It's probably one of the hottest topics out there, and with good reason. Where else can you get paid over and over again for doing something once?
Of course I'm talking about Googles Adsense program, for website publishers who don't mind placing a small bit of code into their sites to show ads in return for a share of the profits.
It's relatively easy to get started with Google Adsense, as all you need to have is a website or blog on which to show the Adsense ads, and a Google Adsense Publishers Account. To get an Adsense account you need to go to www.Google.com/adsense and apply for an account, as long as your website complies with their terms, you will be accepted and be able to log in to create your Adsense ads. If you don't have a website, you can setup a blog for fr.ee at http://www.blogger.com put up some content, and submit this. Blogger is also owned by Google, and some people claim this gives you a better chance of acceptance, whether it does or not you decide for yourself.
For the next part, once you are logged in you need to choose what type of ads to display, link units are just one line links to sites related to your sites keywords, ad units are the blocks of code you see everywhere with a short description, a link and a url for each site advertised. Once you have chosen which ad type to display, you can then choose the size and format of the Adsense box. This is where you must make a decision to ensure it fits in with your site, where you are going to place it.
Be aware that irregular sized and shaped adsense boxes work better than the regular ad sizes, 468x60 is immediately picked up as an ad due to banners being this size for so long online and has a low clickrate, while the 336x280 and 300x250 adsense blocks work much better. There is also some arguments as to whether you should blend the ad into your site by using the color palette Adsense gives you to edit the ads colours to make the colours the same as your site, or to make them stand out by making them a different colour, this will depend on your site, and you can test to see what works best.
After you have setup the format, colour scheme and type of ad, you will get the code to add to your site. Before you go ahead and paste it in, it's a good idea to setup channel tracking. Setup different channels named so that you will know what it is about, and this will enable you to track which ads are working, on which sites by changing them around, and tagging them with different channel ID's. This is one of the most overlooked parts of Adsense, the ability to track your ads through channels affords you the ability to test and tune to get the ideal colours, and placement for your adsense blocks.
Adsense does a good job of finding ads related to your site, and you have no input into what will be shown. Sometimes it gets confused, so you may have to tweak your sites copy to make the keywords more prominent so Adsense can do a better job of targeting your visitors with the ads displayed. Obviously the better the ads target your visitors, the more relevant they will be and the better the clickthrough rate.
As we already said, Adsense is a great way to make some income, and some people are even making a good living from it, it's residual income, fairly easy to setup and low maintenance. If nothing else it will help pay the hosting fees for your website, so why not get started with Google Adsense today?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
4 ADSENSE SECRETS!
Is there a BIG secret to the huge Adsense checks? Yes, you've seen those screen shots of 5-figure Adsense earning ... so have I. And that made you thinking, why are some people earning those huge income, and you are not.
Whatever people may say, I only see these are the only factors that make the difference between your earning and those 'big-guns'.
1 - Adsense Placement
Yes, putting your Adsense in a special way can be the difference between 1% click-through rate (CTR) and 10% CTR. There have been some strategies outlined where you have to make your Adsense like content. You do that by removing the borders and using the same font color that you are using for your website.
Choosing the bigger Adsense format has always been recommended. It is said that the big square, wide skyscraper are the top performer. Me ... yes, I am experiencing good things with these ad formats.
Some may say differently, but I am doing well with the Ad Links too. It's those text link ads, which requires two-step clicks. I place them like a navigation link on my website, and I am doing quite OK with them.
2 - High Paying Keywords
Here's another known secret. Go for high paying keywords. If your website is about a topic where advertisers are paying high money for them, then you may get more money with Adsense.
This is common sense. When people are paying $5.00 per click on Adwords, you may get a lot of money on your Adsense. And if the ads that are showing on your website are ads that people are paying $1.00 per click, you may get lesser than a dollar per click.
Known topics where advertisers are paying top dollars are like DUI lawyers, credit card applications, web hosting ... you know the rest. And you can even go to Overture Bid Tools to guess what people are paying for certain keywords. If you come across a topic that you think might do well, you can give a try there.
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/
But the problem with this, high paying keywords are normally very competitive when you are trying to drive traffic with search engine optimization (SEO). So some would just go for low hanging fruits.
3 - Get More Traffic
Yep ... no secret here. The more traffic you get, the more clicks you are likely to get. And more clicks means more money. But then again, you should think about the type of websites that pull traffic.
I believe many of top earners are actually operating a community-based websites. These are like forums, photo blog service providers, blogs that has grown its readerships and maybe even dating profiles. Another way of doing this is where you build your website around user created content. You allow users to create the content, like put in comments and reviews.
These are the sites that where people keep coming back for more. The good thing is you don't have to crack your head for content. If you think you can build one like those, then go for it.
On the contrary, many are actually growing sites in smaller niches. And they go for SEO for traffic. I have to say that this is the most popular when it comes to Adsense.
You and I know there are the good ways and the bad ways to SEO - yes, the white hats and the black hats. Whatever you do, that is your choice. Some people are doing the black hats, but to them, as long as they are in compliance with the Adsense TOS, they have nothing to worry about.
To me, you do what you want and take responsibilities for the outcome. If you are doing black hat SEO, and you are making boatloads of money - then good for you.
And after that, there're the non-SEO methods. I know of some people who are doing the arbitrage method. They go for high paying keywords, and then advertise their sites for lower prices. And they make profit from the difference. It may sounds strange at first, but some actually made it work.
Other non-SEO methods are like posting at forums, writing articles and doing press releases on their websites.
I have also heard about a strategy where you create an e-course with email, and then send your subscribers to a web pages that contains the lessons and of course, Adsense. This way, you can capture one guy, and probably make money from him/her over and over again.
4 - It's a Numbers Game
All in all ... Adsense is a numbers game. If you find something that is working for you, to make more income is just to do it again and again. For the black hat SEOers, they just build more and more websites.
Unless you successfully build and grow a community-based website, you may want to build more sites. If you build one site that is making $100 a month, then 10 sites would give you $1000. But then again, I would say, you are bound to have sites that will just flop. So out of 10, maybe 3 is doing great, 4 is just so-so, and another 3 just flopped.
If a so-so site makes $30 a month, and a great site is doing $300 a month, with just 10 sites, you might be making $1020 a month.
Just like I said ... it's a numbers game.
Whatever people may say, I only see these are the only factors that make the difference between your earning and those 'big-guns'.
1 - Adsense Placement
Yes, putting your Adsense in a special way can be the difference between 1% click-through rate (CTR) and 10% CTR. There have been some strategies outlined where you have to make your Adsense like content. You do that by removing the borders and using the same font color that you are using for your website.
Choosing the bigger Adsense format has always been recommended. It is said that the big square, wide skyscraper are the top performer. Me ... yes, I am experiencing good things with these ad formats.
Some may say differently, but I am doing well with the Ad Links too. It's those text link ads, which requires two-step clicks. I place them like a navigation link on my website, and I am doing quite OK with them.
2 - High Paying Keywords
Here's another known secret. Go for high paying keywords. If your website is about a topic where advertisers are paying high money for them, then you may get more money with Adsense.
This is common sense. When people are paying $5.00 per click on Adwords, you may get a lot of money on your Adsense. And if the ads that are showing on your website are ads that people are paying $1.00 per click, you may get lesser than a dollar per click.
Known topics where advertisers are paying top dollars are like DUI lawyers, credit card applications, web hosting ... you know the rest. And you can even go to Overture Bid Tools to guess what people are paying for certain keywords. If you come across a topic that you think might do well, you can give a try there.
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/
But the problem with this, high paying keywords are normally very competitive when you are trying to drive traffic with search engine optimization (SEO). So some would just go for low hanging fruits.
3 - Get More Traffic
Yep ... no secret here. The more traffic you get, the more clicks you are likely to get. And more clicks means more money. But then again, you should think about the type of websites that pull traffic.
I believe many of top earners are actually operating a community-based websites. These are like forums, photo blog service providers, blogs that has grown its readerships and maybe even dating profiles. Another way of doing this is where you build your website around user created content. You allow users to create the content, like put in comments and reviews.
These are the sites that where people keep coming back for more. The good thing is you don't have to crack your head for content. If you think you can build one like those, then go for it.
On the contrary, many are actually growing sites in smaller niches. And they go for SEO for traffic. I have to say that this is the most popular when it comes to Adsense.
You and I know there are the good ways and the bad ways to SEO - yes, the white hats and the black hats. Whatever you do, that is your choice. Some people are doing the black hats, but to them, as long as they are in compliance with the Adsense TOS, they have nothing to worry about.
To me, you do what you want and take responsibilities for the outcome. If you are doing black hat SEO, and you are making boatloads of money - then good for you.
And after that, there're the non-SEO methods. I know of some people who are doing the arbitrage method. They go for high paying keywords, and then advertise their sites for lower prices. And they make profit from the difference. It may sounds strange at first, but some actually made it work.
Other non-SEO methods are like posting at forums, writing articles and doing press releases on their websites.
I have also heard about a strategy where you create an e-course with email, and then send your subscribers to a web pages that contains the lessons and of course, Adsense. This way, you can capture one guy, and probably make money from him/her over and over again.
4 - It's a Numbers Game
All in all ... Adsense is a numbers game. If you find something that is working for you, to make more income is just to do it again and again. For the black hat SEOers, they just build more and more websites.
Unless you successfully build and grow a community-based website, you may want to build more sites. If you build one site that is making $100 a month, then 10 sites would give you $1000. But then again, I would say, you are bound to have sites that will just flop. So out of 10, maybe 3 is doing great, 4 is just so-so, and another 3 just flopped.
If a so-so site makes $30 a month, and a great site is doing $300 a month, with just 10 sites, you might be making $1020 a month.
Just like I said ... it's a numbers game.
How To Make Money Online As A Retiree
When you are retired you have a great opportunity to make internet income.
After all, you will have lots of time, as you need it, in order to make sure that you are a success. Versus other people that try to make money online, you will not have to work a time and energy consuming job in order to stay afloat financially.
You will be able to make this work to your advantage, and be making money before you ever thought possible.
Listed below are some tips that you should follow if you are retired and thinking about making money online.
1. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have enough knowledge of the internet to be successful. Some of you retirees never used the internet in the past. If you do not have online experience there is no reason to give up on your entrepreneur goal. Simply get connected and start dabbling.
For assistance, to get your feet wet, you may want to purchase a book or two on getting started online. These will give you fundamental information on the internet, and what you need to know to begin. You may also want to take a course at a local college. This is an excellent way to get first hand instructions from a professional.
2. When you are ready to go, the next step that you need to take is to make a decision as to how you want to make money. Would you like to start an online business? Do you want to use affiliate programs to get started?
Some retirees have found that the easiest way to make internet income is to bring their past work knowledge into their venture. This way they already have knowledge of the industry. This is a great option that you should consider for a quick start.
3. After getting your business idea focused in, you need to set up a business and marketing plan. This will help keep you on track during your quest to make income online. By having a business plan in place you will then be able to stay on track no matter what is thrown at you. A marketing plan is imperative so that people know you exist.
4. Be patient when trying to build a business online. Just like anything else in life, you are going to run into problems along the way, and you will probably feel like giving up. By sticking with your plan, you will reach your goals much sooner than making many direction changes along the way.
Overall, many retired people can make a lot of online income. If you are desirous of being in this situation, you will want to follow the tips above in order to get started. By doing so you will be on track to making critical extra retirement income online, and be supplementing your retirement benefits.
After all, you will have lots of time, as you need it, in order to make sure that you are a success. Versus other people that try to make money online, you will not have to work a time and energy consuming job in order to stay afloat financially.
You will be able to make this work to your advantage, and be making money before you ever thought possible.
Listed below are some tips that you should follow if you are retired and thinking about making money online.
1. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have enough knowledge of the internet to be successful. Some of you retirees never used the internet in the past. If you do not have online experience there is no reason to give up on your entrepreneur goal. Simply get connected and start dabbling.
For assistance, to get your feet wet, you may want to purchase a book or two on getting started online. These will give you fundamental information on the internet, and what you need to know to begin. You may also want to take a course at a local college. This is an excellent way to get first hand instructions from a professional.
2. When you are ready to go, the next step that you need to take is to make a decision as to how you want to make money. Would you like to start an online business? Do you want to use affiliate programs to get started?
Some retirees have found that the easiest way to make internet income is to bring their past work knowledge into their venture. This way they already have knowledge of the industry. This is a great option that you should consider for a quick start.
3. After getting your business idea focused in, you need to set up a business and marketing plan. This will help keep you on track during your quest to make income online. By having a business plan in place you will then be able to stay on track no matter what is thrown at you. A marketing plan is imperative so that people know you exist.
4. Be patient when trying to build a business online. Just like anything else in life, you are going to run into problems along the way, and you will probably feel like giving up. By sticking with your plan, you will reach your goals much sooner than making many direction changes along the way.
Overall, many retired people can make a lot of online income. If you are desirous of being in this situation, you will want to follow the tips above in order to get started. By doing so you will be on track to making critical extra retirement income online, and be supplementing your retirement benefits.
How To Make Big Money With Google Adsense
Adsense is an advertising model created by Google which utilizes pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising which is beneficial to both advertisers and webmasters alike. For the advertiser Adsense is a very efficient way to get access to high volume targeted traffic by having their ads displayed on topically relevant sites. For the webmaster Adsense can be an extremely lucrative alternative-income source, or as many Adsense gurus have discovered, Google Adsense can well be your primary super-income source.
It's free to join Google Adsense and you'd be well advised to read Google's Adsense rules and policies. Google supplies excellent resources on The Dos and The Don'ts of Adsense as well as very comprehensive tutorials on how to set up and use Adsense. So for that reason this article will not go into the basics of Adsense but rather will give you tips on how to become an Adsense Expert and join the growing number of Adsense Gurus who are making mind-boggling amounts from Adsense!
Fashion Your Ads For Success
1. Don't leave your ads looking like...well ads! Many Adsense users simply follow Google's default format settings to setup their ads. Big Mistake! If your ad looks like an ad people are generally going to ignore it. As for those banners... please! Nearly everybody online hates banners and avoids them like the plague. So don't make the mistake of thinking that visitors to your website will behave any differently to those Adsense banner ads you may have set up. Simply put...do without the Adsense banners if you want to cash in.
2. Optimal Placement of Your Ads. In the real world it's said that location...location...location is everything. Same thing goes for the web, at least as far as Adsense is concerned. If your ads are tucked away where no one can see them basically you aren't going to get any clicks. Think about it--when people go to a website the first thing they do is absorb as much information before ever scrolling. That part of the page they see without scrolling is called above the fold. That is where you want to put your ads. Remember easier seen means more clicks...which means more ka-ching!
More Is Less. The number of ads you've got above the fold will influence your visitors clicking habits. Google puts the top-paying ads topmost with the lower paying ones at the bottom. If you have a stack of ads all located above the fold those cheaper ads might steal attention away from the more profitable ones. So keep this in mind...more is not necessarily better as far as your Adsense revenue is concerned.
3. Wave Goodbye To That Border. So you've spent a lot of time putting up intelligent and useful content on a beautifully designed site...shame that you've got to tarnish such wondrous aesthetics with Adsense. But guess what...you don't have to! You can easily blend your ads in to compliment the overall layout of your site. First thing--Get rid of that border delineating your ads. Next, make your Adsense text the same colour as that of the rest of your site. People are more likely to click on it thinking it's part of that useful content on your site.
4. Text Ads versus Image Ads. And the winner by unanimous decision is (drum roll)...Text Ads! With the right formatting your text ads will blend in with your content. Text ads are also more flexible with respect to tweaking and positioning. Another thing about text ads, is that you can squeeze more of them in the space taken up by an image ad (banner). Text ads don't appear like clutter whereas banners do!
5. Keywords. The content on your web pages determines the Google Adsense ads that appear there. If your site does not have a specific theme then Google will gladly supply you with non-profit general service ads. So as you can see Content is Still King! Even so you can quite easily (and legitimately) influence the Adsense ads supplied to your site by strategically placing keywords in specific locations on your site without diluting your site's copy (text tailored towards a specific goal and written for your visitors).
These are just a few of the simple optimizer tweaks that Adsense Experts utilize to cash in big from Google Adsense. Remember that people generally need to be exposed to something at least seven times before they're comfortable enough to purchase it. So if you're an affiliate marketer or any kind of online seller (or for that matter as long as you have a site) why not put up Adsense on your site and make some easy revenue while your visitors familiarize themselves with what your site has to offer.
It's free to join Google Adsense and you'd be well advised to read Google's Adsense rules and policies. Google supplies excellent resources on The Dos and The Don'ts of Adsense as well as very comprehensive tutorials on how to set up and use Adsense. So for that reason this article will not go into the basics of Adsense but rather will give you tips on how to become an Adsense Expert and join the growing number of Adsense Gurus who are making mind-boggling amounts from Adsense!
Fashion Your Ads For Success
1. Don't leave your ads looking like...well ads! Many Adsense users simply follow Google's default format settings to setup their ads. Big Mistake! If your ad looks like an ad people are generally going to ignore it. As for those banners... please! Nearly everybody online hates banners and avoids them like the plague. So don't make the mistake of thinking that visitors to your website will behave any differently to those Adsense banner ads you may have set up. Simply put...do without the Adsense banners if you want to cash in.
2. Optimal Placement of Your Ads. In the real world it's said that location...location...location is everything. Same thing goes for the web, at least as far as Adsense is concerned. If your ads are tucked away where no one can see them basically you aren't going to get any clicks. Think about it--when people go to a website the first thing they do is absorb as much information before ever scrolling. That part of the page they see without scrolling is called above the fold. That is where you want to put your ads. Remember easier seen means more clicks...which means more ka-ching!
More Is Less. The number of ads you've got above the fold will influence your visitors clicking habits. Google puts the top-paying ads topmost with the lower paying ones at the bottom. If you have a stack of ads all located above the fold those cheaper ads might steal attention away from the more profitable ones. So keep this in mind...more is not necessarily better as far as your Adsense revenue is concerned.
3. Wave Goodbye To That Border. So you've spent a lot of time putting up intelligent and useful content on a beautifully designed site...shame that you've got to tarnish such wondrous aesthetics with Adsense. But guess what...you don't have to! You can easily blend your ads in to compliment the overall layout of your site. First thing--Get rid of that border delineating your ads. Next, make your Adsense text the same colour as that of the rest of your site. People are more likely to click on it thinking it's part of that useful content on your site.
4. Text Ads versus Image Ads. And the winner by unanimous decision is (drum roll)...Text Ads! With the right formatting your text ads will blend in with your content. Text ads are also more flexible with respect to tweaking and positioning. Another thing about text ads, is that you can squeeze more of them in the space taken up by an image ad (banner). Text ads don't appear like clutter whereas banners do!
5. Keywords. The content on your web pages determines the Google Adsense ads that appear there. If your site does not have a specific theme then Google will gladly supply you with non-profit general service ads. So as you can see Content is Still King! Even so you can quite easily (and legitimately) influence the Adsense ads supplied to your site by strategically placing keywords in specific locations on your site without diluting your site's copy (text tailored towards a specific goal and written for your visitors).
These are just a few of the simple optimizer tweaks that Adsense Experts utilize to cash in big from Google Adsense. Remember that people generally need to be exposed to something at least seven times before they're comfortable enough to purchase it. So if you're an affiliate marketer or any kind of online seller (or for that matter as long as you have a site) why not put up Adsense on your site and make some easy revenue while your visitors familiarize themselves with what your site has to offer.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Part 2 of Complete Guide To Making Money With Your Website
Making money with your future site
So now you have found a topic that you like to write about and you have an idea how to approach it in a unique way to offer some unique benefits to the visitors of your site.
You did your keyword research and found a couple of popular phrases that people look for and you have an idea how you can satisfy this demand for information.
Final Check Ups
Double check your keywords and phrases to see what sites rank well for them. Your site will compete with these sites later on. Are you able to compete?
There are no general rules when or if you can compete with a certain site. It all depends how unique your approach is and the value your site will offer to visitors. You can email me to hear my opinion about your approach.
If you realize you won’t be able to compete either narrow the topic or focus on some other aspects related to the topic. Your keyword research data should give you new inspiration what people are looking for.
Making money with your site
Of course you want to earn money with your site so here comes a quick overview of what you can do to make money without selling physical products.
Advertising:
- PPC: Pay per click advertising like Google Adsense. You get paid as soon as someone clicks on an advertising banner on your site.
- PPL: Pay per lead means you get paid if you send someone from your site to another site and this person completes an online survey for example.
- PPS: Pay per sale means you get paid for every sale that results from a person that you send to another site.
Sell an info product:
This is what I could have done with this guide in which I share my knowledge with people who want to learn about this topic. You can sell information products in whatever niche you are an expert in or think you know something other people might find useful. Here is an article about eBooks / info products.
Affiliate Networks
Sign up with affiliate networks such as Link Share or Commission Junction and do some research on how many companies offer products that you could advertise on your site and would be relevant for visitors of your site.
If you can’t find any products you might consider picking another topic or solely focus on Google Adsense which provides more or less relevant advertising for all sorts of topics. In general the best way is to work in a niche and use both Adsense and affiliates to make money.
Adsense is so popular because it is so easy to use:
1. Go to the AdSense website.
2. Copy a little snippet of code to your website.
3. Get relevant advertising on your website from Google and make money with each click.
Planning the live site
Besides the technical aspect of having a website, which is no big deal we get to that later, you will have to think about where you will get your visitors from. You can have the greatest, most beautiful website that won’t make you any money if nobody knows about it.
The magic word is SEO, search engine optimization which is basically the art of making search engines rank your website well in their search results. In the following chapters we will always come back to SEO because it plays such an important role right now. Search engines are the primary source of traffic for all established websites and because the search engine market is dominated by one search engine it is all about ranking well in Google at the moment.
But don’t worry you are well prepared and this is where your keyword research comes into the game. You will want to create a website around some of the keywords or key phrases that you found and that were popular, but also had the least amount of competition.
Selecting a domain name and webhost
Picking a domain name
Think well about your domain name. If possible it should have the most important keyword you are targeting in it and it should be short and catchy that people can remember it. For most of my sites I spent one or two days checking for available domains before I made a decision.
If you have a name that is made up of two words you can write them together like thailandtrips.com. They are still easy to read for people but if they get longer think about using dashes to enhance the readability. For example thailandislandtrips.com is really a mess to read while thailand-island-trips.com isn’t.
Don’t got for anything longer than three words and I would always recommend that you try to get the .com domain. Everybody thinks about .com when they hear about a website address. I always register the version with separating dashes and without, just to make sure people won’t type it wrong if they have heard the name.
You might also think about common spelling mistakes and get the domains for that.
Top registrars and web hosting companies
There are many, many websites out there that offer you web hosting and domain registration services. I had, like many others, very bad experiences before with several domain registrars and hosting companies.
Many of them oversell the webspace and your site will load slow, the support service won’t reply for two days even though your site is down and you lose money…. I could write a couple of pages about the problems me and some friends had with bad hosting companies out there. Some are too expensive and one actually just took off with my money.
To help you out with that here is a list of services I used and use since 2000 and I can recommend. All of them offer “one click install” services that will make your life so much easier and help you to easily set up your website in a few moments without any technical knowledge. I will walk you through this in the next chapters step by step.
So lets get started and have a look at the first step of running your business online. Getting a domain name.
You should usually separate registrars and web hosting because if you are unhappy with one of them you don’t have the hassle of moving both the domains and your websites to another provider. Registrars are usually also cheaper for registering domains compared to web hosting companies.
Registrars:
GoDaddy is the world’s biggest domain registrar and that has a reason. They are reliable and offer really good prices and a lot of handy extra services. If you are concerned about your privacy for example they offer you the possiblity to get a private registration. Check it out. I have more than 50 domains over there.
Network Solutions is another major player in the domain game. They have a lot of business partners and were one of the first commercial domain registrars on the Internet. Their easy to use interface is great for beginners and like GoDaddy they offer a lot of extra features that you will want to have later on when your site grows bigger.
Webhosting:
This is easy. Hostgator is seriously the most amazing hosting company I have ever been with. 90% of all my sites are hosted with them and their support rocks. This sounds a bit crazy but all my friends and colleagues sing the same song how good they are.
If you had as much problems with other hosting companies you appreciate that Hostgator makes everything run so smooth. Even if you go for one of the cheaper shared hosting plans the support replies to you usually within 1-2 hours. This is just fantastic because most other hosting companies only treat larger customers like this. The basic configuration is very good as well so you can pretty much run everything you want on their webspace and another huge plus in my opinion is that you can host sites for as many domains as you like on their webspace.
Two other good web hosting companies I only left because I didn’t want to pay for so many different hosts are Blue Host and Host Monster
Both worth a look but if you ask me I would always go to Hostgator.
Website promotion and strategies for long term success
Satellite Sites
Satellite sites are smaller sites that are about the same or a closely related topic to the one your main site is about. They are a good way to generate more revenue and in the long run all the sites will benefit from each other while you build your own little network. If you, for example, have already established a small readership for your Thailand bike tour website, you could start a website about cheap accommodations or camping grounds, as this is something that probably targets the same kind of reader as your main site.
On the other hand search engines love highly specialized sites and rank them well. In the long run your cheap accommodation website will get some visitors from search engines who were looking for accommodation and some of them will visit your bike tour website as well if you advertise it on your site. This effect of course goes in all sort of directions. The next thing could be to add a website about hiking, backpacking…
This way you build up a network and have a synergy effect with each site benefiting from each other.
Focus on only one site in the beginning and promote it well. It is much easier to promote other sites if you already have a well visited bigger one.
Promoting your site
Here are some ideas that have been great ways of promoting my sites in the past:
* Invest a bit of money and hold a competition or talk to companies they might sponsor the prizes.
* Become an active member in relevant forums, contribute good ideas and link to your website whenever it is appropriate. Be careful not to spam forums with your links, people will recognize it. Some forums and online communities also allow you to put a link in your signature. Make use of that.
* Comment on other blogs with a link back to yours.
* Write about other blogs if they have something interesting for your readers.
* Ask other blogs if you can write a guest article. For example ask the webmaster of an outdoor sports blog if you can contribute an article about mountain biking. You can place a footnote in the article making people aware that you also have a dedicated mountain biking blog.
* Interview renown people in your niche.
* Create resource lists of all important sites for your topic.
* Submit your site to important directories in your niche and general blog directories.
* Exchange a few links with other sites in your niche. Don’t overdo this because it will harm your search rank if you have too many “reciprocal” links. A few (10-20) will benefit your ranking though.
* Try to find other people who are passionate about your topic to contribute to your site. You can offer them for example their own e-mail addresses to give them some feeling of belonging to your site. Besides that they help you to create content and will probably also tell people about the site.
* Encourage people to comment. This can be done by posting something controversial from time to time or asking indirect questions in your articles. A healthy discussion on your site will contribute to building up your readership.
* Get to know other webmasters. They will help you out promoting some articles while you can help them too. Just make sure that both of your websites don’t compete and rather provide additional information about your topic or certain aspects of your topic.
* Show your personality. It is good if people get to know you over time. Like in real life this can create some sort of relationship that keeps your reader coming back.
* Write truly useful articles. Online and offline people appreciate if you help them and will either become loyal visitors of your site or even better link to you from their sites.
So now you have found a topic that you like to write about and you have an idea how to approach it in a unique way to offer some unique benefits to the visitors of your site.
You did your keyword research and found a couple of popular phrases that people look for and you have an idea how you can satisfy this demand for information.
Final Check Ups
Double check your keywords and phrases to see what sites rank well for them. Your site will compete with these sites later on. Are you able to compete?
There are no general rules when or if you can compete with a certain site. It all depends how unique your approach is and the value your site will offer to visitors. You can email me to hear my opinion about your approach.
If you realize you won’t be able to compete either narrow the topic or focus on some other aspects related to the topic. Your keyword research data should give you new inspiration what people are looking for.
Making money with your site
Of course you want to earn money with your site so here comes a quick overview of what you can do to make money without selling physical products.
Advertising:
- PPC: Pay per click advertising like Google Adsense. You get paid as soon as someone clicks on an advertising banner on your site.
- PPL: Pay per lead means you get paid if you send someone from your site to another site and this person completes an online survey for example.
- PPS: Pay per sale means you get paid for every sale that results from a person that you send to another site.
Sell an info product:
This is what I could have done with this guide in which I share my knowledge with people who want to learn about this topic. You can sell information products in whatever niche you are an expert in or think you know something other people might find useful. Here is an article about eBooks / info products.
Affiliate Networks
Sign up with affiliate networks such as Link Share or Commission Junction and do some research on how many companies offer products that you could advertise on your site and would be relevant for visitors of your site.
If you can’t find any products you might consider picking another topic or solely focus on Google Adsense which provides more or less relevant advertising for all sorts of topics. In general the best way is to work in a niche and use both Adsense and affiliates to make money.
Adsense is so popular because it is so easy to use:
1. Go to the AdSense website.
2. Copy a little snippet of code to your website.
3. Get relevant advertising on your website from Google and make money with each click.
Planning the live site
Besides the technical aspect of having a website, which is no big deal we get to that later, you will have to think about where you will get your visitors from. You can have the greatest, most beautiful website that won’t make you any money if nobody knows about it.
The magic word is SEO, search engine optimization which is basically the art of making search engines rank your website well in their search results. In the following chapters we will always come back to SEO because it plays such an important role right now. Search engines are the primary source of traffic for all established websites and because the search engine market is dominated by one search engine it is all about ranking well in Google at the moment.
But don’t worry you are well prepared and this is where your keyword research comes into the game. You will want to create a website around some of the keywords or key phrases that you found and that were popular, but also had the least amount of competition.
Selecting a domain name and webhost
Picking a domain name
Think well about your domain name. If possible it should have the most important keyword you are targeting in it and it should be short and catchy that people can remember it. For most of my sites I spent one or two days checking for available domains before I made a decision.
If you have a name that is made up of two words you can write them together like thailandtrips.com. They are still easy to read for people but if they get longer think about using dashes to enhance the readability. For example thailandislandtrips.com is really a mess to read while thailand-island-trips.com isn’t.
Don’t got for anything longer than three words and I would always recommend that you try to get the .com domain. Everybody thinks about .com when they hear about a website address. I always register the version with separating dashes and without, just to make sure people won’t type it wrong if they have heard the name.
You might also think about common spelling mistakes and get the domains for that.
Top registrars and web hosting companies
There are many, many websites out there that offer you web hosting and domain registration services. I had, like many others, very bad experiences before with several domain registrars and hosting companies.
Many of them oversell the webspace and your site will load slow, the support service won’t reply for two days even though your site is down and you lose money…. I could write a couple of pages about the problems me and some friends had with bad hosting companies out there. Some are too expensive and one actually just took off with my money.
To help you out with that here is a list of services I used and use since 2000 and I can recommend. All of them offer “one click install” services that will make your life so much easier and help you to easily set up your website in a few moments without any technical knowledge. I will walk you through this in the next chapters step by step.
So lets get started and have a look at the first step of running your business online. Getting a domain name.
You should usually separate registrars and web hosting because if you are unhappy with one of them you don’t have the hassle of moving both the domains and your websites to another provider. Registrars are usually also cheaper for registering domains compared to web hosting companies.
Registrars:
GoDaddy is the world’s biggest domain registrar and that has a reason. They are reliable and offer really good prices and a lot of handy extra services. If you are concerned about your privacy for example they offer you the possiblity to get a private registration. Check it out. I have more than 50 domains over there.
Network Solutions is another major player in the domain game. They have a lot of business partners and were one of the first commercial domain registrars on the Internet. Their easy to use interface is great for beginners and like GoDaddy they offer a lot of extra features that you will want to have later on when your site grows bigger.
Webhosting:
This is easy. Hostgator is seriously the most amazing hosting company I have ever been with. 90% of all my sites are hosted with them and their support rocks. This sounds a bit crazy but all my friends and colleagues sing the same song how good they are.
If you had as much problems with other hosting companies you appreciate that Hostgator makes everything run so smooth. Even if you go for one of the cheaper shared hosting plans the support replies to you usually within 1-2 hours. This is just fantastic because most other hosting companies only treat larger customers like this. The basic configuration is very good as well so you can pretty much run everything you want on their webspace and another huge plus in my opinion is that you can host sites for as many domains as you like on their webspace.
Two other good web hosting companies I only left because I didn’t want to pay for so many different hosts are Blue Host and Host Monster
Both worth a look but if you ask me I would always go to Hostgator.
Website promotion and strategies for long term success
Satellite Sites
Satellite sites are smaller sites that are about the same or a closely related topic to the one your main site is about. They are a good way to generate more revenue and in the long run all the sites will benefit from each other while you build your own little network. If you, for example, have already established a small readership for your Thailand bike tour website, you could start a website about cheap accommodations or camping grounds, as this is something that probably targets the same kind of reader as your main site.
On the other hand search engines love highly specialized sites and rank them well. In the long run your cheap accommodation website will get some visitors from search engines who were looking for accommodation and some of them will visit your bike tour website as well if you advertise it on your site. This effect of course goes in all sort of directions. The next thing could be to add a website about hiking, backpacking…
This way you build up a network and have a synergy effect with each site benefiting from each other.
Focus on only one site in the beginning and promote it well. It is much easier to promote other sites if you already have a well visited bigger one.
Promoting your site
Here are some ideas that have been great ways of promoting my sites in the past:
* Invest a bit of money and hold a competition or talk to companies they might sponsor the prizes.
* Become an active member in relevant forums, contribute good ideas and link to your website whenever it is appropriate. Be careful not to spam forums with your links, people will recognize it. Some forums and online communities also allow you to put a link in your signature. Make use of that.
* Comment on other blogs with a link back to yours.
* Write about other blogs if they have something interesting for your readers.
* Ask other blogs if you can write a guest article. For example ask the webmaster of an outdoor sports blog if you can contribute an article about mountain biking. You can place a footnote in the article making people aware that you also have a dedicated mountain biking blog.
* Interview renown people in your niche.
* Create resource lists of all important sites for your topic.
* Submit your site to important directories in your niche and general blog directories.
* Exchange a few links with other sites in your niche. Don’t overdo this because it will harm your search rank if you have too many “reciprocal” links. A few (10-20) will benefit your ranking though.
* Try to find other people who are passionate about your topic to contribute to your site. You can offer them for example their own e-mail addresses to give them some feeling of belonging to your site. Besides that they help you to create content and will probably also tell people about the site.
* Encourage people to comment. This can be done by posting something controversial from time to time or asking indirect questions in your articles. A healthy discussion on your site will contribute to building up your readership.
* Get to know other webmasters. They will help you out promoting some articles while you can help them too. Just make sure that both of your websites don’t compete and rather provide additional information about your topic or certain aspects of your topic.
* Show your personality. It is good if people get to know you over time. Like in real life this can create some sort of relationship that keeps your reader coming back.
* Write truly useful articles. Online and offline people appreciate if you help them and will either become loyal visitors of your site or even better link to you from their sites.
How Do I Start Making Money!?!?
Hello friends!
Today I'm busy working on some projects. The link above (HOME - START HERE) will take you to my short guide on money making and provide links to whatever subjects or products you want to read about in greater detail. :)
Heather L.
Today I'm busy working on some projects. The link above (HOME - START HERE) will take you to my short guide on money making and provide links to whatever subjects or products you want to read about in greater detail. :)
Heather L.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Complete Guide To Making Money With Yor Own Website.
Introduction
Basic Mindset of Online Entrepreneurs.
There are a lot of eBooks out there that advertise “how to make money without working”…. yeah right…
The truth is making money online is always work, as long as you want to create something that will last and keep on making you money for a longer period of time. Prepare yourself to put in a couple of weeks of work and don’t expect to receive a great amount of money or response in that time. Don’t get discouraged because things will build up over time and once they are established the maintenance gets easier and you will earn more each and every month! I’m writing this because I want to cut the bullshit and tell you what you can really expect.
Sit back, get a drink and relax. In the next 30 minutes you will learn all the important things that I learned and that made my sites successful.
I considered selling this guide as an eBook for 47$ which is the regular price for eBooks like this but decided everybody can set their own price. If you find this guide helpful it would be great if you just donate some money or paypal me a beer. That’s always welcome!
Find the right niche
The first thing you should think of
Think about some things you are passionate about, that you enjoy or that you are interested in. This can be something you did in the past, some aspect of your job that you like and are good at or something that you really want to learn. Take a piece of paper and write those topics down.
If you are not an expert and passionate about white nose Madagascar rabbits it is very likely that your range of topics are too broad and if you are such an expert… your topic might not attract enough people with the same interests. It is important to find a balance between both. Not too broad (not too much competition) and not too narrow (enough people are interested in it) niches are great.
Reality check
Most areas and topics are already covered on the Internet today. Every day thousands of new websites go online and the flood of information multiplies every month. If you want to make good money for example in the “travel” niche you better have a lot of money to invest or you won’t stand a chance with the already huge and established networks and community sites already out there.
It’s not all that bad…
The good news is that you might not become the mecca for general travel advice but you may become the owner of the most read blog containing tips how to prepare a trip to another country. It’s all about narrowing your niche down to a size that will still have readers and is not too broad that you have too many competitors.
So how do you narrow your niche down?
There are several ways to do this. First of all do general research on Google for your niche. The basis of being successful online is working efficient. Here are some ways how you can get better results in Google.
“thailand tour” - Searches for the whole phrase like it is.
“thailand tour”+ island - Searches for documents that contain the exact phrase “thailand tour” and the word island. Both the phrase and the word have to be in the same document to get listed in the search results.
Also have a look at the advanced search of Google that lets you filter your search in a variety of ways. Those two mentioned above are just the ones I use most often. They come in incredibly handy for example, if you search for forums or online boards about a certain topic. Just try this for example:
“powered by vbulletin” + Thailand
“powered by vbulletin” is the note that is visible on all installations of the popular online forum software vbulletin. So this would be an ideal way to find a Thailand related online forum if your general search doesn’t give you the results you are looking for.
Researching your niche
Look at the existing websites for the topic you want to focus on and ask yourself what they are lacking. Can users contribute to the site? Does the site answer the most common questions people have? What would you do better?
You probably realize that some of the niches you picked are already overcrowded or have some excellent websites that really address everything you can think of. This doesn’t mean you can forget about the niche it just means you have to make your niche narrower.
Try to find directories, forums and online communities that deal with the topic you are interested in. You can start by using the Google queries you saw before or try some of these:
yourtopic + forum
yourtopic + commnity
yourtopic + directory
Some other very popular forum software:
“Powered By IP.Board” + yourtopic
“Powered By SMF” + yourtopic
“Powered By phpBB” + yourtopic
Read the topics posted in those forums and look for questions that are asked over and over again. Can you answer them? Could you answer them with a little bit of research? Forums and online communities are a great place to do market research and see what people are really looking for while directories give you an idea what other sites already exist.
The most important lesson you will learn in this guide!
Ok here it comes. This is really the single most important factor that will either result in your ultimate success or failure in making money online. Whatever your website will offer, it has got to have at least one (or ideally, even more than one) unique selling points. If you are just trying to be another news blog about a certain topic, while another blog that does pretty much the same has already been doing it a couple of months, forget it! Unless you are able to give it a real new twist.
A unique selling point doesn’t mean your design is new and very rarely means the technical features of your site. Those things will only give you a short term advantage because they can easily be replicated. You won’t be able to compete solely on features. In your approach to general marketing and branding you have to focus on intangible values. For websites that means the angle how you approach the topic should be different to others and you keep this difference consistent. If you are the blog that always has the most hilarious write ups on recent news about your topic with a good chunk of humor then stick to it.
An example:
There are hundreds of news sites about new technical toys (also called gadgets). A lot of them just focus on bringing the latest and hottest news. If you would like to get into this area and succeed you need to do something different. Here are some ideas how to approach this topic:
Research:
1. You realize the field is too broad and narrow the topic down to mobile phones and make it even more narrow and focus on smart phones (phones that have their own operating system and can have software installed on them)
2. You realize a lot of people have a strong opinion about their favorite operating system for smart phones (for example Windows Mobile versus Symbian)
3. Strong opinions lead to passionate discussions and you will see people fighting it out in the comments on general mobile phone blogs
Conclusion:
Give them a place to really fight it out. For example you could start a blog that compares two similar phones with the same technical specifications but different operating systems. Another idea would be to focus on the operating systems themselves and to compare the feature sets and offer your expert advice on it. A lot of blogs just focus on one system for example, and are dedicated solely to either Symbian or Windows Mobile.
Check the if the niche you picked has potential
Here are a couple of important things you should check whenever you think about doing a website for a certain topic:
* Am I the first one to do it? (First mover advantage)
* Have others tried it and failed? Why?
* Is my approach really unique?
* How easy is my site replicated by someone else?
* Can I break the niche down in several topics and maybe create more sites?
* What is the main benefit that people have when they visit my site?
Some starting points to give your ideas a unique twist:
* Can you combine two topics into one?
* Can you focus on addressing just one side of a topic?
* Can you write in a unique way about the topic? (Humour, Critic..)
* Can you offer advice about the topic? Maybe tutorials how to do something?
* Can you focus on a new development within your niche?
Timeless content pays forever
This brings us to another important point and one of the reasons why I do relatively well without working much. I have always focused on timeless content. Some topics don’t change that much such as languages or advice in some fields eg, cooking.
Whenever you write something that is helpful today it should still be helpful and worth reading in some months or years. This enhances the long term value of your site and will also bring you visitors over a longer period of time. Who wants to read a review of a three year old computer?
Is there really a demand for the information you are going to offer?
You can also learn a lot about the demand by looking at the online communities and the topics they are talking about as mentioned above. But the best way to find out if there is a demand for certain information is to do some keyword research which means you look at how often people search for a certain word or phrase.
Keyword Research
There are two great places to do your keyword research. The first one and my personal favorite is Wordtracker. Wordtracker was one of the first sites to offer this kind of service and has developed very user friendly tools to find what you are looking for. You can also export your research data to keep it in Excel for further evaluation.
Another alternative is Trellian who offer a service called “Keyword Discovery”. While it is not as user friendly as Wordtracker it is still a great resource and subscribing makes sense.
I suggest you just plan what you want to research and then subscribe to the cheapest plans both sites offer. You will have a limited amount of time in which you can access their services. In this time I usually do non-stop keyword research and export all interesting data to Excel for further evaluation.
The following two steps will help you to get most out of your keywords research.
1. Make a list of relevant words. Think what you would enter in a search engine to find more information about your topic. Ask friends to write down some words they would use. Go to sites like thesaurus.com and add similar words to the list.
2. Use keyword research tools mentioned above to see how popular the words or phrases on your list are. Note the most popular phrases and keywords. Try to start with broad words and then narrow them down with phrases and words that are used less frequently.
You can also start with Google’s free keyword research tool before you do more detailed research with Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.
Click Here For Part 2
Basic Mindset of Online Entrepreneurs.
There are a lot of eBooks out there that advertise “how to make money without working”…. yeah right…
The truth is making money online is always work, as long as you want to create something that will last and keep on making you money for a longer period of time. Prepare yourself to put in a couple of weeks of work and don’t expect to receive a great amount of money or response in that time. Don’t get discouraged because things will build up over time and once they are established the maintenance gets easier and you will earn more each and every month! I’m writing this because I want to cut the bullshit and tell you what you can really expect.
Sit back, get a drink and relax. In the next 30 minutes you will learn all the important things that I learned and that made my sites successful.
I considered selling this guide as an eBook for 47$ which is the regular price for eBooks like this but decided everybody can set their own price. If you find this guide helpful it would be great if you just donate some money or paypal me a beer. That’s always welcome!
Find the right niche
The first thing you should think of
Think about some things you are passionate about, that you enjoy or that you are interested in. This can be something you did in the past, some aspect of your job that you like and are good at or something that you really want to learn. Take a piece of paper and write those topics down.
If you are not an expert and passionate about white nose Madagascar rabbits it is very likely that your range of topics are too broad and if you are such an expert… your topic might not attract enough people with the same interests. It is important to find a balance between both. Not too broad (not too much competition) and not too narrow (enough people are interested in it) niches are great.
Reality check
Most areas and topics are already covered on the Internet today. Every day thousands of new websites go online and the flood of information multiplies every month. If you want to make good money for example in the “travel” niche you better have a lot of money to invest or you won’t stand a chance with the already huge and established networks and community sites already out there.
It’s not all that bad…
The good news is that you might not become the mecca for general travel advice but you may become the owner of the most read blog containing tips how to prepare a trip to another country. It’s all about narrowing your niche down to a size that will still have readers and is not too broad that you have too many competitors.
So how do you narrow your niche down?
There are several ways to do this. First of all do general research on Google for your niche. The basis of being successful online is working efficient. Here are some ways how you can get better results in Google.
“thailand tour” - Searches for the whole phrase like it is.
“thailand tour”+ island - Searches for documents that contain the exact phrase “thailand tour” and the word island. Both the phrase and the word have to be in the same document to get listed in the search results.
Also have a look at the advanced search of Google that lets you filter your search in a variety of ways. Those two mentioned above are just the ones I use most often. They come in incredibly handy for example, if you search for forums or online boards about a certain topic. Just try this for example:
“powered by vbulletin” + Thailand
“powered by vbulletin” is the note that is visible on all installations of the popular online forum software vbulletin. So this would be an ideal way to find a Thailand related online forum if your general search doesn’t give you the results you are looking for.
Researching your niche
Look at the existing websites for the topic you want to focus on and ask yourself what they are lacking. Can users contribute to the site? Does the site answer the most common questions people have? What would you do better?
You probably realize that some of the niches you picked are already overcrowded or have some excellent websites that really address everything you can think of. This doesn’t mean you can forget about the niche it just means you have to make your niche narrower.
Try to find directories, forums and online communities that deal with the topic you are interested in. You can start by using the Google queries you saw before or try some of these:
yourtopic + forum
yourtopic + commnity
yourtopic + directory
Some other very popular forum software:
“Powered By IP.Board” + yourtopic
“Powered By SMF” + yourtopic
“Powered By phpBB” + yourtopic
Read the topics posted in those forums and look for questions that are asked over and over again. Can you answer them? Could you answer them with a little bit of research? Forums and online communities are a great place to do market research and see what people are really looking for while directories give you an idea what other sites already exist.
The most important lesson you will learn in this guide!
Ok here it comes. This is really the single most important factor that will either result in your ultimate success or failure in making money online. Whatever your website will offer, it has got to have at least one (or ideally, even more than one) unique selling points. If you are just trying to be another news blog about a certain topic, while another blog that does pretty much the same has already been doing it a couple of months, forget it! Unless you are able to give it a real new twist.
A unique selling point doesn’t mean your design is new and very rarely means the technical features of your site. Those things will only give you a short term advantage because they can easily be replicated. You won’t be able to compete solely on features. In your approach to general marketing and branding you have to focus on intangible values. For websites that means the angle how you approach the topic should be different to others and you keep this difference consistent. If you are the blog that always has the most hilarious write ups on recent news about your topic with a good chunk of humor then stick to it.
An example:
There are hundreds of news sites about new technical toys (also called gadgets). A lot of them just focus on bringing the latest and hottest news. If you would like to get into this area and succeed you need to do something different. Here are some ideas how to approach this topic:
Research:
1. You realize the field is too broad and narrow the topic down to mobile phones and make it even more narrow and focus on smart phones (phones that have their own operating system and can have software installed on them)
2. You realize a lot of people have a strong opinion about their favorite operating system for smart phones (for example Windows Mobile versus Symbian)
3. Strong opinions lead to passionate discussions and you will see people fighting it out in the comments on general mobile phone blogs
Conclusion:
Give them a place to really fight it out. For example you could start a blog that compares two similar phones with the same technical specifications but different operating systems. Another idea would be to focus on the operating systems themselves and to compare the feature sets and offer your expert advice on it. A lot of blogs just focus on one system for example, and are dedicated solely to either Symbian or Windows Mobile.
Check the if the niche you picked has potential
Here are a couple of important things you should check whenever you think about doing a website for a certain topic:
* Am I the first one to do it? (First mover advantage)
* Have others tried it and failed? Why?
* Is my approach really unique?
* How easy is my site replicated by someone else?
* Can I break the niche down in several topics and maybe create more sites?
* What is the main benefit that people have when they visit my site?
Some starting points to give your ideas a unique twist:
* Can you combine two topics into one?
* Can you focus on addressing just one side of a topic?
* Can you write in a unique way about the topic? (Humour, Critic..)
* Can you offer advice about the topic? Maybe tutorials how to do something?
* Can you focus on a new development within your niche?
Timeless content pays forever
This brings us to another important point and one of the reasons why I do relatively well without working much. I have always focused on timeless content. Some topics don’t change that much such as languages or advice in some fields eg, cooking.
Whenever you write something that is helpful today it should still be helpful and worth reading in some months or years. This enhances the long term value of your site and will also bring you visitors over a longer period of time. Who wants to read a review of a three year old computer?
Is there really a demand for the information you are going to offer?
You can also learn a lot about the demand by looking at the online communities and the topics they are talking about as mentioned above. But the best way to find out if there is a demand for certain information is to do some keyword research which means you look at how often people search for a certain word or phrase.
Keyword Research
There are two great places to do your keyword research. The first one and my personal favorite is Wordtracker. Wordtracker was one of the first sites to offer this kind of service and has developed very user friendly tools to find what you are looking for. You can also export your research data to keep it in Excel for further evaluation.
Another alternative is Trellian who offer a service called “Keyword Discovery”. While it is not as user friendly as Wordtracker it is still a great resource and subscribing makes sense.
I suggest you just plan what you want to research and then subscribe to the cheapest plans both sites offer. You will have a limited amount of time in which you can access their services. In this time I usually do non-stop keyword research and export all interesting data to Excel for further evaluation.
The following two steps will help you to get most out of your keywords research.
1. Make a list of relevant words. Think what you would enter in a search engine to find more information about your topic. Ask friends to write down some words they would use. Go to sites like thesaurus.com and add similar words to the list.
2. Use keyword research tools mentioned above to see how popular the words or phrases on your list are. Note the most popular phrases and keywords. Try to start with broad words and then narrow them down with phrases and words that are used less frequently.
You can also start with Google’s free keyword research tool before you do more detailed research with Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.
Click Here For Part 2
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