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Keywords – A Long Tail Keyword Tutorial

livewithrichard — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:47:44 +0000

Long Tail Keywords

Finding keywords isn’t an exact science. As a matter of fact, the method to finding keywords is a process of trial and retrial. With the exponential growth of the internet and web 2.0, core keywords or broad keywords, are ever increasing in competition. But that does not mean that you can’t get ranked in the search engines for a specific topic or niche.

Search engines are also growing and adding more useful algorithms to allow users to make searches more like asking a question. “How to find gold,” “best places to shop,” “where to buy bubblegum,” these are all examples of long tail keywords that get the searchers closer to what they are searching for.

Long tail keywords make it easier to narrow down a search to a specific niche. Think of it like searching for Chicago on Mapquest. Once you find the city, you can start zooming in until you find a specific address on a city block. A similar think happens when you use long tail keywords to search for a topic.

As a marketer of online products or articles, it’s important to know how to find and use long tail keywords. But just like when researching for core keywords, you have to find the right combination of long tail terms that people are actually searching for. If people aren’t searching for your long tail keywords then your hard work will be wasted because nobody will find it. If you’re not up to speed on what keywords actually are and how they are important then you might want to read this article on keywords before proceeding.

I write informational articles and I tend to stick to a process that works for me. I first find a niche I want to write about then research the long tail keywords that will help me get ranked with little competition. I wrote about how to find a niche in this series on starting a blog, and now I’m going to write about how to research and find long tail keywords using Google’s free keyword tool and Google’s Traffic Estimator tool.

First thing you want to do is decide on a topic. It can be any topic that comes to your head. For this tutorial, I’m going to select the topic of “smoking.” This is a very broad topic and as you can imagine it’s also a heavily competitive subject. Doing a search on Google you will find that “smoking” (without quotations) brings back over 300 million results.

Now, take that term “smoking” and put it into Google’s keyword tool. This tool will give us several keyword suggestions that are relevant to the core keyword. Once you search the keyword and the results come back, do a double click on “advertiser competition,” the row with the green bars. The less green bar, the less the competition.

See all 7 photos

First find keyword suggestions.

Estimate traffic

Personally, I select keywords that have a local search volume greater than 1000 and less than 50,000. The higher the search volume and lower the green bar the better. Write down a few of those keywords that stand out as possibilities.

Take those keywords and plug them into Google’s Traffic Estimator tool.

Determine keyword traffic estimates

Narrow down the search

This will return some statistics on estimated costs per click (CPC) and estimated clicks per day. Now, if you found a keyword phrase that had a CPC over $1.00 and clicks per day more than 2, then you might have found a long tail keyword that is worth writing a few hundred word article on. Personally, I search for a CPC of greater than $1.00 and clicks per day of more than 10.

In the example above there is the word “smoking” and the keyword phrase “tobacco smoking.” We know from earlier that “smoking” has too much competition. “Tobacco smoking” has about 13 million competing pages, but the stats above show potential so we take that term and plug it into Google’s keyword tool to see how much closer we can zoom in.

Zoom in on long tail keywords

Get ready to check competition levels

As you can see above, “tobacco smoking” brought back at least 5 long tail keywords that are worth looking into. So, the next step would be to plug the first term into Google and see what kind of competition it brings back.

Review the competition

close in even more on the competition

A broad search brought back less than 2 million competing pages. We can see the number 1 spot Is held by Wikipedia and 3 of the other 4, in the top 5, are held by a news reporting site, a government website, and a nonprofit organization. The number 2 spot is held by a private individual and this is good news, but lets see what we return when we place our term in quotation marks.

Less competition the better

Identify our biggest competitors

In quotation marks, our long tail keyword returned 3,740 competing pages. This is a very doable keyword term. But we’re not finished with it just yet.

Go back to the search without the quotation marks and copy the URL of that private .com that holds the second position on Google and go back to Google’s keyword tool. This time use the search for “website content,” shown below.

Google has all the tools we need

Look out for .com’s

This search will give us the keywords that the number two position on Google is using. We can use these keywords too.

That’s it in a nutshell

The above illustration is just a snapshot of the many keywords this competitor is using to rank with the long tail keyword phrase “smoking cigarette tobacco.” Using this competitor’s keywords alone does not mean you will rank as high. There is much more to getting ranked high than just using keywords like getting backlinks and using other ways to get traffic to your site.

Anyone that reads this tutorial is free to use the example long tail keywords provided. I have no interest in writing or promoting tobacco products, I just used smoking as a general example of how to find long tail keywords in an overly competitive topic.

How to Start a Blog – Getting Started with Wordpress

livewithrichard — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:53:23 +0000

How to Start a Blog

In the first two parts of this series, you learned how to find a niche topic to blog about and how to select a domain name and blog hosting client. If you haven’t read the first two parts to this series, please go back and read them now if you do not currently have a domain name or hosting client.

Get started with Wordpress

Now I want to discuss how to transfer your domain from the Godaddy.com site to the HostGator.com site (the same concepts can be used for any domain registrar transfer to any domain hosting client.) Then I will discuss how to install the Wordpress software onto your domain using the HostGator.com Cpanel. Wordpress.org is a platform where you control everything about your own blog, unlike Wordpress.com where the blogs are free and very limited in their use.

I will then discuss how to find a free Wordpress theme to fit your new blog and how to upload the theme to your site using free FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software. Once these steps are complete then you will be ready to begin your blogging adventure.

HostGator

Go to HostGator.com
• Log into your HostGator.com Cpanel account that you created when you started your hosting service with HostGator.com

• Find your Name Servers, usually in the bottom left corner of your Cpanel, write both of them down.
How to Change your DNS Nameservers

Godaddy

Go to Godaddy.com
• Log into your Godaddy.com account.
• Under your Account Manager select the domain you want to be hosted on HostGator.com
• Once in your Domain Manager find where it says Nameservers then select Manage.
• Select the option that states “I host my domains with another provider”
• In the box’s for Nameserver 1 and Nameserver 2, replace what is there with the Nameservers that you wrote down from HostGator.com
• Select the OK button at the bottom then log out of Godaddy.com and wait about 15 minutes, though sometimes it can take several hours depending on site and server traffic.

HostGator
Go back to your HostGator.com Cpanel
• Towards the bottom of your Cpanel there is a section called “software and services”, select the Fantastico icon.
• Select Wordpress from the Left side navigation button
• This will install the WordPress software for you on your domain.
• Write down all the log in information that you provide.
• When finished, you can log out of your Cpanel .

Your Domain

Navigate to your new domain by typing it into your browser.
• You should see a generic Wordpress theme with the name of your blog and the words “hello world”
• On the bottom right of the generic theme there will be area labeled “meta” where you can log into your new blog.

Select log in and enter your information.

• Once in your Dashboard (the administrative area behind your blog where all the work gets done) find the “Appearance tab in the left navigation.
• This is where your themes are stored, where you add or change widgets and where the editor is to make changes to the theme (once you have the skills to play with that)

Find a new theme

There are thousands of free Wordpress themes available to any self hosting Wordpress user. You can go to any search engine and do a search for free Wordpress themes. You can narrow your search down by adding keywords that represent your blog. For example, if you’re planning to blog about kittens then you can do a search for “free kitten Wordpress theme.”

Once you find the theme you like, download it to a file on your computer that you named “Wordpress themes.” You will have to unzip the file before you upload it to your site.

FTP Client

Using your FTP
• Navigate to the FileZilla website and download the FileZilla Client software. Install the software on your computer. Once the software is downloaded onto your computer you can open it up.
• At the top of the page you will see boxes for “host,” “username,” and “password.” For “host,” enter your domain name, i.e. homemadecandyrecipes.com, then enter the username and password you created for your HostGator.com Cpanel account. FileZilla is an FTP client which you use to upload files from your computer to the HostGator.com server where your domain is.
• After you entered all the login information and hit “enter,” you will see the client log onto your host server. On the left side of the window you will see a column titled “Local site” and on the right side a column titled “Remote site.” The Local site contains the files on your computer and the Remote site contains the files on the server. You well be dragging and dropping files from your Local site into the Remote site.
• On the Remote site side click on the small + icon to open up the file. Once that is open, find the public_html file and double click on it. Find your domain name and double click on it. Find the wp-content file and double click on it. Find the themes file and double click on it.
• Now on the Local site side, navigate to the file where you downloaded your theme to and then drag and drop that theme in the bottom right window under the Remote site side. The upload will begin and you will be notified when the upload is complete. When the upload is complete, you can exit the FileZilla software.
You Are Ready to Start Blogging

After the upload is complete, you can log into your Wordpress blog and from the Dashboard select the Appearance tab.
You should now see the theme you just uploaded. You can upload as many themes as you like until you find one that “fits.” Select the theme you want to use and “activate” it. At the top of your Dashboard you will see the tab that says “view site.” Select that tab and it will take you to the front end of your blog. Your new Wordpress theme should be installed and you are now ready to start blogging away.

How to Start a Blog – Domain Names and Domain Hosting

livewithrichard — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:38:18 +0000

How to start a blog

In my last article I discussed how to find a niche topic to blog about. It’s important that we find a niche to blog about before we create a blog. Having a plan, even if it’s just an outline of a plan, will save tons of aggravation and ultimately set you apart from the thousands of others that are starting new blogs every day.

domain name and domain hosting

In this article, I’m going to discuss how to establish a domain name for your blog and also how to establish web hosting. You’re probably thinking, why should I pay for a domain name and hosting when there are plenty of places where I can start a free blog? Well, the answer is the difference between possibly earning pennies each day and earning several dollars each day.

By owning your own blog, you have total control over it and you are not limited to which ad network or affiliate programs you can associate with your blog. Owning your own blog can earn you much more money than you could ever earn on a shared blogging network, like blogger.com

The Domain Name – Choosing a domain name

Before I tell you how to choose a domain name, I want to suggest that you use Godaddy.com to purchase all your domain names. I have been using Godaddy.com for many years now and have never had a problem. Their dashboard is easy to navigate and I never worry about any of the ad on services they try to sell me because I do not host my domains with the same company. It’s like having too many eggs in one basket. I will also disclose that if you purchase a domain name through my affiliate link, I will earn a small commission that is paid out of the Godaddy.com side and not your side.

Godaddy.com is offering domain names that start out at only .89 cents.

Since you have already selected a niche topic to blog about, it’s time to find a domain name that is fitting for your new blog. Let’s say you chose to blog about homemade candy recipes. Your next step would be to navigate over to the Godaddy.com site through this affiliate link and find their domain name selection tool. Type in, as one word, homemadecandyrecipes and hit enter.

Using the keyword phrase that you selected as your niche topic should tell you that the phrase already has a decent search volume. It only makes sense then to select a name people are already searching for. If you followed the steps above you would find that homemadecandyrecipes.com has already been taken and the Godaddy.com tool has given you plenty of suggestions that are similar. Don’t worry about that just yet. Open a new tab in your browser and navigate to homemadecandyrecipes.com and you will see that it is just a parked page and not being used. This is great because back on the Godaddy.com tool you will see that the .info domain name is available for only .89cents and so is the .us domain (which is mainly for American site) for only $7.99. There are plenty of domains available with the name we want.
The .com domain is of course the most popular of all Top Level Domains (TLD) but there are so many more that are no less valuable. Most 3 to 4 letter TLD’s (.net, .org, .info, .mobi, .biz etc…) are for general purpose use by anyone. Most 2 letter TLD’s (.uk, .eu, .in, .nz, .us, .de etc…) are country specific and generally used by individuals in those countries. There are a few TLD’s (.edu, .gov, .mil etc…) that are reserved for certain organizations which take a special application process to obtain. All TLD’s are useful because it opens many more opportunities to get the name you are seeking.

Blog Domain Hosting – Set up a hosting account

I want to suggest that you consider using HostGator.com as the company to host your domains. Just as earlier, I want to disclose that if you choose to sign up with HostGator.com through my affiliate link then I will earn a small commission from HostGator.com that will not come from your side. If you desire, you may navigate to the HostGator.com site to host your domain name through this affiliate link.

You may be asking, why HostGator.com when it could be just as easy to set up a hosting account through Godaddy.com? It would be a legitimate question and the only answer I can give you is that it like I stated above, I don’t like to have all my eggs in one basket. If one service were to go down, I could always transfer my accounts to another, however if all my accounts were with the site that goes down I lose everything for the entire time the site is down. This isn’t so much a factor when you only have one site, I happen to have over a dozen sites and add 1 or 2 each month.

The ease of adding accounts is the main reason I selected HostGator.com. On that site, they allow the hosting of unlimited domains through the main account. That means I don’t have to set up a separate host account for every domain I purchase. You can see how valuable this is. I can purchase an .89 cent .info domain name from Godaddy.com for one year at a time and host the site on HostGator.com by changing the NameServers (I’ll discuss this in a later post) and pay a small monthly hosting fee. Currently, my hosting fee is only $7.99 a month. With this account, I can have hundreds or even thousands of domains hosted for only $7.99 a month.

Setting up an account with both HostGator.com and Godaddy.com is very easy. Each site gives very clear instructions on how to do it. To steal a phrase from GEICO, “It’s so easy a Caveman could do it.” The only thing you will need is a notebook to write down all your passwords and login information.

In the next part of this series I will discuss how to send your newly purchased domain name over to your newly hosted account on HostGator.com using the NameServers briefly mentioned above. I’ll discuss how to load the Wordpress script onto your new account, how to select a Wordpress theme for your new blog, where to get and how to use a free FTP account to upload items to your new domain and the types of thing you may opt to upload. (uploading through FTP is not a necessity with a blog thought it can come in handy when you want to add third party widgets or themes or change theme templates…) Whoa! Way over the head for this discussion…

When you set up accounts with either Godaddy or Hostgator you will recieve some free credits to use on Google Adwords to drive traffic to your site or wherever you would like to drive traffic.

How to Start a Blog – Finding a Niche

livewithrichard — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:19:44 +0000

What is a Blog?What is a Blog?

So you want to start a blog but are lost as to where to begin. Well, let’s start at the beginning and define what a blog is. A blog is a type of website that is usually maintained by a single individual to deliver commentary, advice, instruction, news and just about any type of information the individual chooses.

Find a niche

Blogs are the perfect companions to Web 2.0, a dynamic web that is ever changing, unlike the static web pages we remember from not so long ago. An individual makes regular entries into the blog, sort of like a diary entry. The use of media, such as videos, allows a visitor to interact and the use of certain “widgets” allows for the constant changing of the blog content, just enough to let the search engine crawlers know that there is new material for potential visitors.

Start a blog

Most people by now have a general knowledge of what a blog is and many also know the potential uses for a blog, but here are some examples:

1. Keep family members and friends posted on your life.
2. Document your goals and achievements as an educator or politician.
3. Start a fan site that is dedicated to your favorite celebrity or TV show.
4. Document your favorite sport or team or sports figure.
5. Teach visitors how to cook, sew, paint, sculpt.
6. Introduce visitors to your culture.
7. Document your hobbies.
8. Teach people how to earn money and flea markets or craft fairs.

There are no limits to what you can achieve with a blog. It is as wide as your own imagination. The important thing to remember is, stay on topic. If you have many different interests , then have many different blogs. Let’s get started.

Choose a Niche

Notice how I didn’t say choose a topic. A topic can be broad like baseball, cooking, or politics. A niche, on the other hand, is a subset of that broad topic. With the broad topic of baseball, a niche topic might be Countdown to the World Series or Coaching Youth Baseball. For cooking we might use Cajun Recipes or Homemade Candy Recipes. For politics we might use Congress Weekly Roll Call or Conservative Congress Profiles.

Narrowing down a niche is necessary if you want to earn money from blogging. However, if money is not in your interest from blogging then more general topics can be used. For instance, if you’re a local city councilman and want to start a blog, then its name recognition you are after and monetizing the blog shouldn’t even be considered. However, providing information on how to legally donate money for a campaign fund is acceptable.

Finding a niche

Is the niche topic popular?

It’s important to choose a niche topic that is popular, one that is being searched for in the internet. It makes little sense to start writing and hope someone notices your topic. It makes more sense to carefully research your niche topic by examining certain keywords. By searching keywords you can see how many people are searching for your niche and gauge its popularity. By far, the best keyword tool around is Google’s very own keyword too. To use it, just type in a word or short phrase that is relevant to your niche, enter the captcha letters to let the tool know you are human and let the tool go to work.

The most important values to look at are the advertiser competition, the monthly local search volume, and the cost per click (CPC). With these values you can determine if your niche is being searched for with reasonable monthly volume, if there are a lot of competitors bidding on the same keywords, and the average cost per click the advertisers are paying.
The trick is to find high search volume words with low competitions. For more information on choosing keywords check out my article on finding keywords here.

By searching for popular keywords you can narrow down your niche topic and also avoid wasting your time on keywords that will generate minimal traffic, if any at all.

Keywords – Tips and Tools for Finding and Using Relevant Keywords

livewithrichard — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:46:06 +0000

Tips on keywords

Learn how to find keywords

Keywords, keyword phrases, and keyword search are are topics of concern, especially when writing relevant content for an article or other web content. It is important to use relevant keywords or keyword phrases in order to attract high traffic from the search engines and earn the writer some recognition as well as some adsense money. I’m “learning the ropes” as I go.

Admittedly, keywords and keyword phrasing have been a major concern of mine and sometimes I spend more time searching for relevant keywords than I do writing relevant content. Luckily, I have found some very useful tools in helping me find relevant keywords, which I will share with you shortly, but first I want to discuss what exactly keywords are and how I incorporate them into my articles and web content.

Keywords are an article writers best friend. Keywords are words or phrases that a person would type into a search engine to find relevant content. Successful keywording will drive targeted traffic to your content through the search engines.

4 Things To Remember

Prominence

Make sure to place your keyword or keyword phrase close to the beginning of your content and expecially in the title. It should also be in the first sentence or at the least the first paragraph. Search engines will usually display the title or first sentence in the search results and if your keyword or keyword phrase is not in there it will not get high ranking.

Density

Your keyword or keyword phrase should make up at least 3% but no more than 8% of your total content. This is known as keyword density and is very important as it affects page ranking in almost all search engines.

Frequency

In theory, the more often your keyword or keyword phrase is used through out your content, the more relevance the search engines are likely to place on that keyword and rank your content higher. The trick is not to abuse your keywords and just throw them anywhere. Search engines can determine if keywords are just being stacked to get relevance.

Proximity

Use your kewords through out your content and do not use keywords that have no relevance to your content. Be sure to use them in the first and last paragraphs. Build your content around your keywords and keyword phrases.

Finding the right keywords or keyword phrases is king

What to look for when searching for relevant keywords

Keywords help searchers find your content

Below, I am listing several free tools you can use to research relevant keywords. When you are researching keywords or keyword phrases keep a pad of paper near you and pay close attention to these 3 criteria for relevant keywords:

Number of Searches

This is literally the number of searches per month that a keyword or keyword phrase has been searched for. The higher the number of course means there are a lot of people searching for it. Wrap your keyword or keyword phrase in quotes. This will give you a more relevant search number for your keywords.

Competition

When you find a keyword or keyword phrase you are considering, type it into a couple of search engines to find out how many results come up. If the reuslts show up in the millions then you can rest assure there is a ton of competition. Type in all of your keyword phrases and write down your results. When you find the lowest amount of results then you have found the phrase that has the least competition.

Profitabillity

Using Google Adword’s Traffic estimator you can research how much a keyword is going to cost per click for the advertiser. Compare this number to the number of searches for you keyword. This will give you the potential profitablility of that keyword.

Free Tools for keywords

Keyword Density – SEO Tools – Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization
Receive suggestions for popular key-terms related to your current ones, from the SEO Chat Keyword Suggestion tool. You will also find dozens of useful SEO tools here to help you tweak your content for better placement in search engines.

Google AdWords: Traffic Estimator
With this tool you can research traffic volumes and estimated costs per click on keywords and keyword phrases. Very useful when setting up your own adwords campaign.

Google Insights for Search
With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties

Wordpot – Free Keyword Tool
Free web based Keyword Generator for finding niche keywords. Use wordpot’s Free Keyword Tool to get a higher ranking in the search engines.

Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com
A free search term suggestion and keyword research tool to offer a more reliable alternative to the original Overture suggestion tool.

Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker
Use the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker to help your website rank higher in the search engines.

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
This is Googles Adwords Keyword tool. It’s useful in finding how much traffic a certain keyword or keyword phrase gets each day.

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Learn which keywords you should be targeting to increase your website rankings, traffic, and profit.

Ethics and Search Engine Optimization

livewithrichard — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:17:50 +0000

Ethics

I’m writing this hub on Ethics as it relates to Search Engine Optimization because I need my readers to understand MY version of what is right and wrong, or morally acceptable to do business online. I’m also writing this because I was recently in a forum discussion that turned heated when one of the participants continued to suggest that my methods of search engine marketing were unethical because I wouldn’t endorse his suggestion for a community wide code of ethics under threat of losing his respect. I know this sounds very high-schoolish considering I’m in my 40’s and he is in his 60’s but it’s a public forum and I have a reputation I would like to keep intact.

Notice above how I wrote “My version.” I wrote it that way because ethics should be based on the individual’s internal values and not what anyone else thinks. With this in mind it makes it very difficult for me to agree on an arbitrary code of ethics that everyone must abide by. Individuals are different, our values are different as well as our morals. But these differences do not suggest that one person’s values are better than anyone else’s.

There are at least 9 theories on ethics; mine are based on personal values. Other popular theories include the utilitarian theory which suggests that the best action to take is the one that has the best result for the most people. It’s similar to the ethical hierarchy theory which suggests that the best choice is the choice that benefits the greater good. The problem with those theories is that they don’t cover everyone.

Ethics and Search Engine Optimization

When I think about ethics as it relates to search engine optimization my first concern is in providing quality content on the topic I’m writing about. I refuse to produce regurgitated or spun content that provides no value to someone that may be searching for my topic. When I write an article I first do my keyword research and also research my competition. By researching my competition I can discover new and different ways to present the information in my niche. I do this with all of my personal websites.

After I upload my content I promote it. Some people think that self promotion is unethical. They believe that content should stand on its own merit and if it does people will eventually find it over time. Well that may be true to some point especially if you already have a popular website or blog but it is not in an article marketer’s best interest to just let it sit and hope somebody will find it.

Unethical means of promoting would include keyword stuffing, hiding text or links within the copy, using link farms or link exchanges or as Matt Cutts says, anything that is meant to trick the search engines into passing on page rank through backlinks. These are known as “Black Hat” techniques and they provide no long term benefit to online marketers. People that use Black Hat techniques are only in for the short term gain and care little about ethics.

Buying backlinks is a grey area in ethical SEO. Purchased backlinks that pass on page rank is unethical from a business viewpoint because it suggest that the site with the deepest pockets will always be in a position to beat out their competition. According to Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, Google is only concerned with backlinks specifically designed to pass on page rank and add no value to searchers that land on sites that have them. Examples of the type of links that are frowned upon can be seen on Matt’s own blog.

Matt says that Google is not at all concerned with affiliate links and not all purchased links are a bad thing. He says, “…if you want to buy links, I’d buy them for users/traffic, not for PageRank/search engines.”
I take that to mean if you want to pay for a service to place backlinks on social bookmarking sights and other social networks then Google is perfectly fine with it. I personally do not purchase backlinks, not because I morally object to them but because I think my self promotion is all that I need to give my content the boost I think they need.

After writing my content, I give it a tweet on Twitter, an RSS feed posts a link on my Facebook page, and I bookmark them to no more than 5 sites. I do not make comments on forums or blogs though I believe this is acceptable so long as they are not spammy in nature. We see spammy links all the time in the comment sections of our posts. Some think it is OK to cloak a link behind a user name when making comments. It is not OK to try and steal some page rank using stealthy measures but if the comments add value to the conversation then some blog owners will allow them to remain.

Conclusion

In my opinion, self promotion is not unethical. As an online marketer posting backlinks, whether purchased or not, is akin to handing out business cards and is a normal function of the Internet economy. Posting links that add value to your own web properties is not a bad thing either. Affiliate marketing is a business and the whole of your web properties is part of that business. Adding links to your properties that add no value to the nature of those sites is frowned upon and fall into that grey area.

What is your definition of ethics as they relate to SEO? Is it similar to mine or do you think I’m just being self serving and not concerned with providing relevant content? Share your opinions below in the comments section.

Freelance Writing Opportunities

livewithrichard — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 06:14:57 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog but it’s a new year and a new me. 2010 was a very busy year for me as I attempted to grow my online income to replace my offline income. I didn’t quite achieve that goal but I’m getting pretty close.

I can visualize a time, hopefully this year, where I will derive the majority of my income from my work online. It really is work and it takes many hours, sometimes 16 hour days, to complete all the goals I set as well as maintain my offline business.

It’s not about working for myself, I already do that by providing Chicago permit services to clients from all over the country. It’s about securing a future using the only gift I was born with. Writing has been my dream job since I was 9 and though I have had little success with my creative fiction writing, my commercial writing gigs are turning out to be more than I ever expected.

Freelance writing opportunities are opening doors that I never dreamed would open. Over the past year I have honed my SEO skills as well as worked on some of my writing flaws and I realized a great increase in the demand for my work. Having a couple hundred articles published, close to 900 followers and over half a million page views on Hubpages.com, just one of my writing outlets, is testimony to the hard work that has brought me to this point.

What I have achieved is achievable by just about anyone that has the writing bug. There are nearly limitless freelance writing opportunities online. Just think about how many web site owners, editors, and publishers there are. Now think about how many brick and mortar businesses there are around your town that would desperately love to have a presence online.

You can provide that presence for those businesses as well as provide content for site owners and publishers. If you’ve been following my advice in previous posts then you already have your own blog. If you don’t have your own blog you should have a small sampling of your writing where you can point potential clients to and act as your online portfolio. If you’re confident with your writing skills then all you need to do is offer your services to as many places you can find an audience.

Here is a list of free sites I use on a regular basis that get me several writing gigs each week:

http://craigslist.org
http://kijiji.com
http://backpage.com
http://oodle.com
http://adpost.com

If you post to these sites you will find just how many freelance writing opportunities open up for you.

Writing SEO content is just one source of income that will replace my offline income. In my next post I will discuss how affiliate marketing is providing me multiple streams of income.

Glossary, Lexicon, Jargon Terms for Affiliate Marketing

livewithrichard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:28:14 +0000

The hardest part about entering the world of online affiliate marketing is understanding the jargon. When I first started venturing online, I had a problem with the lexicon. I was very interested in the social aspects of the internet and chat rooms but for the life of me I didn’t know then what LOL or ROFL meant. I quickly understood why the use of acronyms was needed to replace often typed words. The same is true now when discussing online affiliate marketing.

When the newbie comes across acronyms like PPC, CPA, CTR, CPM, and SEO there is that instant Homer Simpson moment with the hand to the head saying “duh!” The problem is, if you want to be successful as an affiliate marketer then you need to know the terminology the same way you would need to know the terminology in any professional field. Knowing the terminology brings you one step closer to being a professional in your field. For this, you need a GLOSSARY.

I have created such a glossary and use laymen’s terms to simplify it for the complete newbie in the field. It’s a work in progress, but it contains the most often used terms and phraseology in affiliate marketing. You can find and bookmark the glossary by clicking on the link below. Be sure to share it with your friends that are in the field too.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

Build an Email List

livewithrichard — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:45:08 +0000

In order to sell anything from your blog you have to have traffic. You need eyes on your material or you stand no chance at earning anything from your hard work. One of the biggest mistakes newbie bloggers make is thinking that all they need to do is write a post and people will come find them. Sadly, that is not the case.

Recent studies have shown that at the end of 2009 there were approximately 109 million websites and over 25 billion web pages on the internet. So, finding a blog post without any search engine optimization is literally like finding a needle in a hay field.

Luckily there are several ways that you can attract visitors to your blog and all it will take a bit of your precious time. The main way I use to get traffic to my blogs is through the method by which I use online content. Writing unique articles and linking to my posts within the article and also in the author’s resource box is sure to bring in some traffic. This can be pretty time consuming as for each topic I write about on my blogs, I also write unique content for 8 other sites, mentioned in this post.

Another amazing method of generating traffic comes from creating Youtube videos. You don’t even need a camera to make Youtube videos if you follow the advice in the video below by Otis Collier. Also if you remember this post you can find out how to place affiliate links inside videos that have already been created.

Chances are that most of the visitors to your blog will be one time visits. Sometimes you can get lucky and that’s all you will need but it’s well documented that it takes at least 6 visits for most people before they are ready to make a purchase from a blog. So, you’re going to need not only repeat visitors but also loyal visitors, the kind that will bookmark your posts and share them in their own networks.
The best method to getting repeat visitors, besides having good quality content, is to build an email list and update your visitors when you have new material to share. Share a weekly or monthly newsletter with tidbits of your information.

Use Aweber to build attractive forms and set up an autoresponder. This way you can automate your list building activity. Also, many list builders have found that giving away some useful information, like an e-book or a free report, is a good way to entice visitors to join your list. Give Aweber a try for FREE TODAY.

Can You Have More Sales, Too?
Helping over 74,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber’s opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Make Your Blog Stand Out

livewithrichard — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:00:46 +0000

There are elements you can add to your blogs to make them stand out and also drive traffic back to your content. Of course, driving traffic is only going to help if you have decent enough content for a visitor to stay and read and possibly make a purchase, if that’s what your blog is geared towards.

The number one element you can add to your blog to drive traffic is video. Making your own video would be ideal but there are tons of already made videos that you can borrow from places such as Youtube, which you can embed into the body of your posts. If you are promoting affiliate products then you can use a cool tool from LinkedTube to place a clickable link within the video you are borrowing. If you’re making your own videos then using LinkedTube is a great way to build backlinks when others share your video.

Adding pictures is another great way to drive some traffic back to your blog. If used properly, the pictures will be indexed inside Google’s image library and when someone finds your image and clicks on it they will be taken to your post. When uploading your images be sure to name them with keywords that you are targeting.

RSS Feeds are another useful tool to pull traffic back to your posts. Read this post to find out just how useful RSS feeds can be to bloggers and publishers.