Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Enhance Google Adwords Tool with Keyword Tool Supercharger

  1. Enhance Google Adwords Tool with Keyword Tool Supercharger
  2. The Schism Of Contemporary Professional Relationship Expectations
  3. Five Fatal Flaws in a Link Request
  4. More Recent Articles
  5. Search Search Engine Journal

Enhance Google Adwords Tool with Keyword Tool Supercharger

Keyword Tool Supercharger is a great tool developed by GeekLad. It means to provide more competition and keyword analysis data for a widely-used free keyword research tool – Google Adwords Tool.
It can be installed as Google Chrome Extension or as a browser bookmarklet – KWT Supercharger (FireFox: just drag it to your browser bookmarks toolbar).

Now give it a try!

Run a keyword suggestions search at Google Adwords Tool and click the bookmarklet. The first thing you’ll notice is an extra options box added to the regular Adwords tool interface.
The box contains the following options:
Keyword tool supercharger
The box allows to filter the search terms in various ways you may (and will!) find useful:
  • Desired Daily Volume: The number of daily searches for the keywords. Higher is better.
  • Desired Competition: The number of websites containing the keywords. Lower is better.
  • Desired Supply/Demand Ratio: The # of competing sites/# of daily searches. Lower is better, a ratio less than 1 is ideal.
  • Required words (comma or space separated): Words/phrases you wish to see appear within the results. These need to be separated by commas. You can also prefix a word/phrase with a minus (-) to specify words you do not want to appear in the results.
  • Exact search: Whether or not you want the competition data to be based on searches of the exact phrase (the keyword phrases are searched with quotes). By default, this is enabled.
  • Filter on SEO Criteria: When you click this, only rows that match the criteria above will be displayed.
  • Show All/Update Display: This will display all results (including those that do not match the criteria above).
  • Reload Competition Data: This will reset and reload all of the competition data. This may be necessary if you've selected a new choice for the Exact search option.
While this all seems pretty straightforward, let’s look into some of the options in more detail:

Search within your keyword list

Or, in other words, filter your keyword list by one (or more) term you want to see in the key phrase.
For example, first run the keyword search for [diabetic] and then filter the list by two words [diet] and [diets]. You thus see a clean keyword list containing your core term [diabetic] and the extra word you are currently interested in [diet(s)]:
Search within your keyword list

Get an idea of the “supply”

While the “search volume” data gives you an idea of each key term “demand”, the tool offers a way to research the supply: by default, it uses Bing API to check how many search results each term will generate if you search Bing for the exact match. Bing data may seem not exactly reliable but it can be used to compare.
The tool also breaks down monthly searches by average daily search, and then builds a supply/demand ratio based on the daily searches divided by the total number of results for the keyword:
Daily search volume / total number of search results = supply/demand ratio
(The lower the ratio, the better the odds you'll receive some organic traffic if you use those keywords on your page.)
The additional keyword analysis data is provided in three new columns in the display:
Keyword tool supercharger
You can also query Google search results numbers but, unlike with Bing, you won’t be able to do that in bulk. Instead, you’ll have to click each Bing number for the tool to query and return Google result number. The supply/demand ratio will also be re-calculated once you query Google:
Keyword tool supercharger
A few things I’d like to be added to the tool:
  • The sorting option for the added columns;
  • The ability to enable competition query for the filtered-by-the-keyword list (currently, when I filter the list by a keyword and then push “Reload Competition Data”, the keyword filter seems to get disabled)
All in all, I found the tool very usable and useful. You may want to give it a try and let me know what you think!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Enhance Google Adwords Tool with Keyword Tool Supercharger




The Schism Of Contemporary Professional Relationship Expectations

"Come Get Some!"… Duke Nukem

So, there's the guy I sort of know and, well, you see…
Let me start over.  My wife is really good friends with a woman whose husband has a very similar position to mine.  Oddly enough for reasons not pertinent to this post, I've only met the guy a couple times and each meeting was brief enough so that we really never had a chance to "talk shop".  I never ascribed much to this fact until it was communicated to me that the fact our lack of communication (with our being in the same industry) suggests to him that I am remote, inaccessible & aloof.
Huh?
His comment hit me kinda funny because I pride myself on being extremely accessible to anyone who wishes to reach out to me, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Email.  My universe of friends, companions & colleagues (with very few exceptions) is connected to me through one or more social media platforms.  In 2010, I actually take it for granted that everyone I need to communicate with or care about is digitally connected with me some way.  As a part of my normal work routine, I go out of my way to memorialize even the most marginal relationships that I make via at least one of these platforms because each contact I make matters to me and it's impossible to forecast which of them might prove beneficial or fruitful down the road.  I strive to not have any relationships that are "like two ships passing in the night."
Truthfully, I'm surprised that I've only once come across even a hint of his presence anywhere in my sphere of influence (and it was a very fleeting reference).  Now, how one participates in the social media sphere is a personal decision and if he decided to play the game differently than I do, I can respect that.  However, I would suggest that the inaccessible, aloof person is the one who not only withholds their presence from the greater community but won't even use those clearly labeled channels to reach out and acknowledge something / someone that he felt needed acknowledgement.  I also found it strange that I was evaluated purely through a pre-social media prism when most in our industry would acknowledge that the totality of a person must include their social media profiles & interactions.
In an old post, I argued that the schism between those who "take the social media trip" and those that don't is vast and will continue to grow bigger.  However, I presupposed that most people not "taking the trip" had no connection to our industry.    Many more people are now "fellow travelers" than were when I wrote this post and I now make the assumption that anyone who qualifies as a "colleague" (loosely defined) will be trippin' with the greater group.  I really don't know how to respond to someone in our industry who isn't "with it".  The benefits of participating are well-chronicled elsewhere…people always have a reason why not to do something and I suggest that whatever those reasons might be are ultimately misguided.
If he ever surrenders, I'll welcome him to the island with open arms…and I'm reasonably sure he'd view me in a different light :.)
http://brianbird.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/i4.jpg
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

The Schism Of Contemporary Professional Relationship Expectations





Five Fatal Flaws in a Link Request

I'm probably not going to entertain many link requests. At all. Simply because doing what I do for a living I understand the value of a link and am highly selective about the ones I give out. So I guess that makes me a tough audience from the get-go. However, if I WAS going to consider throwing a link bone in someone's direction it would take a pretty damn good link request.
Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of those. I do however see a LOT of bad ones. A recent post from SEM-Group, Link Building Pet Peeves That Drive me Bananas, hit on a lot of them between the article and the comments. And I couldn't resist the opportunity to push the point even further. So when it comes to link requests here are some of the giant mistakes people make, ranging from the obvious to the slightly more subtle, yet equally insidious, deal breakers.
Poor Grammar
A lot of times it's definitely a matter of ESL. Kaila Strong highlights this really well in her Pet Peeves post. She gives a great example of one these laughter inducing, barely intelligible link requests.  Really people? Do yourselves a favor, get a native English speaker to write you a template, I'm sure there is somebody Stateside that would take Twenty bucks to write one up or even just conjugate the verbs in the one you wrote.
It's even sadder that native English speakers are almost just as guilty. Sometimes it's a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the English language. But more often it's just laziness, carelessness, hurriedness or a combination of all three. The best advice I can give? SLOW DOWN. Seriously. Pay attention to details. Unless you don't care if the only responses you ever get come from people with an equally tenuous grasp on the basic functions of grammar.
Not visiting The Site and/or Saying "I like your site"
You do NOT like my site. In fact, it is clear to me that you have never BEEN to my site. Unless you are going to take the time to actually comment on some aspect of the site that you did indeed find intriguing, useful or relevant, don't bother to say you did. Generic, baseless flattery does not get links. Content of real value gets links.
It's not even just the empty compliments that are the flaw… the REAL error is that you didn't actually visit the site! For example, anyone who owns or works for an SEO company has undoubtedly gotten an email from someone who is very "Generously" offering to help them with their SEO.  This kind of email gives me 2 very important pieces of information, A. You have no idea what my business does. And B. You really don't belong in this industry and I wouldn't trust you to SEO my cat. The bottom line is, go to the site before you send the email. Period.
Contacting un-related sites without providing a reasonable connection.
Ok, I'm not a relevance prude. I understand that it is possible to create really good tangentially relevant content. But when you're asking me to link to the home page of a Sparkplugs site from my Gomer Pyle Fan site, unless there's something about Jim Nabors that I didn't know, I'm not seeing the connection. Of course if you've created a list of TV's most lovable Auto Mechanics…now you've got my attention. See the difference?
Ideally there should be an EVIDENT, logical reason why you're contacting me about this link. Don't make me think about it; don't make me Wiki-search a possible connection between our sites. If you haven't done YOUR homework before shooting me an email, don't expect me to do it for you. If there is no logical connection between our sites and I got this mass email because your scraper found a viable email address on my site… yeah good luck with your link building. I mean, hey you know what they say about blind squirrels and nuts… they get shot by spam guards right?  I think it's something like that.
Overly formal greeting which is the opening for a Novel
I don't care about you. I'm not insensitive, or cold… I'm just busy. I really don't have the time or the inclination to read a Brief 2000-Word History of Your Site before you decide to get to the point, which is oh yeah; you want a link from me. So you want more of my time? Super. You also opened with Dir Sir or Madam, To Whom It May Concern or Kind Sir. I am not a lawyer nor or a human resources office, and you are not Charles Dickens therefore the overly formal greetings are just off-putting from the very beginning. Try a more casual tone, hell try being a real human. Of course you can't do that if you're a spam-bot but, then again therein lies the problem.
A good link request is friendly and short. Get right to the point. If I'm interested, trust me, I'll find out more about your site. Don't feel the need to explain it all up front, you're not making your case, you're losing my interest. It's ok to let me know right away this is a link request, but if you plan to do so using the subject line, be very careful with the words you choose…
Using the words "link exchange" in the subject
I'm not going to shoot down the link exchange process entirely. I believe there are actually circumstances under which a link exchange makes sense. The best ones are when it's accidental. Because Accidental link exchanges = natural and value based.
No, I'm talking about unnatural link exchanges. The hair dressers linking to box cutters link exchanges. The Pet Peeves article commenters actually make some awesome points about some of the more pathetic link exchange offers out there.  Like offers for links on un-cached resources pages or worthless third party sites… yeah SUPER enticing. And honestly, if you are still using reciprocal links as your link building strategy… I don't even want to link to a site that's linking to you're site's third cousin.
To be fair the fatal flaw isn't even in the email for most people. How do I know it's not in the email? Because I never read the email! In fact, I never even opened it because someone thought it would be a good idea to put the words "link exchange" right in the subject line. Now I'm all in favor of being upfront about your intentions, but you have to be practical too. In fact a number of militant spam filters are trained to take out any email where the word "link" appears in the subject line. Don't take the risk. Hey, here's an idea why not make your subject something personal, "Hi, John, I loved your article on Tree Climbing Day…" And no, that's not a violation of the "I like your site" rule. Because I did read John's article on tree climbing and I DO think adults should climb a tree once a year…
There are tons of other ways a link request can be doomed from the word "Send" but these are some of the biggest and most common reasons I hit delete. Most people aren't entirely opposed to giving links where there is merit; it's all about the approach and the content. If you haven't mastered either of those, then keep beating your head against the wall; let me know how it works out for you.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Five Fatal Flaws in a Link Request





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