Life$trikes.Com » Raghu

Keyword Research Explained in 3 Steps

Raghu — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:47:31 +0000

Keyword research is not for everyone. So many blogger out there, don’t even pay attention to keyword research or never heard about the terms Keyword Research, Search Engine Optimization or Social Media Marketing

I was one such blogger. When ever I see a blog post about SEO, I used to look at the article as some subject in college that I used to hate. It was too complicated and I was more into creating contents. But as time passed, I realized the power of keyword research and amount of traffic it can drive to the blog.

Ranking in Google Search Results

If your blog post is displayed for a keyword within first 2-3 Google search results, you will get lot of traffic. But, ranking in first page for a keywords is not easy as it sounds, when so many other websites are competing to rank above you result for certain keyword.

Even though is not easy, its possible. Follow the exact 3 steps that I followed to rank well in Google search results

Write with Passion
Track Search Engine Traffic
Write More Related Articles

Write with Passion

I never paid attention to SEO or Keyword Research when I started blogging. I was trying to write contents that would solve problems for the readers. People come to blog were looking for a solution to their problem.

It just happened that my life experiences was solving blog readers problems who come through Google Search. So, I kept writing about my experience and it was helping blog visitors. So, I kept writing articles on the same topics. After few months, I had over 40 articles on same topic. Then I noticed, the traffic from search engine increased consistently.

So, continue to publish articles in your blog with passion. There are people out there who are facing similar problems. They will come and find you.

Track Search Engine Traffic

All I did for first 4 months was to write atleast 1 article per day. I had installed Google Analytics tracking code and it was easy to see increase in traffic and a pattern started to emerge.

Till then I didn’t realize the power of Goggle and how much traffic a site could get with high ranking in search results. That’s when I started to look at Keyword Research and how to drive traffic to blog from search results. I went back looking for all those Keywords related blog posts and realized that SEO and Keyword Research is not something that you can read few books and get indexed and rank in first page within next day. There is good amount of learning process involved.

But, if you track the traffic using Google Analytics, you are on right track toward mastering keyword research.

Write More Related Articles

By using the data at hand, it was very easy to get started with keyword research.

Within Google Analytics, look at Traffic Sources > Keywords.
Collect Top 3 unique Keywords that bring traffic.
Search in Google for those keywords and see where your page is displayed.

Now, I have a list of keywords that can be used as starting point to drive more traffic. So, I basically started to write more contents with those keywords. As I posted new articles and created a link (same anchor text as keyword) to article that ranks well in Google, over period of few weeks, article was ranked still higher in the search results. I later learned that’s called as On-Page SEO.

This is how it all started for me about Keyword Research and Search Engine Optimization. I would like to know how you go about keyword research?

Image – Lee Reynolds

Microsoft Hohm Will Save Energy and Money – Really?

Raghu — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:31:25 +0000

Microsoft Hohm is available from today. I’m in the process of setting it up, will post an updated review after using the product for few days. Hopefully it would save some money and lower the Electricity usage.

What is Microsoft Hohm?

Microsoft Hohm is a free online beta application that helps you save energy and money. With Microsoft Hohm you can better understand your home energy usage, get recommendations to conserve energy and start saving. As with any recommendation engine, Hohm will provide increasingly more accurate and relevant suggestions for energy conservation as its users contribute home energy input and feedback….. continued at Microsoft Hohm Blog

30 Top Social Media Marketing Sites

Raghu — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:29:01 +0000

If you are serious about driving traffic to your site from Social Media Marketing, then be ready to spend some serious time by participating in Social Media Sites. There are thousands of sites out there, but here is Top 30 Social Media Sites that you can consider investing time

Top 10 Search Terms – July 2009

Tool to Select Domain Name

Raghu — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:35:00 +0000

I registered a new domain name last week, it was very hard to pick a domain name. If I had come across this resource 12 Tools to Pick Up a Domain Name, it would have made my job much easy.

Review – GetRichSlowly.org

Raghu — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:34:51 +0000

Starting new series of posts to keep adding more contents to this blog. There are so many Personal Finance Blogs out there, but there is not many sites that review all those Personal Finance blogs. So, this new idea came up and I decided to give it a try.

Get Rich Slowly – Review

Get Rich Slowly is a popular Personal Finance blog and recently it got new interface/design. So, I decided to start my review series with Get Rich Slowly by J.D

Negatives

Search Form text size can be increased to fit the remaining space
Email Text Input Area can be increased, since there is still space left in the rectangular box
Navigation to next and previous posts looks lengthy, it can be removed or moved to below the post
With over 80,000 subscribers, I’m not sure Private ads are sold in this site. There are lots of opportunity to sell Private Ads when so many people are following this blog.
Just above 468×60 ads below the post, has a graphic, which highlights the following ad. That might lower the CTR of that Ad
Navigation on sidebar ( Popular Posts, Archives, ..) can use some bullets ( Circle, Square), it will look much better than plain layout
Usually all the posts are lengthy, but font size and line height make it difficult to read the article in the blog post. Sample lengthy blog posts with good layout that makes reading the blog article easy to read include Yaro’s Blog. Just by increasing the line-height to 13o% will make blogs post much easier to read
Simple ( or bland) Blog design
No Follow links is not enabled for some outgoing links and to pages like Privacy posts, ..

Positives

Number of subscribers
Quality of the articles and impact to readers
Ability to generate lots of comments on each blog posts
Forum to share ideas
Timely articles ( example, if Mortgage Rates are low, article will be posted related to Refinance)

Strikes Score for Get Rich Slowly – 730/850

How to Configure Google Website Optimizer for Wordpress Hosted Blogs

Raghu — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:14:18 +0000

If you want to test your landing pages on self hosted wordpress blogs, Google Website Optimizer is the way to go. I tried to implement A/B Testing about 1 year back, but I couldn’t find the plugin that would help configure the pages for A/B Testing

I was more reluctant to spend more time to figure out ways to insert the control, tracking and conversion scripts. But, I wanted to give another try and with much ease ( less than 5 minutes) I configured A/B Experiment today.

Google Website Optimizer Wordpress – Plugin

Steps to configure the plugin and A/B Experiment on Blog Page on wordpress ( self hosted domain)

Decide the page to test ( Landing Page from Google Adwords Campaign – in my case)
Create a variant of the same page ( another version of the landing page)
Decide on the conversion page ( this could be the page user will be directed after sign-up for newsletter, like Thank You Page)
Create a New Experiment ( A/B Experiment ) from Google Website Optimizer
Install the Google Website Optimizer for Wordpress and Activate
Go to the Source Page to Edit it.
Copy and paste the Control, Tracking Script from Google Website Optimizer Experiment
Paste the Tracking script to the variant page
Paste the Conversion script to the conversion page
Validate the pages in Google Website Optimizer page
Save the experiment and wait for the results.

Wordpress Pages Under Test

I was using a regular blog post as landing page for news letter signup, but variant page will just have call to action and sign up form. Users will not have other distractions in the page. In few days, I will post the result of the testing.

Mortgage Refinance Closing This Week (Maybe)

Raghu — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:59:38 +0000

Finally all the paperwork is done and Broker said, I can close the loan sometime this week. This would save my monthly payment by $60+ per month.

Current Loan – 30 Year Fixed, No Escrow, 5.25%, Refinanced on Dec 2009, lender – Countrywide
New Loan – 30 Year Fixed, No Escrow, 4.875%, No Closing Cost/Lenders Fee, Lender – Sun Trust.

HUD Statement

Usually with no cost loan, all the fees will be credited and only value where broker can manipulate would be the payoff amount. I got he payoff amount for next 7 days from Bank of America and it will be easy to compare the payoff amount with the HUD statement. So, hopefully closing should go without any issues.

Tool to Find Other Websites Hosted on Your Server

Raghu — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:33:49 +0000

If you have your websites hosted in a shared hosting plan, you should have run into memory issues. If you have Internal Server Error displayed, it’s because your site or other sites hosted on your server is consuming all the server’s memory. Use this cool tool to see other websites hosted on the same server as yours.

It used to be the case when Google gave more value to sites that had unique IP’s, but that’s the case anymore. So, having your site on shared hosting plan will not impact your SEO.

Mortgage Refinance Without Appraisal

Raghu — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:12:57 +0000

I’m still waiting for the home appraised value to refinance. But, I really don’t understand why one broker would require Appraisal when another lender can refinance without Appraisal.

When I refinanced during last week of December, NMA didn’t order home appraisal. But, now with different Broker, they ordered appraisal. I’m puzzled by that fact that, the system that determines if a person requires appraisal or not can vary so much between brokers/lenders when my credit profile didn’t change much, as well as financial situation. It’s interesting and it would be nice to know the reasoning behind that.

My neighbor is refinancing for the second time with same company, but different broker. They have ordered this time around (May, 2009), but they didn’t order the appraisal last time ( Dec, 2008). Maybe I will try to network with a mortgage specialist through Twitter or LinkedIn and they might able to give some insights on this.

Bank Rate to the Rescue?

There’s is an interesting discussion going on at Get Rich Slowly – How to Select Mortgage Broker. If you happen to read the comments, some are thoughtful and shows how people shop to find cheapest mortgage rates. But, in some comments show that people don’t spend much time shopping for Mortgage rates. For instance when mortgage refinance shoppers blindly trusting the rates from BankRate and going with the lender who gives cheapest rate.

Mortgage Refinance – Round 2

Raghu — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:08:21 +0000

Back in December 2008, we refinanced existing mortgage. Back then we had 2 loans ( First Loan 5.625% and Second Loan – 7.75%) through National Mortgage Alliance, we were able to combine both the loans into single loan and got 5.25% No Cost loan without escrow account (without paying escrow waiver fee).

No cost Refinance – Round 2

During first round of refinancing we saved over $100 in monthly payment and when rates dropped again in March, I was trying to lock 4.875% with no cost loan. By the time I could reach out to the broker, rates were not available. But, around April 15th I was able to lock 4.875% No Cost, 30 year fixed loan. It’s been almost 3 weeks now after locking the rates. Rate lock is valid for 40 days.

Home Appraisal

Last time NMA serviced the loan without Home Appraisal, but this time around broker ordered the appraisal. I’m really not sure how and why credit file can change from December to April that can make the system to order the appraisal. I will know the appraised value in couple of days. It is going to tough 2-3 days wait. Loan amount should be less then 80% of the appraised value of the home. I’m not sure, how the broker will handle if there will be 2-3k lower than 80% amount.