Sometimes you get stuck trying to find a keyword to market to. Most of the time the new people to internet marketing just jump right into the whole mix without researching their keywords to find out if it even has traffic coming to it. You want to know things like, traffic, competing websites, and web 2.0 properties. For anyone who lacks a method or just wants to know how I handle it, here is how I take care of keyword research and maybe it can help you.

I take my keyword lets say ‘Golf Swings’. I start with Google.com and input the keyword. Using the first 10 results, I then go to the AdWords Keyword tool and input the website url and grab all of the relevant keywords for the particular niche. I do this for the 10 URLs on Google and usually I come out of AdWords with about 400-500 keywords relevant to the niche and export them as a excel spreadsheet.

To even further the keyword gathering, I then head over to Seodigger.com and use the same 10 URLs to gather even more keywords. Seodigger tends to dump out hundreds if not thousands of keywords for just one URL. Which I can export as a spreadsheet file as well.

After I have all of these keywords I ditch all of the duplicates and save it all in one spreadsheet file.

I will then use this tool called Gtrends SE to run all of the keywords through the Google Gtrends Analysis, and it finds things like web2.0 properties and other important things.(With the advent of the Adwords statistics, I’m sure this tool will be updated to grab exact traffic numbers for each phrase.) This tool also does one important thing, it separates good traffic numbers from bad ones. What it means for you is it will break down what are good niche keywords to market for an what are not good ones based on how much traffic the niche receives and how many competing websites are in the particular niche.

Once all of this is done I can usually come out of it with 5-20 really good keywords to test the market with.

So yeah, there is my current method. Gtrends SE is the golden program in all of it. Costs about 25$. Well worth it in my opinion. Saves me valuable time.

-Ryan

When you work alone all day it, like most of us do when we work online, its tough to come up with fresh ideas. I don’t know about everyone else, but I personally have a tough time finding a group of people to pass ideas by. The people I do know working in the industry, either don’t share the same mindset I do, aren’t motivated, or are much farther behind me in the learning curve.

The one thing I’ve known over the last few years is I lack a Mastermind Group or basically a group of people either at my level or higher I can bounce ideas off of and learn from. In my day to day life I haven’t ever had a problem meeting new people, but the online world has always alluded me.

The benefits of a Mastermind Group can be a huge help in your business in just about every aspect. Keeping your mind fresh, allowing you to think of things in a new frame of mind, and meeting new people thereby broadening your perspective.

So heres some questions for you. How would you go about finding a Mastermind Group? Whats your criteria? What makes a Mastermind Group special for you?

If you want to join up with me and bounce ideas off each other, just shoot me an email ryan@ryanyockey.com.

Later,

Ryan

Have you ever subscribed to someones newsletter? I have subscribed to more than I can count in my last 10 years online. I decided on a whim to subscribe to Andy Jenkins Stompernet newsletter at some point a few months back. Now what I expected to recieve was a bunch of funky emails with tons of ads or an email with a lot of useful information. Well the last I checked I have been recieving emails that were just ads for other peoples seminars on how to make money online and how its the next BIG thing. I have never subscribed to Stompernet nor do I think I ever will, but I do know that when I signed up for these emails I was expecting to get some useful information. All that was delivered were some massive ad letters on how fantastic this other service is and how much money you can make from it or how it will change your life.

Well I also noticed that every single email is just another way for these guru’s Andy and Brad to make a profit off of you or some newbie in the business by having you click on complex affiliate links. For every sale they send to some other guy, they make a profit. It is webmaster affiliate marketing at it finest. If you want to know how to make a great newsletter then read and study how Brad and Andy do it. Its amazing how easily they suck you in to think that they are even slightly helping you, then before you know it you are on someone elses site spending thousands on some new gimick for making millions online.

I’m not knocking these guys for doing what they do. They probably make millions doing it. Its probably one of the most lucrative markets to make money online. You make a convincing newsletter about how it will change their lives and then you send them off to someone elses site with your name or company as a backing. Its the deal for ebooks and video series. In reality you can get the same value out of joining a forum like DigitalPoint. I dont have the heart to sell some ebook to people for a profit. The only ebook I would ever consider buying is Aaron Walls SEOBook. To get back to the point, dont get drawn in to some crafty newsletter about the next big marketing thing. Take some time and try everything you can with marketing online. I bet you will get more value out of trying things yourself rather than buying into some $5k teleseminar or some fancy ebook about making a profit with adsense.