Comments on: A Keyword Position and Search Engine Optimization Experiment – Day 0

By: carry321

carry321 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:24:48 +0000

yes, my vote also is for “passive income ideas”.

By: carry321

carry321 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:22:23 +0000

Hi Pat,
Thank you for this simple explanation of SEO. I don’t know why this has always seemed so hard, but your post spelled it out and made it so simple. I do understand what you’re saying.
Much Thanks

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:51:41 +0000

Ahh, that makes sense. Thanks Will. You are definitely more an an expert with SEO than I am! I’m trying to learn by doing, which is why this experiment has happened, but thanks to people like you, I’m able to reach my goals a lot faster. Thanks for the insight and clarification Will!

By: Will Reinhardt

Will Reinhardt — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:45:17 +0000

The key that I think you’re missing is that Google is showing you numbers for the broad terms. This means that people are not searching for the phrase “how to fix”, they’re searching for “how to fix christmas lights” or “how to fix an xbox”. Google is showing you numbers for all of these.

It is imperative that you select “Exact” from the match type dropdown menu to get a more accurate count. Pat, I see from your screenshot above that you have “Broad” as your selected match type. If you select “Exact”, what people are actually searching for (and the volume), will look like this:
“passive income”: 18,100
“passive residual income”: 1,600
“passive income opportunites”: 1,300

You can see that the numbers drop off far more sharply, but it’s really the numbers I think you’re after.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:39:24 +0000

Hmm..yeah that’s interesting. Looking at that article, the only way I can see where it’s connected to the keyphrase is in the tags, which are passive income, and revenue streams. There’s also a backlink to the post from a website that has the keyphrase in it. It’s kind of weird how I’m not above that one at least. Oh well, I’ll keep working at it and trying to figure things out. Thanks for your input LM!

By: Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:21:20 +0000

I’m commenting on this late in the game, but I noticed that on the first page is an article from Living Off Dividends. You can tell from that article that there’s really no attempt to rank for that term. There is no mention of the complete phrase in the title, in the first paragraph or in the URL domain or path.

I also would doubt the Google Keyword Tool. At one point earlier this year they said that 2,240,000 a month were searching for “how to fix” and I was happy to find that HowToFix.org was available. I got as high as #5 on the first page (I’m at number 10 now), and the search traffic is less than 100 searches a day.

Maybe they fixed it in the last month as I don’t see How To Fix ranking high anymore. However, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:55:14 +0000

Pat
Thanks for this, I look forward to the journey. I am getting my mind blown by the way everything links together. I can’t say strongly enough how I appreciate being able to follow along with you and your experiments. I get as more from these posts than the sickening amount of bucks I’ve spent on IM ebooks.
I put a link on my blog to this post because I feel Gizmo wanted me to. I think he controls my brain.
Andy

By: Dustin | Engaged Marriage

Dustin | Engaged Marriage — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:46:17 +0000

I am looking forward to hearing about your specific SEO strategies and tracking how this turns out. Another great topic and an excellent approach to teaching your audience!

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:17:58 +0000

Thanks Pat,

This experiment is really interesting as I’m a complete noob when it comes to SEO. The only thing I really know is getting other sites to link to your content improves your Google score.

I think it’s really cool how you’re involving us (the readers) by letting us choose which key phrase you persue (my vote went to Passive Income Streams btw).

I’m really looking forward to the next post.

-Brendan.

By: Blaine Lentz

Blaine Lentz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:57:37 +0000

Great idea, and as per your usual, great presentation.

I will be following along with my own project right behind you so your timing couldn’t be better.

Thanks!

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:40:13 +0000

I don’t know much about SEO (I learned a lot from just this post!) but have wanted to learn, so I think this is the best series I’ve read from you. Thanks in advance for the great education.

My vote is for “passive income ideas.” It’s what I would search for in that niche and has the least room to move up. Maybe that will make it more of a challenge for you?

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:45:22 +0000

Obviously, ranking high for two of the three keywords will make it a lot easier. Part of the experiment is also just seeing how fast this will happen.

You’re right though – I guess I’m missing out on the point of this experiment. After this one, I’ll use the same tactics on keywords that I don’t “own”, and see what happens then.

Thanks for the input Eric, it really helps.

By: eric

eric — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:34:23 +0000

It’s not much of a test. You’re already #3 for the highly sought after passive income.

Try a test on a 5 figure term that doesn’t currently contain two of the three words you “own.”

Not trying to be hard on you, Pat. This site is great. I’m just thinking the tactics you’re going to use aren’t really going to be tested by any of these terms. I bet you could simply name a post after any of these terms and be top 5 in a week.