join free).  You’ll get free service from Market Samurai for 40 days if you sign up through the 30DayChallenge site.

No amount of research will substitute for just plain trying a niche and experimenting with it.  It is important to split test headlines, layout and other factors so see what is really working and what is not.  It is a long process, but, at least some of your blogs will rank well it you keep them up consistently for a few months and you maintain a number of them.  You can always sell off or use as Adsense farms the ones that are not working out with other means of monetization.

Liz Nichols

www.myblogbuilders.com

Technorati Tags: keyword research