Search Engine Marketing Starts With Keyword Predictability
I want to start off by saying that I am not an SEO guru and I never will consider myself to be. I’d be telling a bold face lie if I said that I was. However, what I do consider myself to be is a very well rounded individual who has some very practical experience in search engine marketing. By default, SEO and SEM are two totally difference animals. However, you really can’t have a successful SEM without a successful SEO, unless of course you are paying for your search engine traffic using programs such as AdWords.
So really, for me being SEM savvy, I have to know the basics in SEO in order to find success in my own search engine marketing ventures, that really is just the tip of the iceberg here. My business is primarily in making money online with Google AdSense. The way I see it, there is really only one way to do that and that is with successful search engine marketing to a web site or blog that has its content monetized with Google AdSense advertisements.
Think about it for a second, you can’t pay for traffic. If you did, the amount of money you’d spend on the traffic would exceed the amount of money you’d get per click. You can’t really drive traffic using social networking sites such as StumbleUpon or Digg, reason being is that these folks are blind to AdSense ads and don’t click. So really what is left? The last remaining option is in scoring free organic traffic in the search engines.
How Do You Score Free Organic Search Engine Traffic?
Ok. So all this makes sense up to this point, right? And I am sure a lot of this you might already understand. However, the missing ingredient that you may have been searching for but possibly failing to discover is in understanding how you can score all this free and wonderful organic search engine traffic that everyone says is so cool and amazing.
Many people talk about Google and how much traffic you can score by having your content ranked in their index. At times, the news can even get old and annoying. Really though, the overall frustration might not be caused from the people who communicate the message about search engines but rather in their inability to successfully provide you with a road map that leads you down a path of success with leaning how to rank better in the search engines.
Maybe I can help fix that for you. For me, as mentioned above, I am pretty much a SEM AdSense junkie. If you want to sum it up, I make quite a bit of money using Google AdSense. How I do that is in rounding up massive amounts of traffic to pages that are monetized with Google’s AdSense ads. They way I do that is in what I call, “doing a search engine market weather forecast.” In other words, part of my job is predicting what the weather will be like on search engines. Unlike a weather man who predicts rain, in my business I predict keywords.
What Is Keyword Prediction?
Pretty much as it states, keyword prediction is the process of attempting to predict certain keywords or keyword phrases that are going to be hot in the search engines. Within that comes a second element of having to also predict whether or not a predicted keyword can be targetable. What I mean to say by that is when you come to the realization that a certain phrase indeed will become hot in the search engines, will you be able to successfully compete and rank well above and beyond the existing as well as soon to be competition?
How Do You Predict The Weather?
Back in the day, a weather man would predict the weather based off sheer gut feeling and what some would call a 6th sense. In many ways a search engine marketer is the same. For me, I believe that I have a natural talent to predict weather patterns in search engines. Really though, my 6th sense is nothing more than just plain common sense. To predict traffic patterns in search engines you have to have awareness of events that are taking place in the real world. News, sales, commercials and practical questions are to name just a few.
From my generation, the Internet was coined as the Information Super Highway. Meaning that the primary use for the Internet was in seeking information. Today in this digital universe we call the Internet, it has evolved into so much more. The Internet today is combined with the desire to seek information mixed with the desire to reach out and expand with the world socially.
In the business of making money online, for me, I have to closely separate these two elements and focus on the old school information seeking aspect. Doing so gives me the predictability factor. It isn’t hard to predict the weather of search engines. Simply listen to the news, watch TV commercials, and typically listen to what the general population have as common and everyday problems. In doing that, you’ll likely increase your ability to target massive popular keywords to use towards targeting traffic by way of publishing content that provides information that people seek.
What About Keyword Prediction Software?
Yes, there is software available that can help you with this. However, with that you still need to acquire a 6th sense in predicting the weather. But indeed, there are tools available to people who want to target keywords that have a high search count while also yielding a very low level of competition. In fact, one of the great things about SEOHosting.com is that they provide the general public with some amazing and totally free tools towards helping you predict the weather of search engines.
If you visit, the SEO Tools section, you’ll see a banner advertisement for a program called WordTracker. This is a wonderful program that will give you many tools towards finding success in search engine marketing by finding and targeting very rich and popular search phrases and keywords that have a super low amount of competition.
WordTracker isn’t free, but SEOHosting.com is an offical affliate on WordTracker and you can score a 7 day free trial. I for one have used the 7 day free WordTracker trial and have fully evaluated their services. I like WordTracker and feel that it is an excellent option for those who depend on scoring free organic traffic from the search engines.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Thanks again Garry for a great post. I have used Wordtracker a little bit and found it to be a very powerful tool. You are certainly well credentialed to speak on this topic as you have obviously been very successful in your own keyword research for your different niches.
Oh and by the way, maybe you can start predicting the weather where I live because I’m darn sure the weatherperson here has no idea!
July 14th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Hello Garry, I’m just a new member of you’re newsletter. I like the way you write and the way you interact with the reader.
My compliments.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Gary a very informative post. I would never have thought of the weather twist. Very unique. I too have used Wordtrack a few times. It is a very good tool. I have been following your posts since you started with SEOhosting. Your are doing a great job for them. Keep up the good work.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:48 am
You are right on the money with this post. Without a real knowledge of what people are searching for online, your SEO efforts and traffic monetization will cease to exist.
I too am a big fan of Wordtracker and never optimize any page or site without some time there. Very valuable information you have presented here.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Informative post man; one other item very useful is when wordtracker is coupled with the google trend monitor you can see which ‘trends’ seem to be on the rise and attempt to cater to that.
This will result in a almost instant ranking boost.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Garry — excellent article as usual. I really like your weather analogy. I am actually amazed at how many times I personally look for something on Google and get one of your (many) blogs back at the top of the list. I often wonder how in the world you create so much content across so many blogs.
So, here is a question. I know you get a lot of traffic from organic search and from social networks. As you say, social network does not convert well in Adsense. Can you guess what the CTR is social networks versus organic? If social network traffic converts so poorly — should we still chase it?
July 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
As always, another great high quality post. Predicting high volume search engine searches is really something I should start targeting more – even seasonal calendar events like Christmas would be a good start for me!
The best I’ve done so far is coinciding with TV show seasons.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Great article Garry. Thanks! I have found that even simple holidays (U.S. and international) can be an easy way to predict keyword searches.
Happy Bastille Day everyone!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Cool! This was another fantastic post sir! We shall call you the “search engine meteorologist”. I know you have a lot more to teach us on this subject, and I for one am all ears.
Keep up the good work man, Hostgator secured a huge asset when they got you.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
As usual well thought out and said, Garry.
As you say if you want to make money with a blog you have to know what people want to read about and the key words that they will use to search for the information. Then of course, you need to write a great article with a compelling headline and present the information in an interesting way that people and the search engines will like.
Whew! No wonder only a few folks like yourself really make worthwhile money from the blogging game. The steps to success are pretty straightforward but it takes a lot of skill sets and determination to make it happen.
Thanks for sharing your information so freely.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Excellent information Garry. A lot of people blindly do a few things that they read here and there and try to attempt this. But, reading this should give them a clear cut idea on how to approach this hard yet lucrative problem. I will be submitting this post to many social media I participate in.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Hey Garry,
great info. I too used the wordtracker 7 day trial… sadly I didn’t make full use but it was great and maybe one day I will be able to afford it.
I think the sixth sense starts to come after a while and I am just starting to pick it up a little.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Great Post,Finding the right keywords for your website niche is important to find the words that your target market is using to describe your services or products.Word tracker is a great tool for this purpose, and is worth it’s weight in gold when used effectively.
Keep up the good work!
July 14th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Great info Garry, After you have predicted what a popular keyword will be in the engines, are you then building a new site around that topic or just a post if that keyword is in your already existent niche?
July 18th, 2008 at 12:17 am
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July 20th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
[...] Garry writes for a prominent SEO company SEO Blog [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 12:54 am
[...] a blog attached to your web site is very important for allowing your to quickly and easily score targeted traffic to your business, products or services. I’ll go into more detail on that topic in the near [...]
November 29th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Great post although… I always thought it started with great content!
April 26th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Great post. I have also found that websites like yahoo answers and differnt forums can be really good for finding out what people are looking for.