Because of this many (did I say many? I meant ALL) Social Media, SEO, and Content Marketing experts are discussing strategies and concepts for leveraging the new social media outlet. And there’s been some great articles with some fantastic strategies. Here are a few:

• The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest For Marketing
• 7 Creative Ways Your Brand Can Use Pinterest
• Pinterest: Link Building & SEO Strategies

The strategies are great! But should men be on Pinterest?

A one-minute tour of Pinterest and you quickly get the idea, this thing is all about “pinning” things, commenting, and oh yeah it’s definitely for Women! It’s as women centric as the Lifetime television network. It’s all about fashion, cooking, being a Mom etc. etc. Boring stuff that men should stay away from. Right?

Well sure. But when you throw Social Media, SEO, and Content Marketing into the conversation Pinterest starts to look pretty interesting, even for a man. What male internet marketer doesn’t want potentially hundreds of new links, visits, and even leads/customers?

Like Beer-Goggles, organic internet marketing makes Pinterest look mighty attractive!

The potential for business is huge! But men should still stay away from Pinterest…

For 2 major reasons:

1. It questions your manhood. Seriously it does. Instead of “pinning” your new favorite baby crib you should be instead gearing up for the SuperBowl or getting your new #KobeSystems on for some pick-up ball. And if you think there’s content on Pinterest for men only… good luck finding any. It’s all for women. Not for men.

2. Women love Pinterest and worked hard to make it what it is! If/when men get in there they will start diluting it with men-like things which will make Pinterest less-interesting of a place for the women who created it. Women make Pinterest one of the most interesting and valuable Social Media sites of all-time. Men will only ruin that. Don’t believe me? Just ask Digg.com.

I realize my argument is EXTREMELY subjective in that it cannot be verified using concrete facts and figures. But you know what i’m saying here right? Pinterest is for Women. We have Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. Leave the women alone and keep your manhood!

I’m not saying Pinterest isn’t a marketing goldmine! Of course it is. But for women to leverage. And women only.

Download Audio: Closed Format: MP3

Details Of The CP3 Trade That Was Supposed To Happen:

Let’s first look at the details of the trade as reported by ESPN. Also note the financial details thanks to the ESPN Trade Machine.

Lakers get: Chris Paul (2 years @ $16.4m)

Rockets get: Pau Gasol (3 years @ $18.7m)

Hornets get: Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin & Goran Dragic (combined $31.1m)

First we should understand that this trade wasn’t done. The salaries have to match in order for a trade to go through according to league rules. Which is why it seems almost obvious that Emeka Okafor (3 years @ $12.6m) was included in the deal to go L.A.

Question: what do you guys think of the details of this trade?

Owners Complain. Gilbert Sends an Email. Stern Vetoes Trade.

The owners were having a meeting with the NBA in New York discussing (and hopefully finalizing) some loose ends on the new CBA. After finding out about this trade Yahoo! Sports reports that the owners immediately begin freaking out at David Stern demanding this trade get over-turned.

Then things get really odd. Yahoo! Sports reports an email that Cavs owner Dan Gilbert sends to Stern and 25 other owners. Here is that email:

Commissioner,

It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.

This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.

Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. That $21 million goes to non-taxpaying teams and to fund revenue sharing.

I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn’t appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard. (They would also get a large trade exception that would help them improve their team and/or eventually trade for Howard.) When the Lakers got Pau Gasol (at the time considered an extremely lopsided trade) they took on tens of millions in additional salary and luxury tax and they gave up a number of prospects (one in Marc Gasol who may become a max-salary player).

I just don’t see how we can allow this trade to happen.

I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.

When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?

Please advise….

Dan G.

Soon after this David Stern releases his statement that he is blocking this trade for “basketball reasons.” All 3 teams are working on a new deal that they hope will get approved by Stern. If not it’s been reported that Chris Paul is prepared to leverage the Players Union and take this to court. All 3 teams involved are also prepared to file an appeal.

Question #1: Do the small market owners have a right to complain here?

Question #2: Oh Dan Gilbert! What is the problem with this guy?

Question #3: Does this set bad precedence for all future NBA trades?

Question #4: Does the revised trade go through?

1. Insert Ads Across Entire RSS Feed

Originally provided by WPrecipes.com, this snippet of PHP when placed in your functions.php file inside your theme gives you the ability to place a global ad across all posts in your RSS Feed.

function insertAds($content) {
    $content = $content.'<hr /><a href="http://chasesagum.com">Have you visited ChaseSagum.com today?</a><hr />';
    return $content;
}
add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'insertAds');
add_filter('the_content_rss', 'insertAds');

Just change out what’s in the $content variable to the HTML you want for your ad.

2. Feed Only Content On a Post-By-Post Basis

This snippet of code from WPBeginner.com helps you use your functions.php file to create a new custom shortcode that you can use to display content just in your RSS feed on a post-by-post basis. Pretty dang cool. Once this code is in your functions.php file you can use [feedonly]content goes in here[/feedonly] to specify which content you only want displayed in your feed.

function feedonly_shortcode( $atts, $content = null) {
	if (!is_feed()) return "";
	return $content;
}
add_shortcode('feedonly', 'feedonly_shortcode');

There you go. 2 customizations you can make to your WordPress Theme today to help you provide better content to your RSS subscribers.

note: I’m realizing as I’m writing this that this is one of the most difficult WordPress things I have ever tried to explain. Yikes!

So to make this happen we need a little PHP. Here’s what I did.

In my Sidebar.php file I used this code:

<?php
  global $post;
  $category = get_the_category($post->ID);
  $category = $category[0]->cat_ID;
  $myposts = get_posts(array('numberposts' => 10, 'offset' => 0, 'category__in' => array($category), 'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),'post_status'=>'publish'));
  foreach($myposts as $post) :
  setup_postdata($post);
?>
    <li>
      <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
    </li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

As you can see the code is grabbing the category of the current post that is being viewed. It’s then setting up a simple wordpress loop to show the most recent posts with a title and link. You can change the number of how many recent posts are shown by changing the ‘numberposts’ => 10, to whatever number you like.

See Demo = look at my sidebar to the right for the widget titled “Recent Posts From This Category.”

Hope this helps. I know with all of the Google Panda updates this year have had many bloggers looking for new ways to make their sidebars more dynamic. This is a great way to help you do that.

oh yes this image has relevance. keep reading!

Chances are you probably feel the same way I do. Which is why I chose to write this post. I wanted to quickly share with you the specific keys I focus on that have directly & in-directly benefited me in the past and hopefully will continue to in the near future.

Key #1. Hard Work for Long Hours At a Time

Some people work hard for short periods of time while others work not as hard but for longer periods of time. I’m talking about training yourself to do both. It’s not easy… but it takes so much work to build out web properties which is why I put this at the top of the list. Your ability to work hard and to work hard consistently for long periods of time will directly correlate to your success or failure on the web. It’s really that simple.

Internet marketers are known as people who have the ability to work 24 straight hours or more to get a project done. They don’t always do it, but the ability is there and it is used when needed.

There is an element of sacrifice that is required here. How much are you willing to sacrifice of your own personal time, health etc.? Create your boundaries ahead of time and stick with those.

Key #2. Focusing on Small Wins

This has been a lesson I have learned over the past couple of years. This concept of focusing and achieving small wins, 1 at a time and benefiting from the momentum that is generated in the process.

There’s a tendency for us as humans to want “everything now!” But business doesn’t always work that way. Focus and be aware of each small win. Kind of like Bill Murray’s character in What About Bob? “baby steps.”

I can’t tell you how many projects I have abandoned over the years because they didn’t immediately generate me $5k or $10k a month. Focus on the $10. Then the $50. And so on. Before you know it you’ll be hitting those numbers you originally planned on. But expecting them too fast will discourage you way too fast.

Key #3. A Good Plan Today is Better Than a Perfect Plan Tomorrow

I’ve been lucky to have great leaders around me during my life. Many of these leaders have taught me this concept of “a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” A butchered version of General Patton’s famous quote from WWII.

This couldn’t be more accurate than when it comes to business. How often on the web do we “plan” projects before actually executing on those plans? The plans can be flawless, but without the execution of those plans they will mean nothing to you in terms of real value.

Focus on executing at least once per day. That new website you want to launch. That new blog post you’ve been planning. Etc.

Key #4. Reading RSS Feeds

This one is a little more of a technical/specific key that I focus on, leveraging the power of the blogosphere to learn more in a shorter period of time. Those of you who know me probably are aware of the fact that I subscribe to over 500 blogs via RSS using my Google Reader account. And I read through these feeds DAILY!

The world of business online changes daily. So naturally if you want to succeed you have to keep up with these changes. No better way to do that than with RSS.

Key #5. Application: practice what you learn

It’s not enough to just “learn.” That knowledge won’t do you any good if you don’t put it to work because a) you won’t retain what you learn without application and b) let’s be honest the best way to learn is through experience in doing.

I typically save all of my favorite blog articles each day into a spreadsheet that is neatly organized and categorized for future reference. I then spend an hour each day going back to those articles, re-reading them and immediately putting them to work.

6. Being a Hybrid: Coder + Marketer

There are Marketers and there are coders. Nerds and Jocks. Doers and Talkers. In order to achieve success in Internet Marketing and Internet Business I have found it best to be both. A hybrid if you will. The ability to generate an idea, have the skills to put that idea together technically, and finally the know-how to broadcast it and sell it to real people.

It’s hard to be a hybrid. I’m still desperately trying to learn PHP after all these years. It just doesn’t come easy to me like Marketing does. But the more of a Hybrid I become the more success comes to me which continues to motivate me in this direction.

7. Productivity OCD

You have to be obsessed with productivity. It seems like i’m testing a new productivity method every couple of months or so. Right now i’m leveraging the Pomodoro Technique for maximizing creativity and productivity. There’s a good chance this will change in a few months as my quest for finding optimal productivity continues.

It’s so ridiculously easy to get distracted on the web. Your ability to eliminate all distraction for many hours at a time will prove to be a very valuable skill for you.

8. Automation. Automation. Automation.

This one for me has been very difficult. Finding ways to increase automation while maintaining authenticity. So hard to do with things like Content Marketing, SEO and Social Media. But there’s a reason you can’t work 32 hours each day. It’s because there are only 24. And in order to achieve more you have to do more which is why Automation in this day in age is so critical.

A quick tip: I’ve been using this free tool called IFTT.com which helps you setup all sorts of web based automations. It’s worth checking out.

Conclusion

I must admit that I did not have this list all together when I started working on the web 6 years ago. Rather, this list has built up over time as I have learned through good and painful (mostly painful) experiences. I hope these help you. As I was putting this article together I kept asking myself “why not learn from other’s experiences?” This should be possible right?

One last tidbit that isn’t included in this list because it’s more of a personal attribute is Patience. Lots of it! I started my career with zero patience and it cost me many sleepless nights and worse, it cost me many opportunities. I can name off dozens of websites that had I just kept them running I could be benefiting from them today. Instead I would lose patience because they were not earning me as much as I thought they should so I would walk away from them.

What keys or tactics do you focus on? Have you found any of these not to be helpful?

Truly successful blogging takes an ability to write and produce regularly, strong web design, marketing incentives, and a significant amount of patience. However, even the strongest and most successful of blogs get tired and bogged down at times. Regular revamping is a necessary element of blogging. Not only does a revamp help you become re-inspired by your work, it can also help you drive more traffic to your site. The fact is, if you are bored with your own blog, your followers are certainly bored with it too. Don’t scrap it. Go back and revamp every element of your blog using these three tips.

Reevaluate Old Posts

One of the hardest elements of blogging is coming up with new inspiration each day (or week). It can become extremely difficult to come up with new posting material on a regular basis. If you are having trouble coming up with posting ideas, this may indicate several different things about your blog. Of course, if you can’t come up with things to write about, it could be that your niche area is too narrow or just not a good fit for you.

However, if it is just that you are going through a slow patch (which definitely happens), you may need to reevaluate some of your older posts. Go back and reread some of your earlier posts that were popular to your readers or of particular interest to you. Reconsider your stance in these posts. Have your opinions changed? Do you have several more points you would like to add now? Go back to this same topic and write about it again if you find it inspiring. Discuss your point of view with your first post and how it may have changed this time around. This is a great way to create interesting and engaging new material for your blog. Of course, do not just say everything you said originally all over again. Discuss the topic again in a new light.

Research Your Competition

One major aspect of revamping your own image and your own blog material is understanding your competition. During your revamp, you should carefully research your competitors’ blogs. Look at what they have been discussing in their posts, how they design their site, and what they are doing differently from you in their blogs. Knowing what others in your area are up to is an important part of becoming successful in the market. Your competitors’ blogs may give you an idea for your own blog design or direction. You can even discuss something that one of your competitors has discussed and then refer to their post on it.

This is a great way to attract some of their existing followers to your blog and a great way to create new material. I’m not recommending you copy your competitions’ work, but knowing what they are up to is important from a business perspective.

Reconstruct Your Site

Obviously, one of the most basic ways to revamp your blog is to give the site itself a redesign. Revamping the look of your blog can help you gain a stronger following online and can help you become re-inspired by your own blog. Web design trends change almost as often as fashion trends do. That being said, you shouldn’t jump on the design trend wagon every single time something new gets hot.

Look through your site and decide what design elements you can add that will make your site look cleaner and easier to navigate. Usability is paramount in blogging. You want your site to be clear, straight forward, and easy to use. Go through and spice up your logo, refresh your banner and background, change colors around, but always make things easy to look at and locate.

Author Byline:

This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas. Jacelyn writes about identity theft for IdentityTheft.net. She can be reached at: jacelyn.thomas @ gmail.com.

Over the past 2 years I have had the privilege of working for a fantastic company 1on1 Marketing. One of the best experiences of my life! After having just recently left the company to move on to other opportunities I wanted to share with you some important lessons I learned there that have changed who I am forever.

1. Solving Problems Is Really About Solving People Problems

I know, I know. You’ve probably already read this in a little book called Switch. Maybe I stole a chapter from that book for this blog post. But it’s true. My corporate job taught me through experience that “what seems to be a situation problem often times is actually a people problem.”

Learning how to not only deal with people, but more importantly inspire them and help them through problems is a major key to surviving in the corporate world. A very powerful weapon for any Entrepreneur.

2. It’s About Experience Not About Where or If You Graduated

It still amazes me how we have created a system in this country that scares young people into thinking that if they don’t get a college degree, they are doomed forever professionally and therefore financially. This is just simply not the case.

If you have a skill that a company needs you will get the job. Period. And if you are willing to work, study, and fail faster and harder than everyone else around you than you will be promoted quickly and often within that company.

3. Never Stop Doing What Made You Successful

Often times companies will grow to a certain point and then come to sudden halt. A peak in growth if you will. Why does this happen? There are hundreds of reasons quite frankly and hundreds of books have been written about this.

One major lesson I have learned is that many times companies stop doing the small simple things that once made them successful. Sounds simple and almost common sense. And it happens more often than you might think.

4. The CEO Must Be An Absolute Rock Star!

I was lucky to work with a fantastic CEO and CMO over the past 2 years. Because of these two people I was able to learn and grow at rates I could never have imagined. This is a huge key to a successful business. If you are going to run your own business… you better be prepared to become a flat out super star! Anything less will lead to average results and failure.

5. Risk Taking Must Be Rewarded

This is difficult for small business owners. How do you trust your people to the point where you trust them to take risks? I don’t have the answer to that question. All I know is that you have to take risks in order to grow. And just like anything else in business, in order to “scale” your business you have to be able to “scale” your risk taking.

6. Learning How To “Win Friends & Influence People”

The old book by Dale Carnegie is as true today as it was back in 1936 when it was first published. Your ability or lack thereof to influence people in a positive way will be a determining factor in your Entrepreneurial success. And in order to influence someone positively you must become their friend.

But let me be more specific here; learn how to influence people so that they can take your good idea and 1st) convince themselves that it was their idea and 2nd) see the idea through all the way to delivery.

7. Culture. Culture. Culture.

1on1 Marketing has a fantastic culture! This culture was created because the company from it’s beginnings put a huge focus on hiring what they called “the right people.”

Whoever your “right people” are, make sure you define what “right people” means and go after and hire those people. Doing so will create the type of culture that best embodies who you are as the founder and the goals and aspirations you have for your business.

8. Don’t Lose That Entrepreneur Spirit!

I don’t care if you are Steve Jobs, stay at a Corporate Job long enough and you might lose that Entrepreneur spirit if you’re not careful. Processes, procedures, meetings, documentation blah blah blah. 8 hours per day of this can turn you. Change you.

To prevent this make sure you are taking risks regularly. Put your job on the line. My favorite thing to offer to executives was “let me do (blank) for 30 days and if it doesn’t work you can fire me.” Be ready to back it up though!

9. There Are Great People All Around You. Connections Worth Having.

The connections and friends alone make it worth having a corporate job for a few years. Close friends. Future business partners. You get the point. On top of that you never know how those connections will become valuable to you in your future. Or more importantly how you may be able to help those people sometime in the future.

And you get to increase your Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter following.

10. Success = Building Up Small Wins One After The Other

Corporate jobs often present you with massive sized problems that take months or even years to tackle. While some may look at this as a waste of time, there’s a very important lesson to be learned here. The lesson of stacking up small wins.

The only way to tackle a massive problem is to get small wins 1 at a time, and let the momentum of those small wins build up over time before you’re able to eventually solve the problem. Well guess what? This is also how Entrepreneurs succeed!

Conclusion:

It’s easy for an Entrepreneur like you and I to have a very negative mindset while at a corporate job. I think its important to maintain a positive attitude and to try and correlate your work efforts with your long-term personal goals. Doing so will help you get much more out of your experience and will only make you a more powerful business man/woman in the long run.

So if you are at a job right now or are looking to take a position somewhere, ask yourself this question regularly:

What efforts at my day job will or can help me meet my long-term Entrepreneurship goals?

Asking yourself this question regularly will help you keep yourself aligned with what you want to do long-term and more importantly who you want to become long-term.

This is so not true. The truth is that your blog CAN be a converting machine. The trick is a) you have to create amazing value for your readers and b) you have to actually no how to increase your conversion rates. That’s why i’m here to help.

Because I basically have no life (jk) and spend 3/4 of my life on the web… I am able to find the time to read and research thousands of articles across many topics. In the past year conversion rate optimization or CRO has been a major source of curiosity for me. I’ve come across some amazing resources in my journey and I want to share all of these with you. All of which will help you increase conversion rates on your blog.

Conversion Optimization Strategies & Concepts

Before getting to into the details and messing around the tools that are available out there, it’s important to come up with some strategies for how you are going to increase conversion rates on that blog of yours. Here are 15 articles I recommend reading to get you started. After these your brain will undoubtedly start churning with ideas.

1. Multivariate Testing in Action: Five Simple Steps to Increase Conversion Rates

2. The Ultimate Guide To A/B Testing

3. Effective A/B Testing by Ben Tilly

4. Statistical significance & other A/B test pitfalls

5. Easy statistics for AdWords A/B testing, and hamsters

6. What you really need to know about mathematics of A/B split testing

7. How Not To Run An A/B Test

8. Statistical Analysis and A/B Testing

9. Use Conversions To Generate More Conversions

10. Optimizing Conversion Rates: It’s All About Usability

11. Optimizing Conversion Rates: Less Effort, More Customers

12. Should Your Content Aim for Traffic or Conversion?

13. 7 Takeaways From Optimization Summit 2011

14. 10 Effective Ways to Get More Email List Subscribers

15. Getting Users to Sign Up: Factors in Design and Content

Free Conversion Optimization Tools

Before you start spending money, I think it’s a better idea to start making money first. Start with these free tools to get conversion rates up and start implementing your strategies. To be honest there’s no reason why these free tools can’t do the job for you. If you’re an up-and-coming independent blogger than I would suggest just using these.

1. Clue App = test what people remember on your site.

2. PadiTrack = free conversion funnel tracking.

3. Google Website Optimizer = self explanatory.

4. FiveSecondTest = landing page optimization tool

5. NavFlow = path and conversion analysis & optimization tool

Paid Conversion Optimization Tools

If you are running a blog for a medium to large business I recommend these tools. They’ll help satisfy the executive team if you know what I mean. A few notes: Unbounce is more for “landing pages” which may or may not apply to your blog. The other tools can be used to test specific elements of your blog. Most bigger bloggers like using Visual Website Optimizer.

1. Visual Website Optimizer = an A/B testing tool and platform.

2. Unbounce = landing page and testing platform.

3. Vertster = multivariate testing platform.

4. SiteSpect = another popular premium a/b testing tool.

5. Test & Target = Adobe’s Omniture a/b and multivariate testing platform.

Calls 2 Action Resources

Call to actions are critical when it comes to conversion rate optimization and even more important when we are talking about blogging. People are actually reading your content and are trusting your recommendations. Creating the right calls 2 action can really boost conversions over night. Here are some awesome resources that will teach you a few things.

1. Call to Action Buttons: A Survey of Best Practices

2. Attract Your Visitors With Call-to-Action Buttons : Best Examples

3. Sparking Conversions: 10 Easy Calls to Action

4. Super Conversion Button Generator

5. Call To Action Buttons and the Psychology of Color

A/B Testing Case Studies You Should Read

It’s important to note that just because something worked with 1 site, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for yours. Even if you are in the same industry or niche. But having said that, reading case studies of what others have done can be a good place to start. Here are 10 case studies that you will find very helpful for your blog.

1. Writing Decisions: Headline tests on the Highrise signup page

2. “You Should Follow Me on Twitter”

3. Human Photos Double your Conversion Rate

4. Google Website Optimizer Case Study: Daily Burn, 20%+ Improvement

5. A/B test case study: how two magical words increased conversion rate by 28%

6. How We Improved Our Conversion Rate by 72%

7. A/B Test Case Study: Single Page vs. Multi-Step Checkout

8. “Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%

9. Signups increased by 60% after actually removing the signup form

10. Anti A/B testing: signups increased by 60% after removing the blog header

Ideas & Inspiration for Creating Tests

One trap many bloggers run into is this feeling of “i’ve tried everything!” Don’t give up. The fact is there is NO WAY you have tried everything. These resources are great places for generating new testing ideas and for seeing the results of those tests. What you’ll find is there are an endless amount of tests to perform and thus, the limits of your blog and it’s ability to generate customers is endless as well.

1. Which Test Won = cool place to vote and see which tests actually win.

2. 101 A/B Testing Tips = + an overview of how to use Google Website Optimizer

3. ABtests.com = share your tests as well as learn from other’s tests

4. A/B IdeaFox search engine for A/B test case studies

5. Marketing Experiments = a site full of how-to content and resources for coming up with and measuring A/B and other experiments.

That’s all I have for part 1. Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon.

Reason #1. Google is overly promoting it’s own properties & content pushing out brands that are in competition with them.

Reason #2. Google has no real incentive to drastically improve it’s algorithm a.k.a Batman needs a Joker to keep the story interesting.

Reason #3. There’s a desperate need for 2 Search strategies i.e Trust & Authority vs. Social Emphasis. Aged/Linked content vs. More Up-To-Date content etc.

Reason #4. To prevent future AntiTrust cases against Google a.k.a “the secret sauce is too good!” This could really affect Search as a whole not just Google.

Reason #5. There’s nobody else left to fight Google therefore Bing must step up and assume the mantle. If not Bing who? If not now when?

Agree with these? Disagree with any of them? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

It’s because of this that I personally am going to make a commitment to start using Bing more often. To challenge it. To find what works and what doesn’t. If I have a hard time looking for something than I’m going to pester the Bing search team. Whatever it takes to help them move along. If you agree with 1 or more of the reasons I have stated above… then join me and let’s start using Bing more often!

Side note: I would love to dive more into each of these… but this is one of my “short thoughts.” So for that reason i’m keeping it short. If you would like me to write about any of these in more detail, let me know in the comments below and I will put something together.

Put Together a Comprehensive List of Keywords and Keyword Phrases

Don’t do this off the top of your head. Instead, use a keyword generating tool that will do the following:

• List the most common keywords and keywords phrases searched for your topic
• Rank the keywords according to how many searches each keyword or phrase generates

You’ll also want to use a tool that will evaluate your site’s rankings for keywords. Use a tool that will do the following:

• Tell you want place and page you rank for each keyword or phrase for Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
• Tell you how much competition there is to rank for that keyword phrase

Use these tools to come up with a list of keywords and phrases. Then rank the keywords and phrases so you’ll know which ones to focus on.

Cover All Your Bases

You need to have enough content on your site that you can cover all the necessary keywords and keyword phrases. However, you want to preserve the readability of your site. This means you’re going to need a lot of web copy, and you’ll need to plan your content strategically. To cover all the keywords and keyword phrases appropriately, you’ll want to have:

• Several landing pages, all of which are chock full of content
• An on-going blog roll so you can update your site with fresh copy (packed with keywords) on a regular basis
• Extra pages – the ones most visitors won’t read – for the purpose of SEO only (these are ones you list in the footer of your home page, such as your Terms of Service page)

Dominate the Obscure Keyword Phrases Space

You’ll find there’s a lot of competition for the most common keywords, but you’ll also find obscure keywords and phrases you probably wouldn’t have thought of on your own. Because it’s easier to rank well for the obscure keywords, it can be financially advantageous to focus on ranking for those keywords. Why is this true?

Let’s say you have a weight loss site, and you pour all your SEO time, money, and effort into the keyword phrase: weight loss strategies. You’re competing with a gazillion other weight loss sites, right? Many of them have deeper pockets than you, and most of them have been at this longer than you, so much as you try, you probably aren’t ever going to show up on the first page of Google for that popular keyword phrase, right? And since about 90% of people never look past the first page of Google search results, you aren’t going to get any clicks off your third (or sixth, or fifteenth) page ranking, right?

Bottom line: It doesn’t matter if ten million searches are done for that keyword if you aren’t ranking on the first or second page for the search.

However, let’s say you target the more obscure keyword phrase (let’s try a longtail phrase) like: “women weight loss colon cleanse”. Maybe only 500,000 people search for that keyword phrase each day, but if you can rank on the first page of Google results, you’ll get a lot more views of your listing (and click-throughs to your site) for a lot less effort.

Balance Your Efforts

As you can see, it’s important to balance your SEO efforts. Cover the traditional bases, but put a good effort into some obscure keywords so you have a chance at your share of web traffic.

About The Author: Erinn Stam is the Managing Editor for nursing scholarships. She attends Wake Technical Community College and is learning about nursing grants. She lives in Durham, NC with her lovely 4-year-old daughter and exuberant husband.