Starting An Internet Business – We Make it Simple

For the average persons like you and me SEO can be a nightmare if we let it. Unless you are going to use smoke signals to get you Internet business going, you better get this SEO stuff right. It took me several months to fully understand the importance of Keywords, these are the links to your customers search.

SEO And Keywords

When your hear SEO (search engine optimization) all you need to know is what’s a person want and how are they searching for it. Lets say you want “apple pie recipes” you would type this into a search engine. So the keyword is “apple pie recipes” now you know what the customer wants and you know how they are searching for it, how do you use this information.

Google goes out and searches all the different sites, they index the content, store it, analyze it and do some other things with all that data. From all that data they give the customer searching for “apple pie recipes” the most targeted information they have.

Lets talk about what you don’t want to do. Spam or stuffing is when you really over due it with keywords like apple pie recipes, if every other sentence has this keyword in it well, it’s just not natural and you will get spanked instead of thanked. Here’s the way it should go.

Choosing a domain – if your site is focused around apple pie recipes, then if possible get a domain with this phrase in it.

The title of your site could be Best apple pie recipes in town. The description could read You won’t find better apple pie recipes anywhere else but here.

The title of your first page could read Traditional apple pie recipes. Then we have the first paragraph, it might go like this:

Apple pie has been around since the beginning of time, but apple pie recipes are being changed all the time. There are three things that make a good pie, they are: crust, ingredients and fresh apples. If you never had apple pie before then check out the various recipes we offer and become a member of our club……..

Here’s The Breakdown

We sort of combined a little lesson of content with the keyword explanation above. It may look like were overdoing the keyword apple pie recipes, but look at the context, doesn’t it blend together and make sense for reading? Your domain, the site title, the site description, the article title and the First paragraph is what Google hits first. If we just randomly used the phrase apple pie recipes and it made no sense, then your site would be in the dog house, you wouldn’t have a chance to be searched out.

The general rule is 1 keyword per every 3-5 line paragraph or every 100 or so words. Using the words separately doesn’t count.

You won’t grasp the total concept of keywords right away, but if you get the idea and practice a bit it will make sense to you. It’s simple in plain terms, you build a site for oranges and a customer types in a search for bananas well, the two of you will never meet.

People spend days making a list of keywords, then they build a site around those words. Don’t get frustrated with this part, the next section about content will clear some of the SEO stuff up, later add keywords. In any business words are communication, in the Internet business words are everything.

SEO And Content

Keywords is how you make a connection with the customer, content is how you communicate and guide (sell) the customer. It’s like dating, being fixed up, someone will get the two of you together, but after that your conversation (content) will determine if there will be a second date or not. At this time we don’t want to confuse content with sales copy, we just want content that will help your customer and make Google happy. I know it sounds like a big hassle, but it really is pretty cool to learn this art form of communication.

The best tip I can give you is start by writing down what you would verbally say to someone in person. After you finish, go back a second time and read it. Is it easy to read, does it make sense, did you introduce the subject OK, does the body give some good information. Chances are the answer is NO, make some corrections, then go back a third time. Read it again, see if you can get rid of words like (a, an, the) make it tighter, more concise. As you learn more about content construction you will get better at including these elements in an article.

Unless you are already a expert writer, it takes time to learn. If you could see some of my first writings you would then know how much improvement a person can really have. In fact I found one of the first Hubs I made, Nikki, this was about my dog. It’s choppy, wordy and a bit sloppy, but it was one of my first attempts at writing. For a kick take a look, see how not to write a story.

If you want more in depth information about content and article construction you will like this book by Josh Spaulding. Josh has been around a lot longer than I and as I mention many times there are others who say it better than I, Josh has put it in a book called Article Marketing Domination.

Take a look, I leave it up to you how you decide to get your Internet business rolling, but unless you pay someone else to do the writing, this is a skill that is not only required for your business, but something you can use forever.

SEO And Linking

I bet by now you are exhausted, I know I am. I’m use to writing 300 word articles for marketing or 600 word posts, but linking is important. The good news is this subject is pretty simple and clear cut.

Link Types

You basically have three types of links:

1. Links In
2. Links Out
3. Links Within

These links are then rated for quality, what determines quality?

1. Do the links help the reader?
2. Do the links connect to a related site?
3. What clout does the site linking to you have?
4. Is the site linking to yours in good standing with Google?

Then we have internal linking, hooking up the different pages within your site. This is pretty straight forward, linking a word(s) within an article to another related article all within your site of course.

Overview Of Linking

Linking is a factor in Googles overall rating your site for searches and popularity. Over linking or links that make no sense will negatively impact your sites rating. Internal linking is like a road map within your site, this you can do a bit at a time. Getting links into your site requires more work, but you have to start somewhere.

Linking is a big subject, when starting all you have to know is does the link make sense? When I’m reading this does the link take me to related information? Does the link I make internally make sense for the reader? Do the links to my site connect related information that makes sense?

Linking is like a conversation, you say one thing and the other person responds with a related comment. Bad links is like me talking to you about the Moon, then you respond with something about a vacuum cleaner, it makes no sense. Linking is the same logic and this is the way Google sees it too.

The second thing is where are the links? Links within the content are more powerful than just putting a link list along the side of your site. This relates back to how Google sees it. If a link is blended into the text of an article compared to being slapped on the side of a site, of course the blended link will have more power, in Googles eyes anyway and that’s what counts.

A person who has built up a nice powerful site is very protective of the links they give out, and they should be. So, how can you get these links into your site?

First, you have to have a site that has good content. There is no value for a power site to link to you without this. Even if you are willing to pay they still might refuse you. The best way to get attention is to build a relationship with that site. Make comments, start a dialog with Emails, offer to write an article for them, in time you will probably get your link. If it’s a good site the investment is worth it.

In big time categories like making money online the sites at the top have been around for a while and have a lot of power built up with Google. Is it impossible to make the first page with your site, No, but it will take work. This is one reason that Niche Sites are so popular, the competition is not as tough and there are hundreds of thousands of little subjects (niches) to be discovered. Don’t think this is static either, as times change niches come and go, this makes the Internet business of niches even more enticing.

Putting The Pieces Together

If you try to understand everything at once well, you’ll probably quit. Take one component at a time and understand how it connects to the next. Keywords-Content-Monetizing-Linking, this is the core blueprint.

Keywords is really finding the words that your customer speaks. If you site is about birds in Wyoming, then you need to find all the words that people are searching for on that subject. Now you ask, why do that? The reason is you need to know if there is a big enough market for you to make money from. You might have great things to sell but nobody out there wants it, there’s no market. Keyword research tells you this, it saves you time, you don’t have to buid a site and do all the other things to only find out after the fact that there’s no market.

There are tools to help you find these keywords and evaluate the market. It’s an investment you should make once you understand the importance of this first step, keywords. I actually use a couple of sources, but one I suggest for starters is Micro Niche Finder.

Don’t let anyone tell you starting any business is completely free. But comparably, this business is as free as it gets. Once you understand the manual process of keyword research, then you will see the value of Micro Niche Finder. Take a look.