Chistmas Eve I talked about choosing keywords that will make article writing worth while, and I’m going to continue to expand on this, because it’s a huge and very important traffic generating tactic.  One that I use and will continue to use in 2009 to make this my six figure year.

When choosing keywords period you need to keep 3 things in mind.

1. Relevancy - has to be relevant to what you’re promoting! 
2. Competition - to ensure success,  the keyword/keyphrase should have no more than 5,000 ”quoted” results when searched in Google.
3. Traffic – decent search volume

Again, most importantly you should base your keyword selection on relevancy and competition. Yeah traffic is important, but they always say it’s much better to get 100 relevant clicks from 100 different keywords, than 100 irrelevant clicks from one keyword!

The Google Keyword tool along with a Keyword generator will give you the information that you need to make informed decisions regarding keywords that will get your articles listed on the first page of search results.

So let’s get back to how and where you’re going to find profitable keyword ideas. 

Dmoz

A great place to do research is the DMOZ open directory located at http://www.dmoz.org

This is truly a gold mine for article marketers as you can generate a ton of article ideas in just minutes. I’ve followed the real deal marketing gurus for a long time now, and Dmoz seems to be the one thing they all have in common.  So look here!  You might just find a gem.

I wanted to show you screenshots for examples to understand the process better, even though its really straight forward, but for some reason I am unable to upload any images whatsoever, which I will work on getting fixed for future articles.  Reason being I think people are visual learners, I know I am! So I will get this fixed up so that in the next article I can add screenshots to go with my ”instructions” so that you can understand better and ultimately learn better from the experience! Right now, try I will just try and explain using my words

1. Go to the home page and you will see categories, such as Arts, Business, Computers, etc.  Lets use the category “Shopping” for this case study.  Click on “Shopping”, and you will then be presented with various sub-categories.

2. Go down to the sub-category called “Health”. You will then be presented with yet MORE sub-categories, so keep digging!  Lets click on “Weight Loss” now and then click on “Supplements”.

At this level now, you have dug down into the “health” industry and fine tuned your search to come up with more specific sub-niches within that industry. 

At this point you can go over to the Google Keyword tool and do a few searches to find some keywords:  Type in the category that you were searching within:  “weight loss supplements”.

Now with the keyphrases you may have seen with the Google Keyword Tool, search for a few of those keywords in Google to see what kinds of search results you come up with.  Remember to search for the exact keywords by placing quotes around them. Remember, traffic is important but low competition is what you really want to focus on right now.  So when choosing what keywords to choose, sure choose the ones that show are getting traffic first, and then check out the competion in Google.  Obiovusly the more traffic the better, but in most cases, those high traffic keywords have a lot of competition, so don’t worry if your keyword doesnt have a LOT of traffic, thats ok. 

REMEMBER: Its better to get ranked on the first page of Google with a keyword that gets 100 searches, rather than get ranked on page 100 on Google with a keyword that gets 10,000 searches.  Think about that.  Which one do you think will get the most clicks? 

Now for example, using the main keyword “Weight Loss Supplements” in Google Keyword Tool, it came up with a few good alternative keywords. Here are just a few results in Google Keyword Tool I got using the main keyphrase “Weight Loss Supplements”:

• Results 1 – 10 of about 5,320 for “top weight loss supplement“. 

      – a little over 5K results, but still doable.

• Results 1 – 10 of about 1,200 for “weight lose supplements“. 

      - 1,200 results, awesome! Notice the Spelling error? It still gets lots of searches!

• Results 1 – 10 of about 4,070 for “best supplements for weight loss“.

      – 4,070 results, great!

In just a few minutes we started out with the very broad topic called “Shopping” at DMOZ and dug down to find a sub category “weight loss programs”.  One search using the Google keyword tool and we have come up with some keywords that you could use to advertise virtually ANY diet supplement affiliate program, dieting program, or maybe even an e-book!  Rinse and Repeat this process and you’ll be able to come up with a lot of hot keywords that will be listed under with ease.  Use your hard earned keywords to write kick butt articles, submit to article directories and start getting long term traffic you deserve!

Resources:

www.dmoz.org

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This is an example results you may get:

Results 1 – 10 of about 4,120 for “make money online with article marketing“.

4,120 results is definitely a prime candidate for an article and will be very easy to get listed under.

Make a list of relevant keywords that you feel your audience will search for when looking for a product or service similar to what you are promoting.

USE the Google Keyword Tool:

You can get some great keyword data from the free Google Keyword tool.  You can use this tool to dig around for relevant keywords that people have searched for in the past and gives an average monthly search volume. Go through the list looking for keywords that you could write an article on and help someone looking for Information on how to make money with article marketing.

Remember, any keyword below 5,000 results is a good candidate for an article to write about.

The Google keyword tool will also give you some great ideas for keywords to write on by using their website content generator.  Choose “website Content” from the option list and enter the website that you wish to search.

Remember, any keyword below 5,000 results is a really good opportunity for an article to write about.

The Google keyword tool will also give you some cool ideas for keywords to write on if you decide to use their website content generator.  Choose “website Content” from the option list and enter the website that you wish to search. From this list alone you have some great ideas on keywords to research further.

One of the most asked questions I get is ” how do I know what keywords are profitable?”.  Well my friends, the key is to choose your keywords based on relevancy, not by traffic believe it or not, and this is how most people start off on the wrong foot. If your keywords are relevant to what you are promoting, the profits will follow! Trust me.  Although a keyword may get searched for a million times a month, your traffic is useless if it is not relevant and it has massive competition.

Well its Christmas Eve everyone, and I hope unlike me right now, you’re snug in bed considering the kids will be waking you up at 7:00 a.m. if you have any, or enjoying or should I say be celebrating the last of the Chistmas season rush!  I know I will be! 

I will be away tomorrow, enjoying the company of close family and friends, but within the next couple of days I will be discussing the rest of this module on article marketing, and what you need to consider when choosing your keywords based on relevancy and competition. 

Merry Chistmas to you all!!  Its been a delight sharing my knowledge and experiences with you!

With every single article you write, you need to do your research.  This includes knowing what you will write about, what products or services you want to sell (you do want to profit from your articles don’t you?), and how to align that product or service with what your readers are looking for.  As you become more experienced with article marketing, the research part becomes easier, faster, and you become more productive, so take your time when you first get started so that you benefit from understanding the core fundamentals.

Your job is to focus on two important aspects when writing your article, the product your selling and the audience you’re selling too!  Yeah there are real people reading these articles behind closed doors, don’t forget that!  So what you say and do will really affect your outcome. Your job, not only as an article writer but as an internet marketer will be to align your audience with a product that will benefit them.  Whether you’re offering a weight loss program or how to save money on gas, finding the right audience is the first step in your research.  Some will argue with that part, and claim that you need to find a product first and foremost, but think about this please. There are thousands of products that have affiliate programs, so you really aren’t going to have any trouble finding multiple products to offer to pretty much any audience you want to target. 

Find Your Audience:

Finding an audience of people to promote to won’t take you long if you know how to do it.  You can do really good, productive research in less than an hour once you get the hang of things.

Keep these questions in the back of your mind when writing your articles so that you can stay on topic and stay focused.

1. Who is my audience?
2. What are they looking for?
3. Where can they find this?
4. Why do they need this?
5. How can I benefit them?

You really must have answers to these questions before even thinking about typing the first word of your article!  Staying on topic and keeping your articles relevant will be the determining factor on how successful you will be with article marketing.

Now that you have an idea of who you would like to sell a product to, you need to be able to reach these people.  Now to do this, you’re going to need to research keywords that you can write your articles on.  Keywords are simply phrases or queries that people type into the search engines when they are looking for something. When applying keywords to article marketing, the ones with low competition in the search engines are the ones that are prime candidates to write on.  So how low is low enough and where do you find these keywords in the first place?  Well its not rocket science, but there is indeed a science to it sort to speak!

Tomorrow Im going to get in to the fun stuff and show you exactly how to do proper keyword research and where to do it.  The internet is filled with ideas and a lot of fluff too remember, so let me guide you in the right direction. If you’re wondering why on earth you should listen to me, well I don’t have the answer to that because there’s many people who want to tell you what to do and how to do it.  But most of those people also want to charge you for it!! 

Article Marketing has been a passion of mine for awhile now, and I can tell you that I’ve read just about every article marketing how to ebook out there, including accreditation courses I’ve paid a lot of money for taken on this subject as well.  So I’m here to pass on the knowledge and it’s one less dollar you have to spend to learn about this niche because I’ve already spent the money for you!

Well, Im going to get some last minute Xmas shopping done tomorrow, but I’m happy to spend my Christmas eve with you all and giving you the best gift of all……knowledge and wisdom, and theres no greater wealth than that!  You just wait…it will pay off my friends! 

So until tomorrow, stay safe and keep warm!

When someone does a search in any search engine such as Google or Yahoo and types in a “keyword” it will return relevant results for what that person was looking for.  Article Marketing allows you to have your article content delivered as a relevant web page for keywords that you choose!  Yes, you have control over what keywords your articles are listed under in the search engines, and I’m going to teach you exactly how to do this.

There are many different sites available on the net that are specifically created for articles and article marketers.  These websites allow you to add your articles to their sites, therefore you do not need your own website to benefit from article marketing.  Once you have your article written, it only takes a few moments to add your article to an article submission site and have it published online.

Here are the steps you must take to master the article marketing process:

1. Research an Audience and Product
2. Write an Article (or outsource it!)
3. Submit your article to an article submission site
4. Rinse and Repeat

Now that you know how article marketing works in a nutshell and what your job is as the article marketer, let me elaborate on the steps to build your article marketing campaign….tomorrow!

Article marketing, in my opinion, is the absolute best way to build a solid foundation of traffic and business all wrapped up in a nice profitable package!

Tomorrow I will be discussing the most important piece of the puzzle, research.  So many people dismiss research as simple keyword research, it’s much more than that.  Although I will be emphasizing several techniques covering keyword research, I will be discussing other factors that need to be taken in to consideration when creating your most profitable article yet.