Search Engine LongTail Keyword Research Tips

Thanks for your interest in my free version of the Long Tail Handbook! What you will find in this free guide is an overview of how I have turned building small niche websites into a full time thriving business.

I started building websites in about 2005 as a hobby just to see if I could learn how to do it. As time went on, I decided that I would try to monetize these websites. The first option I ever considered was Google Adsense. Since then I have tried numerous ways of monetizing my websites including creating my own products, selling affiliate products, selling Amazon products, using the eBay Partner Network, and others.

However, I have been most successful by far using the very first method I ever found – Google Adsense. I am not here to convince you that Google Adsense is the best way to monetize every website, because its not. However, it does monetize many different niches and keywords extremely well – that other affiliate programs cannot compete with. Google Adsense is the largest advertising network in the world, and therefore there are more advertisers spending more money on more diverse topics, keywords, and products than anywhere else. For niche websites, this is a great place to start.

Well, as I began building websites, I failed miserably at almost everything I tried. I chose topics that I knew a lot about like “personal finance” – but it turns out that these topics were highly competitive and I was never able to rank well in Google for these. I chose topics that I was passionate about, but as it turned out I knew absolutely nothing about keyword research.

As time went on (a few years), I started to understand Search Engine Optimization a little better and the importance of choosing keywords. However, it wasn’t until I made a major shift in my thinking that I became successful. I think most newer internet marketers including myself thought that the way to really make the money was to rank well for a keyword that got lots of traffic! Of course it made sense, if I
could just rank for a keyword that got searched for a million times each month, I would hit the big time! Well, as it turns out – this is not usually true for one very important reason…these keywords are HIGHLY competitive! Chances are that after a year of hard effort and link building you will still not be ranking anywhere that gets much traffic for these keywords and hence be making no money.

The major mental shift came for me in the realization that I COULD rank well in Google very quickly for search terms that get very low competition – which often means keywords that only get searched for between 1,000 to 10,000 times per month. But I decided, if it means that I will only make $50 or $100 per month on my website as I target these low volume keywords rather than making nothing (as I was doing) targeting high volume keywords, then so be it. Once I made this mental shift, this is when my success began.

I built my first couple of “small niche” websites and they started making a consistent $20/mth each. It was more than I had made before so I was encouraged. I decided to scale my business up – and built more than 200 of these sites over about a year and a half. As I built more sites, I got better a picking low competition keywords and finding high paying niches. I made lots of mistakes along the way, but I got a lot of things right too. So, yes some of my sites still only made $20 or $30 per month (or some nothing at all), but I also have several sites that make $20 to $30 a day or more!

These small niche websites have since enabled me to quit my job and pursue my business full-time. Just to give you an idea of the kind of money possible with these websites, I made over $10,000 last month (March 2011) just from Google Adsense. My business is growing and I expect it to continue to do so as I build more websites. What I share in this free report really is exactly what I do to build niche websites.

9 Steps to Creating Successful Niche Websites

I thought I would give a quick overview of the entire process that I follow from start to finish – in 9 steps. This can be thought of as a quick start guide, and certainly won’t answer all of the questions out there, but hopefully it would provide you a great baseline to get started.

Step 1: Market & Keyword Research

There are lots of different ways that you can do keyword/market research to determine what niches to go into, but what I share below are the methods I use. Finding the right keywords is the really the key to success and these bullets points may seem simple, but when used properly these techniques can really build a thriving business. So, here is a quick point by point introduction to finding great keywords:
• Use eBay categories, Amazon top sellers, or other brainstorming methods to generate root keywords for research.

• Use Google Adwords keyword tool or Long Tail Pro (the keyword tool I developed) to generate a larger list of keywords based on the root keyword.

• Pick keywords that meet my criteria that I discuss in more detail below. Namely, must have at least 1,000 exact match searches (2,500 or more preferred), must have a $1 or greater Google Adwords CPC value from advertisers, and the exact match domain name is available.

• I choose 1 Primary Keyword to target per website. I will target related keywords on other pages of the site as necessary, but the main focus is one keyword.

Step 2: Evaluate Top 10 Google Results for Competitiveness

• Evaluate competitiveness of the top 10 based on PageRank (PR) of page, backlinks to results page, whether exact keyword is in Title, whether domain name has keyword in it.


• If top 10 results are mostly root domains, I typically avoid this keyword. This is a sign of a strong market. Results tend to be weaker when the ranking page is a deep page on the site. For example,
domain.com would be harder to beat than
domain.com/subpage/subpage2/keyword1

• I use Long Tail Pro to help me visualize the above criteria and several other SEO strength indicators. However, you can also use the free tool SEO for Firefox, a Mozilla Firefox plugin.

Step 3: Purchase Domain

• I buy my domain names at Godaddy.com, but any domain name registrar is fine.

• I prefer to buy only buying exact keyword .com, .net, or .org domain names. However, if it’s a great keyword, I will add a suffix or prefix.

• If you buy 6 or more domains names at a time, you get a bulk discount at Godaddy.com and you can add Private Registration for free.

Step 4: Setup Hosting and Install WordPress

• I set my name servers to my hosting account on GoDaddy. I personally use Bluehost to host my sites. I LOVE Bluehost! The product is awesome and the customer service is the most responsive I have ever seen.

• I use WordPress for all of my sites. I install WordPress with Simple Scripts or Fantastico which takes about 5 seconds.

• Install plugins. Some of the plugins I use are:

• All in One SEO Pack

• WhyDoWork Adsense plugin

• Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin

• XML-sitemap plugin

• Contact Form 7

• Easy Privacy Policy

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin


• Install Themes.
I try to use a new theme on every site I start now. So this is just a few of themes I have used in the past. Don’t get hung up on your theme selection, just find one you like and go with it.

• Arithemia
• GreenPark2
• BlueSense
• ProSense
• 100’s of others. Just click “Install themes” from within wordpress and you will see thousands of free themes to use.

Step 5: Create Content

• I have 5 to 10 articles written per website to start typically. At least 1 article has the exact keyword in the title. The other articles should be about related topics, but should not always use the exact keyword.

• I outsource my article writing to authors on

Textbroker.com

Other Outsourcing Websites

I love this website, because the authors are high quality and because there are thousands of authors, my projects get done very quickly. I find that level 3 is usually sufficient; although minor editing may be needed sometimes.

• Other than these articles, I also have a basic about us page, a contact page, and a privacy policy page.

Step 6: Insert Adsense

• I typically have one large rectangle or medium sized adsense block directly under the title of my article – right or left justified with the text wrapping around the ad. I also have adsense in the sidebar or sidebars right at the top.




• I also use “link units”.
Typically I will have one link unit near the top of the site right under the navigation bar. I will sometimes place another link unit at the end of the article.

• I go to great lengths to make sure that my adsense colors match exactly to the templates I am using. I make sure that the Ads blend in naturally with my website.

Step 7: Get Indexed

• I submit my articles to
Digg.com
right away as a means of getting indexed quickly by Google.

• You can also add your site to Google Webmaster Tools.

Step 8: Get Backlinks

There are lots of ways to get links to your sites including article marketing, forum profile linking, social bookmarking, and many others.
Below are just a few ideas for generating links to your sites.

• To get started, you can submit a new article or two site to
EzineArticles.com and other article directories, once your site is indexed.

• You can use software such as Unique Article Wizard, Article Drip Robot, or others to submit articles to lots of different article directories.

• You can hire someone from an internet marketing forum or freelance website to build links for you.
This is what I do exclusively now. I have found a few good packages or services that I use time and time again to build links to my sites. These links include blog networks or other article websites typically.

• You can join services like
ArticleMarketingAutomation.com or
SEOLinkVine.com
to get involved in an semi-automated blog network.
I am not part of any of these, but have used them in the past. I don’t have any negative feedback on either of these; however, I just prefer to pay a one-time fee to someone I have hired to build links for me rather than an ongoing monthly fee.

• There are lots of other link networks. However, for the most part, I would avoid link exchanges as this leaves a large footprint in the eyes of Google.

Step 9: Go to the Bank

This is essentially all I do to build my niche websites. The ongoing maintenance of these sites can often be very little. However, if I see that my site is doing well in the search engines or is otherwise making money, I will add additional articles from time to time (maybe a couple per month or more depending on the success of the site). I have sites with well over 100 articles on them now.

However, sometimes sites underperform as well. The sites that are not doing well after a few months (i.e. not making any money), I won’t add content too. I build the winners bigger and let the losing websites die. So even though I start all sites with 5 to 10 articles; some grow much larger and others don’t grow at all. I would recommend a similar strategy.

Choosing Keywords – The Key to Successful Niche Websites

I wanted to share with all of you briefly how I choose niche keywords and how I judge the competition for these keywords.



Cutting Through the Keyword Confusion

There is a lot of noise out there that can really cause confusion to peo