We've had junk food for years, now welcome to junk content.
And, just as junk food is not only the local market stall selling cheap sausages sizzling in recycled oil but is also a profitable global enterprise, so junk content is moving away from the scrapers and automated writing tools and going legit - or at least global.
AOL, that dinosaur that survived when the meteor hit, is churning itself into the disposable portal it was always doomed to be. You've no doubt read it in many places that the best way to write profitably is to launch lots of niche websites with minimal yet SEO-targetted content. Be smart and diligent enough and the numbers will start to stack up. The more worthless the content the higher the likelihood of someone clicking an advert just to find a quick exit to something potentially more interesting. This is now the AOL business model.
In "The End of Hand Crafted Content", TechCrunch writer bemoans this race to the bottom but vows to move on and stay competitive. For every bit of software, or cheap human, that spews out a mangled version of an original article and then rams it in front of an ignorant public, there are systems to track and list the origins of a story thereby rewarding once again the original producers.
The bottom line is money. The old media barons such as Murdoch were surprisingly late to the party as they couldn't figure out how to make any money on the net. They still can't figure it out but are desperate because the new media is eating away at their very existence. Murdoch's threat is to hide behind some payment system. I find it laughable that he should think this a good idea and he should take a long hard look at AOL to see his future. Maybe he should buy AOL and they can sink together.
But the sad truth is that shit sells - and free shit on the net is even better. There was some delusion a few years back that the internet would be different. Back then it was largely filled with techies, scientists, geeks and academics. They are still there but the noise to signal ratio is getting larger... and larger. But in the end we all create our very own individual internet. If a particular portal is spewing out crap we will find another one, assuming one will still exist.
For the writer, one has to decide whether you want to run a junk food franchise or your own gourmet restaurant. In physical space, both models co-exist. In cyberspace, where the food is free and paid for by fluctuating advertising the specialists will flounder, unless they stick together. Arianna Huffington is less pessimistic and insists that the likes of the Huffington Post can prosper in this free for all. But a close look at her final comments shows she can see the same kind of constellation taking place. The single solitary writer has to go where they feel most comfortable and where they will find an audience.
Many writers (or at least American writers) are making some money on eHow. This site shows what the bottom looks like when it is calculated by an algorithm. eHow is owned by Demand Media and they have developed a strict model of article titles they commission based on search and advertising bucks. You won't find anything on life, the universe and everything, but rather life, my family and that stain on the carpet. These are life's minutiae; things that some people obviously need to know, otherwise the article would never get written. But the pay is low and the quality I've seen is truly dreadful. You can read the full article at Wired and you can even copy the same model - just try to write better articles!
Original content is supposed to be king, but in the English language the word 'original' can have many meanings. AOL's writing factory is original in the sense that nobody else could put together those same words in that same order and think it worth publishing. eHow is a step up in that they hope their articles at least appear to be useful, or useful enough to be a stepping stone to an advert. When I take a step back and look at my favourite feeds I find that the writers are either paid a wage or are in another paid employment and write part-time. If originality is valued then it has to be paid for. How that is going to happen in the current online business model I just haven't figured it out yet.
Showing posts with label keyword articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label keyword articles. Show all posts
sulumits retsambew
Now there's a title! What does "sulumits retsambew" mean? What's it for? What is the point?
Well, the meaning is actually quite straightforward: it's just "webmaster stimulus" spelled backwards. Now that wasn't too hard, was it?! However, the pint of the whole exercise is an interesting SEO (search engine optimization) competition run by the forum Net Builders.
The aim of the competition is to see which 3 websites hit the top spots on Google.com. The competition started in March and ends on 15th August 2009 at high noon GMT. So only a couple of weeks for budding SEO experts to try and beat the current crop of top websites. To enter the contest, you must post the domain you are entering into the contest in a message here at NetBuilders.
There are prizes too!
First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Third Place: $250
OK, this may seem slightly frivolous so late in the day but one interesting comparison is whether all those newly registered "sulumits retsambew" domains will beat more established websites with articles or features using the keywords. Is the domain name more important than the content? Some of the websites I've peeked at don't have much meaningful content at all and yet rank highly on Google. In one sense this shows that SEO is vital to get noticed... and content is crucial to get people coming back!
Well, the meaning is actually quite straightforward: it's just "webmaster stimulus" spelled backwards. Now that wasn't too hard, was it?! However, the pint of the whole exercise is an interesting SEO (search engine optimization) competition run by the forum Net Builders.
The aim of the competition is to see which 3 websites hit the top spots on Google.com. The competition started in March and ends on 15th August 2009 at high noon GMT. So only a couple of weeks for budding SEO experts to try and beat the current crop of top websites. To enter the contest, you must post the domain you are entering into the contest in a message here at NetBuilders.
There are prizes too!
First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Third Place: $250
OK, this may seem slightly frivolous so late in the day but one interesting comparison is whether all those newly registered "sulumits retsambew" domains will beat more established websites with articles or features using the keywords. Is the domain name more important than the content? Some of the websites I've peeked at don't have much meaningful content at all and yet rank highly on Google. In one sense this shows that SEO is vital to get noticed... and content is crucial to get people coming back!
How to Really Find High Value Keywords
There are lots and lots of articles about the importance of keywords in search engine optimization (SEO) and plenty of articles about how to find them. Unsurprisingly, they all say the same thing. If you are hoping to make some money from Adsense advertising then the starting point is to use the Google keyword tool in Adwords. That will give you a long list of keywords closely related to your input keyword, with average search traffic and cost per click (CPC). However, one thing I haven't found is any advice on how to prioritize which keywords are the best earners.
For example, is a keyword worth $10 and with an average of 20,000 searches per month really worth more than a similar keyword worth just $2 a click but with 1.2 million searches? In terms of probability theory what is most important is the expectation value of each keyword. This is what I'm going to describe in this article and what I am going to call the Potential Earnings.
Using Google Adwords Keywords Tool
Firstly, a few small points so that you download the most accurate data. Login to your Adwords account. If you don't have one yet just create one and you can use the same login details across all Google tools. I know that Adwords is for advertisers rather than publishers but you are under no obligation to pay for adverts and the Keyword Tool is free to use. It used to be available without logging in but recently I was forced to create an account, hence assume this is now standard for everyone.
Before you input the keyword(s) to analyse just have a quick look at the 'Results are tailored to the following country' information. This usually defaults to the country in your account details. If you are creating an article or website aimed at a different country then change these details. If your article is aimed at a global audience then set the appropriate language and then the country as 'All Countries and Territories'.
Now input your keyword or keywords and click 'Get Keywords ideas'. You will get more results by having each keyword on a separate line rather than one keyword phrase, and I also keep the synonyms option on as one never knows whether similar words are actually more popular.
At this point you will have a long list of keywords, their Cost Per Click (CPC) rate and search data for the previous month and the current monthly average. You may, depending on your default setup have other data columns. Now, a lot of this is not all that useful for our purposes. Soon we will download a csv file and analyse the data in a spreadsheet, so there is no point downloading data that we are going to delete in the spreadsheet - best do it now.
If your target audience has a seasonal theme to it, such as Christmas or Valentine's Day then looking at the data for that particular month, say December or February, makes more sense than the average monthly search traffic. Otherwise, for evergreen content I think the monthly average traffic is the best indicator.
So, the only columns we really need are obviously the keywords themselves, the CPC and the monthly traffic. All the other columns can be deleted. At this point, just make sure the CPC rates are in your currency of choice. You can get a feel now for the most profitable keywords. By clicking the CPC heading you will see which are most expensive keywords in your topic area. Also, by clicking on the Search Volume heading you will see which are the most popular keyword combinations. As you can see, sometimes the most volume does not correspond to the highest CPC rate. We are now just two steps away from finding out which keywords are really worth money.
Analysing Your Keywords in a Spreadsheet
At the bottom of the keyword list are three links to download the data to your computer. I personally just download a generic csv file, which is a comma delimited text file and can be viewed in any spreadsheet package. If you only use Excel then there is an Excel csv option, but if you use any other package leave this alone as Excel adds some extra information to its files that are useless and will confuse other packages.
Now open up the csv file in your spreadsheet. What we are interested in doing here is basically to multiply the CPC rate by the search traffic. The method of doing this will depend on your package, but the basic formula is fairly generic. If you followed the above advice you should only have three columns, with the keywords in column A, CPC in column B and traffic volume in C. What we need is a fourth column with the formula =B2*C2 and then copy and paste this throughout all the rows of data. You now have a fourth column that you can label Potential Earnings.
As I intimated above, the Potential Earnings combines the CTC and traffic to give a more accurate picture of what the expected earnings are for particular keywords. Often there is a balance between high CTC and low volume compared to low CTC and higher volume. This calculation means you don't have to make these judgements - it is all in the numbers!
The last step is to sort your keywords with the highest PE at the top. Again, the precise method depends on your spreadsheet package, but usually just highlight all the data, look at the sort function, pick the PE column and sort in descending order.
Now you can really see which keywords are top of the heap!
Example Potential Earnings Calculation
One brief example to show that results can sometimes be surprising. I chose a less popular keyword as things like insurance and money have fairly clear and obvious top keywords. I tried the keyword 'keyword'!
The top 5 in terms of pure CPC were:
keyword ads
keyword bids
keyword advertising
keyword ppc
google keyword finder
However, the top 5 in terms of our Potential Earnings were:
keyword
keywords
keyword search
keyword tool
google keyword
As you can see, these are totally different to our first list. The sheer volume of search queries means that our PE is much higher for this second list than the first. Indeed, 'keyword ads', the highest earning CPC is way down in 62nd place in our top PE keywords because of very low traffic. The decision as to whether to focus on a high CPC low traffic niche is up to you, but now you have a tool to help you make that decision.
I hope this quick and simple method of calculating the true Potential Earnings of each keyword will help you focus on which websites or articles are worth spending time on.
(c) Rycharde Manne
~o~
For example, is a keyword worth $10 and with an average of 20,000 searches per month really worth more than a similar keyword worth just $2 a click but with 1.2 million searches? In terms of probability theory what is most important is the expectation value of each keyword. This is what I'm going to describe in this article and what I am going to call the Potential Earnings.
Using Google Adwords Keywords Tool
Firstly, a few small points so that you download the most accurate data. Login to your Adwords account. If you don't have one yet just create one and you can use the same login details across all Google tools. I know that Adwords is for advertisers rather than publishers but you are under no obligation to pay for adverts and the Keyword Tool is free to use. It used to be available without logging in but recently I was forced to create an account, hence assume this is now standard for everyone.
Before you input the keyword(s) to analyse just have a quick look at the 'Results are tailored to the following country' information. This usually defaults to the country in your account details. If you are creating an article or website aimed at a different country then change these details. If your article is aimed at a global audience then set the appropriate language and then the country as 'All Countries and Territories'.
Now input your keyword or keywords and click 'Get Keywords ideas'. You will get more results by having each keyword on a separate line rather than one keyword phrase, and I also keep the synonyms option on as one never knows whether similar words are actually more popular.
At this point you will have a long list of keywords, their Cost Per Click (CPC) rate and search data for the previous month and the current monthly average. You may, depending on your default setup have other data columns. Now, a lot of this is not all that useful for our purposes. Soon we will download a csv file and analyse the data in a spreadsheet, so there is no point downloading data that we are going to delete in the spreadsheet - best do it now.
If your target audience has a seasonal theme to it, such as Christmas or Valentine's Day then looking at the data for that particular month, say December or February, makes more sense than the average monthly search traffic. Otherwise, for evergreen content I think the monthly average traffic is the best indicator.
So, the only columns we really need are obviously the keywords themselves, the CPC and the monthly traffic. All the other columns can be deleted. At this point, just make sure the CPC rates are in your currency of choice. You can get a feel now for the most profitable keywords. By clicking the CPC heading you will see which are most expensive keywords in your topic area. Also, by clicking on the Search Volume heading you will see which are the most popular keyword combinations. As you can see, sometimes the most volume does not correspond to the highest CPC rate. We are now just two steps away from finding out which keywords are really worth money.
Analysing Your Keywords in a Spreadsheet
At the bottom of the keyword list are three links to download the data to your computer. I personally just download a generic csv file, which is a comma delimited text file and can be viewed in any spreadsheet package. If you only use Excel then there is an Excel csv option, but if you use any other package leave this alone as Excel adds some extra information to its files that are useless and will confuse other packages.
Now open up the csv file in your spreadsheet. What we are interested in doing here is basically to multiply the CPC rate by the search traffic. The method of doing this will depend on your package, but the basic formula is fairly generic. If you followed the above advice you should only have three columns, with the keywords in column A, CPC in column B and traffic volume in C. What we need is a fourth column with the formula =B2*C2 and then copy and paste this throughout all the rows of data. You now have a fourth column that you can label Potential Earnings.
As I intimated above, the Potential Earnings combines the CTC and traffic to give a more accurate picture of what the expected earnings are for particular keywords. Often there is a balance between high CTC and low volume compared to low CTC and higher volume. This calculation means you don't have to make these judgements - it is all in the numbers!
The last step is to sort your keywords with the highest PE at the top. Again, the precise method depends on your spreadsheet package, but usually just highlight all the data, look at the sort function, pick the PE column and sort in descending order.
Now you can really see which keywords are top of the heap!
Example Potential Earnings Calculation
One brief example to show that results can sometimes be surprising. I chose a less popular keyword as things like insurance and money have fairly clear and obvious top keywords. I tried the keyword 'keyword'!
The top 5 in terms of pure CPC were:
keyword ads
keyword bids
keyword advertising
keyword ppc
google keyword finder
However, the top 5 in terms of our Potential Earnings were:
keyword
keywords
keyword search
keyword tool
google keyword
As you can see, these are totally different to our first list. The sheer volume of search queries means that our PE is much higher for this second list than the first. Indeed, 'keyword ads', the highest earning CPC is way down in 62nd place in our top PE keywords because of very low traffic. The decision as to whether to focus on a high CPC low traffic niche is up to you, but now you have a tool to help you make that decision.
I hope this quick and simple method of calculating the true Potential Earnings of each keyword will help you focus on which websites or articles are worth spending time on.
(c) Rycharde Manne
~o~
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