Keyword Madness

Mark @ TheLocoMono — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:34:07 -0500

I was checking out Search Engine Guide’s article about on-page optimization because I need to rebuild TheLocoMono Website and its’ sub-domain’s searchability. It provided a link to a free PDF, Keyword Research and Selection written by Pole Position.

In Part 1, it discussed about finding the core terms that applies to your site, or in my case, my site.

Write down the purpose(s) of the website as well as a detailed description of the scope of the website in relation to its industry/subject/service, etc.

I have to admit I groaned when I first looked at this instruction. I know this is a blog that is supposed to explore the relationship of money and business, personal finance, real estate, and travel.

WordTracker Results

Using the free keyword suggestion tool provided by WordTracker, I looked up the number of results it came up with specific keywords regarding my blog.

Blog - 2777

This site is a blog. The original purpose was to explore personal finance topics but I expanded it slowly into four pillars or sub-domains covering business, personal finance, real estate, and travel.

Money - 4896

Money is the central theme tying all four sub-domains and supposedly the focus behind TheLocoMono Website.

Business - 2904

This was the third result. Better business bureau and business cards were the first two results for this keyword which surprised me since this did not happen with the other keywords.

Personal Finance - 1012

Pathetic! The lowest score of all the keywords listed here which amazes me considering all the personal finance blogs out there. Of course, it is only a sampling, mind you.

REI - 4701

I thought REI would be stronger than real estate when I saw it turned up the largest results after blog. On a whim, I typed “real estate” to see if I was right. WRONG! As it turn, “real estate” had 9152 results.

Travel - 20236

Did I hit a homerun here? I guess Google sure makes quite a bit of money with the travel agencies considering how many results turned up for travel. I may have to change my sub-domain from travelling.thelocomonowebsite.com to travel.thelocomonowebsite.com.

Why are you bugging out about keywords?

Good question. Have you checked out to see which site was the number 1 search result for the keyword “money”?

If not, here is the link to the number one result.

Exactly, CNNMoney.com or actually as their home page spells it out for you and me, money.cnn.com.

Yes, SEO experts, there is proof that sub-domains can exists independently of their parent site whether it is on Mars or in Virgina or in your world.

But that still leads me back to my question, how the hell am I supposed to tie all these keywords to create an “umbrella” for TheLocoMono Website when I am too loco to keep track of my progress?

Just out of sheer curiosity, I checked out the source code for CNNMoney and I have got to tell you, I laughed. See for yourself.

<meta name=“Keywords” content=“CNN/Money,CNNmoney,CNN money,CNN,money,money magazine,fortune,fortune magazine,fortune 500,business2,business2.0,business 2.0 magazine,Business2.0,business2,fortune small business,fsb,CNNfn,business news,financial news,stocks,stock quotes,stock portfolio,personal finance,personal finance advice,retirement,401k,mutual funds,taxes,bonds,financial calculators,tools,investing,mortgages,college savings,529,company news,international business,world business,economy,business news video,best companies,top employers,best employers,business research,business and finance,business profiles,company snapshots,financial trends,fortune list,business list,technology news,ecommerce,wireless,entrepreneurs,small business”>

67 keywords

That’s right, I counted how many keywords there were. Tell me you did. I don’t want to be the only one who thinks I am crazy here. Did you count them too?

I went ahead and checked out the source for this website and counted how many meta keywords I had. None. That’s right. This schmuck just found out for the first time in over a year of blogging that he had zero keywords for his site.

Ah-hah! Mystery Solved, Scooby-Doo!

That’s what I thought so too but there is a second step to the instructions,

Determine an umbrella phrase that covers the entire scope of the site; the technique is to strive for the greatest specificity without excluding any topics that are covered by the site. This umbrella phrase is the website Theme.

An umbrella phrase, you have got it buddy! I have no idea when it is suppose to rain visitors but I want it to RAIN!!!!

A money blog about business, personal finance, real estate, and travel.
A blog about travel, real estate, personal finance, money, and business.
A blog about money, business, personal finance, real estate, travel.

As you can see by my dilemma, I have no clue what the heck keywords are suppose to do for me. I do understand it helps with search results, I know that much. I have been using Google for over 5 years now.

Anyhow, what started all this madness was SEO Improvements by Young Entrepreneur. It was a great review of the areas I need to work on for this site. While I may not have a page rank at the moment, I am doing fairly well in Technorati and Alexa and I do turn up as the number one search result for “thelocomono” and number two for “loco mono”.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to understanding what the heck do I have to do to build my keywords to make a stronger presence on the Internet?

The Prodigal Monkey Has Returned!!!

Mark @ TheLocoMono — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:11:21 -0500

It has been a while since I have been able to post on TheLocoMono Website and my sub-domains. It is certainly a lot of work to maintain a website while making an effort to balance it with the “real world”.

It looks like we have a new sponsor, Shell Gas so be sure to pay them a visit and see what they are all about.

I just wanted to send out a quick shout to let y’all know the site is still alive and well. You can look forward to some more posts coming soon. In the meantime, I have a question for the bloggers out there…

How do you balance your time with your blog and the “real world”?

POLL : What’s a Lot of Posts?

Mark @ TheLocoMono — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:03:20 -0500

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

A reader left an interesting comment that made me wonder about how many posts is a lot. In a sense, this reflects how one may decide to use excerpts or full posts. So I wondered what is a lot of posts? Is it based on how many posts per year, or how many posts total? Some bloggers have only been around for a year, and other have been around for more than 3 years so there are a lot of posts but exactly which is it?

This is actually the first poll I have posted where you can choose more than one answer. Should you choose more than 1 answer, please keep it to one vote from per year and total posts. Your vote will help me better understand how to best serve your information needs.