Well begun is half done – goes the age old saying. In Internet marketing – it’s more than half the work. When I first joined Squidoo, I just started writing about what I liked, which was some book reviews and some recipes. After about a month and zero visits I got disillusioned and got bored of Squidoo. I came back after a year and this time did some more digging around and studying and found the Holy Grail – Ok that’s exaggeration! – But I realized the missing ingredient in my recipes (pun intended) if you will.
I wasn’t doing any Keyword Research. I didn’t know what words should I use in my URL, on my lenses and how many people were actively looking for information on the topics I wrote about. There was a moment when a bulb went off in my head and I realized that this was something I had to do even before I started building my lenses. I can now proudly say that this has been the main difference between earning a few cents in my entire first year on Squidoo and now doing more than $500 per month.
So what is keyword research all about? Let put it down here very simply without any jargon.
All we are trying to ascertain here is two things – AUDIENCE & COMPETITION
AUDIENCE
Are there enough people online who are interested in the topic I intend to write about and if so what are the words they type into the search engine to find information about this subject?
Put yourself in your potential readers’ shoes and think about what you would type into the search engine to get information. Now for the magic button (I know you’re looking for one). Fire up the Google Keyword Tool and type in your keyword or search phrase and the tool will throw up a bunch of related keywords and their monthly search volumes. You need to first calibrate your search by selecting the “exact search” option which you will find on your left sidebar. This is it. You now know how many people are searching for each of those keywords.
This was the easy part. It’s like your first day on college when you see a bunch of attractive, good-looking potential mates. But before you go ahead- you need to look over your shoulder to see if you are being followed by the prom queen of the football captain. Yup – I am talking about your competition.
COMPETITION
You need to figure out who you are taking on. Its one thing to think of yourself as David and wanting to take on Goliath – but if you are a newbie, I’d recommend you to choose your battles wisely. You need to take on somebody your size and play in the kiddies pool for a while before you graduate on to bigger things.
For a detailed case-study on how to do keyword research effectively using free tools, please subscribe to my blog newsletter and get a free copy of my e-book – How To Craft Elegant Money Spinning Lenses on Squidoo.
We will talk about “On page SEO” for Squidoo in PART 2 of this series!
Image courtesy Danard Vincente via CC by 2.0
