Letâs look at something now which is â by far â the most important aspect of setting up your site correctly: keyword research. If you want to be stumbled-upon by Internet users (as opposed to visited by those who already know your web address), then you need to ensure that your URL comes up in Googleâs search results (and other search engines). To accomplish this, you need to optimize your site for the search engines (the process also known as âSEOâ â search engine optimization) â and SEO starts with keyword research. So letâs discuss this in greater depth now.
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Keyword research is the foundation of your online success. A âkeywordâ is any word or phrase which a user types into a search engine (like Google Search). Those keywords which people tend to type the most are, naturally, the most popular (sometimes called ânicheâ keywords to describe their general nature, as pertaining to any given niche, e.g. âdogsâ) â but these keywords are also so general that itâs impossible to assume that anyone who types, for example, âdogsâ is actually interested in anything other than mere research. For this reason, itâs not very important for a website to conquer any of those massive keywords, but rather much more specific âbuyingâ keywords, i.e. keywords which in some ways indicate the searcherâs state of mind: he/she is typing that in order to make a purchase. Those âbuying keywordsâ are also known as keywords with âcommercial intentâ. Researching keywords with commercial intent
- While there are tools which attempt to evaluate âcommercial intentâ in a keyword, theyâre usually not very reliable. Your own logic and knowledge of human psychology can outperform them any day.
- What we mean by âkeywords with commercial intentâ is whether a given keyword, when entered by a searcher, indicates that he or she is looking to buy â or are they perhaps only browsing?
- So, if someone types âdog trainingâ or âindie musicâ, they MAY be interested in buying a product but, more likely, theyâre just browsing, looking for free resources. If they type âdog training bookâ or âindie music bookâ chances are much better that theyâre actually looking for a book to buy. If they type âDog Training Tricks by So-and-Soâ or âindie music promotion by XYZâ it is even more likely theyâre actually looking for this specific title in order to purchase it. Also, if they type âbuy dog training bookâ or âbuy music promotion bookâ, it appears that there is clear buying (commercial) intent.
- Keywords which have commercial intent tend to be longer (so-called âlong-tailâ keywords) and tend to have fewer monthly searches than the broader (a.k.a. âbrowsingâ or ânicheâ) keywords. So, while âdog trainingâ or âindie musicâ might impress you with the sheer number of monthly searches (because itâs a âniche keywordâ), it MAY be relatively useless for you to conquer it (in the short term at least), because people who have typed it in are very unlikely to be looking for something to BUY. On the other hand âbuy dog training bookâ or âbuy music promotion bookâ may have a much more modest number of searches, but a MUCH higher likelihood of bringing your potential clients. Put differently, itâs better â and cheaper â to target 1000 potential buyers than 1,000,000 indifferent people.
- When looking for products you are considering to sell, use Google Keyword Planner to confirm their EXACT search volumes and always try to go for those with the most monthly searches. Iâd say no fewer than 1,000, though some people donât even look at keywords which yield less than 20,000 per month. This will greatly improve your chances.
Researching demographics In this section weâll look at demographic research from the point of view of preparing to advertise and targeting your promotions at specific types of people. Naturally, youâre not yet ready to advertise. But â youâre definitely ready to target your content at those people, so you might as well look at it in much the same way.
- Targeting your promotions (and content) is KEY. But it is possible to target your ads/content wrongly, sometimes disastrously so. Itâs not enough to target potential buyers â you must speak their language as well. Some products (or, in your case, most likely, music styles) appeal more to women, some to men â others appeal to particular age demographics yet others wonât. Some will appeal to certain professions or certain levels of education. You need to know all this about YOUR product/music BEFORE you start writing ads for it.
- High quality CPC (ad networks where you pay per click) social networks like Facebook or dating networks like PlentyOfFish will allow you to target you ads right down to the tiniest details of your prospects â but you must first know those details yourself.
Hereâs the simplest way to research demographic information:
- Decide on one or a small handful of your most important niche-level keywords. So, if youâre promoting your âcutting edge grunge musicâ then your NICHE is âmusicâ or more specifically âgrunge musicâ. Another keyword might be âindependent grunge musicâ â and so on. Just go for the top 3 or 4.
- Now visit www.google.com and enter your first keyword. Look at the first result and copy the target URL into your notepad. You MAY also want to do that for the next one or two results.
Now do the same for your second and possibly third keyword.
- Are the top 3 results for each keyword linked to the same URL or are they different? Have you seen any of those URLs more than once? Chances are that the one with the biggest number of top Google results is the first one to start with, but not always. Have a look at their Alexa rankings to establish which ones are the busiest sites. There are a few ways to do this:
- Visit www.alexa.com, then either install their toolbar in your browser or just click on âSite Infoâ and paste in your first URL. Study the rank and the stats. Ranks above 100,000 are smaller sites, below 100,000 are busier ones â as a rule of thumb (though not in every case).
- Or â and this is probably the best way â go to www.seoquake.com and install their toolbar. From now on not only will you see all kinds of information about EACH site you visit (including Alexa rank and much more), but youâll also see instant analysis of all Google Search results.
- So now, take your 3 top URLs within your niche and go to www.quantcast.com and enter the first URL. Do the same in Alexa.com SiteInfo. (Some sites will only show up in Alexa, while Quantcast will give you full details only for sites which have registered with them).If you discover that the difference between two targeted demographic groups is insignificant, your text will be written in a certain way. If they are significant, you may want to write different text for the one group, and alternative text for the other.
- First, note that daily traffic should be in the thousands at least. If it isnât, maybe you didnât pick the most representative site for your niche.
- Now scroll down and take notes of all the most important demographic trends. If you notice a strong difference between various demographic groups â this may be a strong hint as to how you should target your ads. For example, when you check out reverbnation.com (one of the leading music sites in the world) you will notice that males slightly outweigh females. Youâll also see that nearly 50% of all traffic there is from the USA. This might be enough for you to decide to target your ads or articles (or song/video descriptions and tags) at US-based males. But to be sure, you should also check a couple of other sites afterwards and see if their analytics confirm your findings.
- Pay attention to all the key demographic figures and make notes. Youâll want to target your ads, articles, tags and descriptions at the best-represented groups (in most cases anyway).
The more targeted your copy â the more cost-efficient and better your campaign results will be, whether paid or SEO-based. I have also enclosed a small Keyword Research Resource for you, so make sure to check it out. [/emember_protected]
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