Watch Out When Using Keyword Tools

There are a lot of keyword tools you can use out there:

• Wordtracker
• Overture
• Keywords Analyzer
• Keyword Discovery
• etc, etc.

I was reading this article on KeywordWorkshop.com titled "Keyword Data Is Almost Always Wrong".
http://www.keywordworkshop.com/articles/41/1/Keyword-Data-Is-Almost-Always-Wrong

Basically, it states how keyword tools will always have varying results. This is because of the fact that you can't sample all of the searches for the entire world wide web! Even google doesn't have a complete sample of the world wide web. I believe that maybe half of the Internet Users you Google primariliy to search, but this means that the other half uses other search engines.

Quote: from KeywordWorkshop.com
"Wordtracker (one of the leading keyword research companies) samples around 2% of the total Internet search volume. This sample size will provide some relatively stable data for popular keywords, but will proportionally become less accurate as the keyword popularity decreases. In simple terms, the less popular the keyword, the more likely that keyword data source will be wrong."

This is kind of interesting since for most Internet Marketers, we will be targeting Long Tail Keywords which does have less traffic than popular keywords.

This brings up interesting questions:

• Which keyword tool should I use?

• Wordtracker is able to sample 2% of the total Internet Search volume, which can be a healthy sample, but keep in mind that the less popular keywords may reside in that 98%.
  
• How reliable can a keyword tool be?
• Keyword tools may not be reliable because of the fact that the all searches on the Internet cannot be sampled.
  
• If it's not reliable, what should I use if for?
• You should use keyword tools to generate ideas. Use the numbers as indicators of popularity rather than exact searches per day/week/month/whatever. I believe that the numbers can be used relatively to each other to determine their popularity.
• What else can I do?
• Use your head, Internet Marketers need to have creative angles in order to survive in their industry.
• Also, when in doubt, use 2 or more tools to verify your results. In the 30DC, they advocate using Google Trends and Wordtracker together to verify the search volume.

Just keep in mind that since you are looking for Long Tail Keywords, you may be passing on a niche opportunity if the Keyword Tools don't add up correctly but you feel that it may be a good niche.

Over time, you will start to understand what might work and not work. Trust your instincts and your gut feeling!

I would have to say that overall, the best keyword tool is your Brain!

30DC: Visual Learners! Pay Attention!

If you haven't done so already... Read all of Mike Mindel's posts on Niches and Markets:

http://www.webventurer.com/blog/thirty-day-challenge-3/

In my last post, I wrote about a cool tool called FreeMind. I started using it develop my ideas and I found it very easy to brainstorm quickly in this tool.

I'm a Visual Learner, How does this help me?

For those that need a visual tool to develop their ideas, this is it! I used Mike Mindel's little formula:
Market + Niche = Niche Market

So using that formula, I applied it to my Freemind Map.

Key:
M: Market
N: Niche
NM: Niche Market

Here is a screen shot of my brainstorming session:

Freemind - Mind Mapper and Visual Research

Inspired by the image in Life Conquest's Post about "How to go from Niches to Microniches", I went about looking for a visual research tool to develop my ideas. Although I haven't fully started using it to its maximum potential, I wanted to post about the this freeware tool for outlining ideas.

The tool that I am talking about is:

• Freemind - http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Here are some screen shots (Click the thumbnail for larger image):

Are you using Feedburner??

I don't know about you guys, but I am addicted to blogging! I think I am just really excited because I feel like there is a reward at the end of all this hard work. Anyway, I wanted to talk about feedburner.com because I find it a very useful tool.

The reasons why I use it:

• It's blogger friendly (as well as other types)
  
• It tracks the number of subscribers on my blog and displays it on my page
  
• It provides the statistics of how many clicks and where they are going
• It automatically pings different services when you post (ping-o-matic, bloglines, technorati, etc)
• It appends links to the end of each post so subscribers can tag, link, e-mail, and share
  
• Best of all, tt's FREE! (Google acquired Feedburner)

Anyway, Check it out at http://www.feedburner.com

Wealthy Affiliate 8-Week Course: End of Week 1

Wealthy Affiliate 8-Week Course - Week 1

In week 1, most of the materials were to:

• get acquainted with the forum
• post an intro in the forum
  
• get started with the resource center

So far I've read a lot of the materials in the beginner and intermediate sections.

Most of the topics included:

• Internet Marketing Basics
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Common Keyword Technique
• Ad Copy Writing
• How to setup a Web Site
• Keyword Research
• Performing Market Research

MyBase

Also, I have tried the trial version of MyBase and is an excellent program. The trial version of the WebCollect plug-in is cool as well since it allows you to embed web pages into the database itself. I think I will be making this program as my primary choice for organizing my data and information.

Some of the cool features include:

• Being able to attach any type of file to a node (.doc, .pdf, ,.jpeg, etc)
• Embedded Web Browser that is able to view your saved web pages
  
• 2GB of database size (if it ever reaches that, just create a new database - Each database gets it own tab in the tree browser!)
• RTF Styles make it easy to style the page just like a Microsoft Word document
• Linking to another node allows a reference to related notes
  
• Labels allow each node to be "tagged" with multiple labels
• Custom icons: attach any 16x16 bitmap image to be used as icons for each node
• And much more... This program has waaaaay too many features.

Source: http://www.wjjsoft.com/

Information Management

I have been organizing a lot of data so that I can create a process or procedure for creating my marketing campaigns. Here is the outline that I currently am following:

1. Market Research: Discover Niche to Target
   
2. Keyword Research (Niche Demand): Analyze Niche Profitability
   
3. Product Research: Determine products to sell within niche
   
4. Keyword Research (Product Demand): Analyze Niche Profitability
   
5. Keywords Financial Analysis: Find Cheap Keywords for PPC
   
6. PPC Ad Copywriting: Write Copy for Different Ad Groups
   
7. Create Landing Page: Design Optimized Site for Ad
   
8. Testing: Split-test and tweaking

These steps are almost to be taken in order from top to bottom, so I guess I'll find out if my process can be replicated when I actually create my first campaign.

More to come in the future!

Tree-Based Information Management Software

I've been thinking about how I'm going to organize my research in order to document the steps and processes I am taking towards looking for markets and products to sell. I stumbled upon various software among the "Information Management Software" niche, if you want to call it that. I've narrowed it down to a few software choices to provide with the management I need to organize my research.

**Note: This also serves as an exercise in providing reviews for products, which I think I will be starting out with when I start marketing products.

The tree-based information management software that I will be reviewing includes:

1. KeyNote
2. MyBase
   
3. TreePad

Rank #3: Treepad

Web Page: http://www.treepad.com

Rating: 3.5/5

Description: Treepad's functions are somewhat limited in the free or lite version, but it still does the job of a decent tree-based note taker. There are some limitations such as the ability for tabs, but this is very lite on CPU processing and therefore runs pretty fast.

Rank #2: KeyNote

Web Page: http://www.tranglos.com

Rating: 4/5

Description: This little piece of software is highly functional and is very simple to use. If you need something easy to use and cheap, then this product is definitely a good choice.

It somewhat represents the look and feel of Microsoft Word so it should definitely feel familiar.

Rank #1: MyBase

Web Page: http://www.mybase.com

Rating: 5/5

Description: This is probably the most functional tree-based information manager there is out there. It has plenty of the standard functions of notes and formatting, but it also has the ability to attach files as well as web pages. This program has way too many functions to talk about and is arguably one of the best out there.

There is my little exercise on reviewing a few products. I will be using either one of these information managers to organize my research in a structured way. Some topics that I will probably categorizing include: Niche Research, Market/Product Research, Keyword Research, Campaigns, Research Templates, etc. If I can streamline all of these processes in a cohesive manner, then I should have no problem duplicating the process in the future. More to come in the next posts!