Keyword Research for Squidoo – Content is the Queen to King Keyword

In yesterdays post, I shared an opening email exchange between Joe and I regarding making money with Squidoo. Joe expressed his frustration in not getting the money train rolling with his time on Squidoo – and I offered my oh, SO insightful insight into this issue. (hmmm…”insightful insight” – how’s THAT for copywriting skills? haha! Sorry, I’ve been doing SEO work allllll day, and I’m about out of clever and properly optimized content)

In my last email to Joe, I asked him about his knowledge of proper keyword research and if he knew how to use that research within his online content.

Here is Part 2 of the email exchange between Joe and I:

Jennifer,
That was by far, the best reply I have EVER received to an inquiry. By all means use my name and email, at least I’ll be read some where…;) As for keyword research, I don’t know if I actually know how to research keywords, but my 1st Len’s that I made called The Affiliator was #1 on Google when I searched specifically for The Affiliator. But I guess the name was unique enough to make it so. However, when I put in just the keywords affiliate, or other words of that nature?…NOTHING. So I changed the whole lens around (keyword wise) and haven’t even sniffed Google ever since. But my lens’s where listed maybe 2000-5000 (my main one is still at #6234) over-all on a daily basis for a long time. In there respective category they were either in the top 100 or less many times. My main lens, Affiliate Advertising from The Affiliator is still at #148 in Seo & Affiliate Marketing and I haven’t touched it in over two weeks. I have no idea if any of that means squat, and I am not trying to impress you, I guess I’m trying to say that I think I understand keywording.
But I do get what you are saying about how to earn with Squidoo, but I don’t have time for that many lens’s. I love to write (can you tell?) so maybe that is the direction I need to be going…but doesn’t it help to know what you write about? I know a little about a lot of things, but not a lot about specific things.
Thank you so much again for your response, I will re-read it for retention purposes. lol.
Joe T

Here we go with my “insightful insight“:

Ok, Joe – heeeeeeere we go.

let’s talk keywords.

Ranking high in Google for a keyword or keyword phrase is AWESOME….. BUT, if no one is LOOKING for that keyword or phrase…well, it don’t mean squat =)

I went back and looked at your lenses –

Two things first off –

1 – You, sir, have a beautiful family, and
2 – You certainly have put a lot of work into your lenses – that is obvious.

Keywords are the words that people type in Google Search to find what they are looking for.

I want you to mess with this keyword tool:

http://www.homebizfactory.com/RESEARCH/index.php

I have no clue if I’m supposed to give that out or not, but oh well … lol. It’s the best free one I’ve found and the results are VERY close to the expensive super keyword tool I use with the guys that contract me out.

With this tool, type in a main word or two about what you want to write about.

For the sake of an example, type in “puppy training” (without the quotes)

It will take a few seconds to give you results – and if you haven’t looked at results from a tool like this yet – it may seem like a whole bunch of gibberish at first.

The top phrase (keyword) puppy training has 213,304 searches for it a year – then it breaks down into how many per month, per week, per day, and per hour as you read across. The last number , under “google results” is how many sites come up on Google when someone types in “puppy training” – 761,000. That number is your competition. You’d have to beat all those sites to get to the top of Google for this search term.

For me, using my free methods of Squidoo, blogs, and articles, I find it VERY hard to beat out any search term that has more than 20,000 competing Google results.

If *I* was going to do a blog or a Squidoo lens on “puppy training”, I would look at these results and scan down the “google results” side and look for results that are under 1000. Those search terms are money for a free marketer like me. My key to getting “found” online.

I would pick keywords like – “crate puppy training” and “puppy training pad”, etc.

My Squidoo lens title would be something like

Puppy Training – Crate Puppy Training Your Pooch (or something like that)

I would be sure to use a dozen or so of those good keywords within my text exactly as they come up on this tool. I would also be sure to use these keywords as my module titles. Your into module and your module titles are SUPER important as far as SEO.

This way, when one of these many people types “crate puppy training” into their friendly Google search tool, MY site will come up for those terms.

Learning to write for the search engines and still make it a good human user experience takes practice – but to write online for any type of income, ya gotta learn it and LIVE IT.

Remember, too, that a Squidoo lens should be like the lens on a camera — it should “focus in” on a subject (such as “puppy training”).

Any of this make ANY sense?

~jennifer

And Joes response back to me:

Jennifer,
Are you a teacher? I have received replies from a few folks who have asked me what I would need to make it in Internet marketing, bla, bla, bla. When I told them SEO, they have all responded in hieroglyphics. Thanks for typing in English and laymen terms. I’m not a dummy, but unless I learn something, well…you can finish that sentence easily enough.
Thanks for explaining it correctly. And thanks for the compliment on my family. Never a dull moment here.

Joe T

The bottom line about creating content for Squidoo, or for ANY web presence, is proper keywording. If you write what people are looking for, they will find you. If you present those keywords in an enjoyable user experience, they will KEEP finding you.

I hear “Content is KING” all the time during my travels online. I’m sorry, but I disagree.

I think of online writing like it is a royal dinner party. King Content knows WHO to invite (proper keywords), but he relies on his beautiful partner, Queen Content, to present it all so that all the guests have a wonderful time (guest being readers AND Google).

Yes – I AM a bit weird…but that image helps me create complete content for both the search engines AND my readers.

Brand New to Internet Marketing? Read my four-part blog series – How to START Making Money Online