I recently reviewed Nichebot as a keyword research tool. This week, I’m taking a look at Keyword Discovery. I’ve never used Keyword Discovery before, except through Nichebot’s interface, so I was really curious to see how everything works from Keyword Discovery itself.

The tool itself has several impressive features, giving users access to data including KEI analysis, spelling mistakes, seasonal search trends, keyword density, and industry keywords. You can also crawl for related terms, saving yourself a lot of time from researching each particular keyword. You can even choose where to extract the data, whether it’s by country, or from specific sources such as News, eBay, Shopping, or the Thesaurus. You also have the option to access Overture data - but Overture hasn’t updated since January 2007.

The Keyword Discovery interface is simple and straightforward - which is a good thing for first time users. The other pros of the Keyword Discovery service include:

• around 1000 results for deep-digging each root keyword (and more if you get exhaustive keyword lists). This is great if you’re looking for those long tail keywords that you may want to capitalize on.
• The extensive FAQ and Help section, including the PDF manuals, make it easy for users to learn how to use the tool properly and how to apply the results to their website.
• You get a variety of data from several different databases, and it’s rumored to have the largest database around.
• Unlike WordTracker, Keyword Discovery data is relatively accurate. Here’s an excerpt from their site:

The Keyword discovery total is the TOTAL number of searches in the Keyword discovery database. That is, the total number of actual searches recorded on that term, NOT an estimate.

Now, for some cons:

• Since Keyword Discovery searches for results over a 12-month period, the basic search isn’t good for getting seasonal data. To get seasonal searches, you have to click on the “Trend” button for each keyphrase.
• Data takes a while longer to load, at least compared to other tools I’ve used.

Overall, Keyword Discovery is a good tool. Although I wouldn’t trade it for my Nichebot subscription, I’ll probably be using the Keyword Discovery 9-in-1 tool in Nichebot more often. I’m impressed with the accuracy of the results. Keyword Discovery offers a free trial, so you might want to try it out first to see if it’s the right keyword tool for you.

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If you’re relatively new to SEO, odds are you’ve got some misconceptions about how it works. Alternatively, if you’re an SEO pro, you’ve probably had clients who’ve made these wrong assumptions. They probably have strange, unrealistic ideas of what your services entail. Whether you’re a pro or a rookie, this list of SEO myths should help clear up some smoke for the uninitiated.

There’s a perfect keyword research tool out there. This isn’t true at all. At least, not yet. If you’ve read my Nichebot review or my Keyword Discovery review, you’d know that while I liked both tools, they do have their own limitations. The same goes for most tools out there. In fact, I might write a comprehensive keyword research tool comparison in the future. For now, be satisfied knowing that there’s no perfect tool - what’s important is that you use a good combination of tools to get the keyword data that fits your site like a glove.

You need to get your Meta-tags perfect for SEO. Yes, in this day and age clients still want me to make “emergency changes” to their Meta-tags. It’s only okay to panic about Meta-tags if you were unexpectedly caught in a time warp and were transported to 10 years ago. Search engines don’t put as much weight on them anymore. Let me put it this way, if you optimize your Meta-tags, but forget the rest of your site - you won’t get a noticeable change in your rankings. But if you optimize your site well but don’t use Meta-tags at all, there’s a noticeable positive outcome when to comes to your rankings (to say the least).

You only need to do SEO once. This is probably one of the more prevalent SEO misconceptions out there. When a client asks us to apply SEO on their site and we include future maintenance and measurement in the contract, they’re often surprised and say that they don’t need it. SEO isn’t a constant thing - search engines change their algorithms regularly, people’s online search behavior change, and there are certain trends you also have to take into account. If you do SEO just once for your website, don’t be surprised if you can’t maintain the results over a long period.

You just optimize your site elements and sales will increase. Don’t we all wish for that? Sadly, SEO has off-page factors too, including link building, Pay Per Click campaigns, etc. Also, sales aren’t just dependent on SEO. Your copywriting has to be convincing for the reader and your business needs to be trustworthy. SEO can bring in the leads, but it’s you’re business sense that will help convert those leads into sales.

It’s good to have hundreds of keywords targeted and littered all over just one page. The more the merrier? Of course not! Search engine spiders are attempting to figure out what each of your landing pages is about. Try to keep pages focused and targeted to keywords that are specially relevant to them. For example, in a website for a shoe company, the category for women’s shoes should just contain keywords that women will enter if they’re looking for shoes. Or, for a more targeted example, don’t put keywords about boots in a web page that contains flip-flops.

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Yes, it’s quite a risky (and risqué!) topic. However, good SEO techniques have many important similarities with the other most popular topic on the net (a.k.a. sex). To be a great SEO practitioner, you also need to apply the philosophies of great lovers.

Always add something new to your knowledge and technique. If you want to be the best lover, you keep improving your skills by learning new ways to touch, new positions. To be the best SEO practitioner, you also need to update your knowledge often. After all, search engines update their algorithms all the time, new SEO tools are constantly being developed, and new angles of internet marketing are always explored. Keep abreast (haha!) with the latest SEO news so you won’t be behind everyone else.

For each move, measure a response and let that be your guide. If you stroke your lover’s side and you sense that he or she feels pleasure, you keep doing it. If they seem disinterested or (gasp) in pain, stop doing it. (Unless you’re doing some BDSM stuff that really doesn’t apply here). The same goes for SEO - you apply a certain tactic, then measure its results to see if you’ll keep on doing it or change it altogether. For example, you can reword the homepage title to contain a specific keyword. If you come up higher on SE results for that keyword, then this means you should let the new title stay. If nothing happens, then look for better keywords to use on the title, keywords that will convert more. Also, don’t make several changes at once - do it little by little or else the results will be more difficult to measure.

Stay focused. You need to know your goal and focus all your efforts on them. If a lover strays and forgets about the orgasm he or she intended to induce, then the rhythm is lost. If it’s SEO we’re talking about, you need a list of goals and all your SEO efforts must be concrete steps towards those goals. You must not be distracted. Directing your SEO towards too many things at the same time leads to a disorganized campaign.

You can do it yourself, but not with the same results. Some things are better done alone, but S-E-X and SEO aren’t included in that list. You may think you can do all there is to do and know all there is to know, but without the involvement of other experts or assistants, it’ll be a much heavier task. So you have to read all the SEO material you need to get your hands on, get the opinion of experts, or get an assistant to do the menial tasks (such as submitting to directories). If you do everything yourself, it’ll take a long time and by the time you finish, the search engine trends would’ve changed.

Keep these ideas in mind the next time you’re passionate - about an SEO campaign, that is. Who knows? By applying these tips you might reach an all time high… in search engine results.

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Yes, I am aware that the image on the left is not exactly deadly. However, I wanted to balance the photo included in yesterday’s post, Part One of “Have You Committed the 7 Deadly SEO Sins?”. And now, for part two:

4. Using image files as text. Some people have a huge block of text not in the format of text which you can copy and paste (or which the search engines can read), rather, typed in an image editing software and placed on the website as a jpeg file or something. Here’s an example:

You may feel the need to use image files that are really just blocks of text if you need to display them in a stylized font that not everyone has. This has its merits, but you shouldn’t do it too often. And this is why:

First of all, search engines can’t read the text in your image file. They don’t have eyes. You’ll be losing a lot of keyword potential. Secondly, if you display too many blocks of text in stylized fonts, it usually won’t look good on your site design. You’re probably getting a bit too “font happy”. Third, it takes a bit longer to load images than just actual text.

5. Not taking site stats seriously. If you think you should just look at the number of pageviews you’re getting, that’s oversimplifying the purpose of reading site statistics. You need to know where your visitors are coming from, how long they stay, what search engines they use, and the color of their underwear. Well, maybe not the latter.

Looking through your site stats (via something like Google Analytics) gives you an idea of which SEO tactics are effective. Is it detailed blog post titles with keywords that bring in your search engine traffic? Which links bring you the most visitors? And so on. There’s a lot you can learn about your current SEO tactics from just looking at site stats. And if you aren’t even measuring site stats, shame on you.

6. Depending on SEO alone to increase sales. Proper SEO may bring in some traffic, but it won’t guarantee sales. First of all, your site has to look credible, your web copy needs to be persuasive, and there’s also the aspect of pricing - plus the dozens of other factors that contribute to sales.

One of my web design clients keeps emphasizing his need for better SEO, because, as he said, the SEO services we weren’t providing weren’t bringing him sales. I pointed out to him in the very beginning that his site was gonna need more work than just SEO. His major problem is his bad business sense altogether - I’ve clocked in hundreds of hours of consulting with him but he won’t listen to any of my advice. SEO isn’t the be-all and end-all of online business. You have to remember that when you’re thinking about your expectations from your campaign.

7. Not keeping yourself updated with SEO news. SEO is a field that’s constantly changing, especially since search engines keep changing their algorithms, new web trends emerge, etc. Five years ago, social media wasn’t carrying the weight it does now. For an online marketing campaign nowadays, social media is indispensable. You need to factor in all these trends when planning your SEO campaign. Reading SEO related blogs and websites regularly can help you stay updated, so you can adjust your campaign accordingly.

Do you commit any of these SEO sins? Think of other SEO sins you’ve committed? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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If you’re not getting any heavenly blessings via rankings, then you’re probably upsetting the big G (Google, but I also mean other major search engines like Yahoo! and MSN). You’re committing some sins that are harmful to your website’s soul. How do you know if your committing these cardinal SEO sins? Then check the following list to find out:

1. Unoptimized Page Titles. This is a simple one. Just because they’re not on the page per se, it doesn’t mean they’re not important. I’m talking about the title tags on your webpage.

For one of my websites, the only change I implemented in my SEO tactics was to re-optimize the page title, and my site jumped from nowhere to the second search engine results page. The point is that you could be spending time obsessing about META keywords and the keyword density of your articles, while the simple, easy-to-implement stuff is overlooked.

You may think it’s a good idea to put your firm’s very vague name as the sole page title. “McFlurry, Geronimo, DeGraw and Associates” doesn’t mean anything to the Average Googler. Instead, be more specific by writing “Certified Public Accountants - McFlurry, Geronimo, DeGraw and Associates”.

Since the page title is just one line of text, you need to put your most important keyword there. Don’t make the title too long either, most search engines only read about 10 words or so of it.

2. Ignoring landing page logic. You do your keyword research and place the same set of keywords for each page on your site. You sign up for a PPC campaign and automatically assume that your homepage should be the landing page. You market every page of your site in exactly the same way. Then, you’re surprised that you’re not having any success.

You know, not all pages are created alike - even if they do wear the same design template. You should have different techniques, keywords, and strategies EACH for your homepage, sales page, product page, etc. This is because each page has a different purpose. Different people with different mindsets need to get to your site in a different way.

For example, Todd is urgently in need of a silver chain and pendant for his girlfriend. He needs it within the week, but he still needs to choose the design. Todd shouldn’t land on your very generic jewelry business homepage. There’s a 10% chance of losing him as a customer every time he needs to take an extra step before the checkout process. Where should Todd land?

On your silver chain and pendant catalogue page. He doesn’t need to go through the homepage to look at the hundreds of jewelry types you offer - he has a rough idea of what he wants. This page should be optimized for “silver chains and pendants”.

On the other hand, Steve knows exactly what he wants, a silver claddagh ring. Where should he land? On the silver claddagh ring product page of course! The one with the “Buy Now” button. The page should be optimized for “silver claddagh ring”.

Find out who will need each page on your site and optimize it for their searching habits. Don’t make your SEO efforts generic. It’s sinful.

3. The absence of backlinks. You believe in “If you build it, they will come.” That’s only true if you’re building a tower of dung and want to attract flies. The same isn’t true for websites.

A site without backlinks is like a nice restaurant in a remote place without any signs pointing to it. Backlinks help bring in visitors to your site from other sites, plus, they “tell” search engines what the most relevant keywords are for your web pages. To use backlinks effectively in your SEO campaign, they need to have the following characteristics:

• They are text links, not image links.
• The anchor text for the links contain an important keyword for you.
• As more sites link to you in a consistent manner, your site will be easier to appear in SERPs for the keyword used in the anchor text.
• Some backlinks have more weight than others, depending on the site they’re on.
• Linkfarms are bad. From a white hat perspective.

This concludes the first part of Smart SEO Blog’s 7 Deadly SEO Sins. Tune in tomorrow for the continuaton of this truly sinful article.

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I’m not sure if I’ve made it known here at Smart SEO Blog, but I work as a professional blogger for some non-SEO blogs. When I say “professional blogger” in the context of this article, it means the following things:

I don’t own all of the blogs that I write for.
If I don’t own the blog, I’m paid to write for it.
Most of these blogs already have an existing audience.

Apart from my gigs as a professional blogger, I run some online businesses - with most of them having really competitive keywords. Let’s take the case of Business#1, my oldest-running online service. Here are the stats for the second most competitive keyword for that business (from Nichebot):

Competition: 58,900

KEI: 0.08

Predicted daily count: 123

A year ago, when the website was 3 years old, I got tired of searching amongst 20+ search engine result pages to find my site. Now, I’m on the first page for that keyword. I’m currently the 7th, to be exact. How did I get there?

As a professional blogger, I have access to blogs that have thousands of pageviews in a month. One of the blogs I write for clocks in around 45,000 monthly pageviews. Another one has at least 10,000 pageviews (a conservative estimate). All the main blogs I write for have a PR of at least 4 and above (not that it’s that important an indicator nowadays).

At this point I would like to reiterate that my website for Business#1 wasn’t within the first 20 SERPs for the competitive keyword I wanted. For three whole years, at least.
The only thing I did that made a difference in my rankings was to link to the Business#1 website. Using the said keyword as the anchor text.

And now the site is #7 within the first page of Google’s search results.

Pretty sweet. I can’t believe it took me 3 years to figure that out. (Then again, I wasn’t actively SEO-ing the site, apart from onpage stuff.)

Now the harder part is to get from #7 to #1. Here are some ideas on how I can get there:

• Get more backlinks using that keyword - not just limited to the blogs I write for.
• A small-budget ad campaign for increase visibility in the marketplace.

The rankings boost has already increased my number of clients for Business#1. I’d have to say that for an effective SEO campaign, that was pretty easy. It’s actually common sense, but it’s exactly the type of thing that you can overlook.

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