Keyword Digger Tool

I came across this keyword digger tool on the cheap today and picked it up for just $14.00. Now let me say, it is no Micro Niche Finder or Market Samurai, but it is a great place to start a broad search. Basically it scrapes the Google, Bing and Amazon suggestions, meaning when you start typing in a word into the three, you start getting suggestions for longer words. I used this today to mine longer keywords and then run them through Micro Niche Finder or Market Samurai for further analysis. The tool is fast and thorough, but not worth more than 14 bucks. For those out there that are using the autoblogging programs, it easily lets you export out the results as well. it is a quick and dirty tool and nothing else, but if used with other tools can help you uncover some long tail keywords. One trick I used it for is to start with an adjective say "fitted" then add each letter of the alphabet to it. So fitted a, fitted b, fitted c and so on. I then use this tool to see what type suggestions it gives. Get my drift? Cool tool if the price is right.

UPDATE: They added Youtube as a source as of this morning and eBay might be on the way as well.

Why Wouldn't You Use Wordpress?

Many may have seen the post I made on the BANS forum about it not being so private anymore. I am not going to go into depth about it here. It is what it is. I owe my empire I have today to what BANS once was. It made me re-learn everything I thought I knew as well as introduced me to database driven CMS (content management systems). Fast forward now three years and I consider myself a Wordpress pro. Now Wordpress was around long before BANS and I had several early encounters with it. I just was not ready for it at the time. Today, it is a platform like no other. Great plugins are created daily both free and pay and there is almost nothing you can not do with it. Sure, I know there is Joomla along with a few others, but they all pale in comparison to Wordpress.

The migration away from BANS is nothing new. It has been going on for years. If you have not migrated away from it yourself, you are way behind. I have a few stragglers myself, but I probably know more code than you do as well. By the end of the year, everything I have will be 100% Wordpress and I am close to that now. So why haven't you made the move yet? Wordpress is easier than ever now to learn. Is it a time factor? What is it? Luckily over time, BANS has had several great contributors help keep the platform alive. Are you still relying on all those fixes and patches? Are you 100% sure everything is working the way it should? I doubt it.

The best thing about Wordpress is that it is so widely used now. Will it be the last great platform ever? I doubt it, but should one come along that is better, I almost guarantee there will be an easy push button method to convert one to the other. This should teach a lesson going forward to everyone as well. Why use a smaller CMS when you can use Wordpress. Sure, what you have may be supported today, but it may not be in the future. Just look at BANS. Wordpress has a long track record. It is secure, it is damn good. Why would you use anything else as a CMS? If you are using something to get your feet wet with, fine, but you should be doing so with the full intentions of graduating to Wordpress as soon as you are up to speed.

What Are You Doing Tomorrow?

The biggest part of my online success has been my ability to always be constant and consistent with my work. It is my business and I have always treated it as such. I know exactly what I want to get accomplished every day, whether it be working on site construction, making videos, building backlinks or researching niches or keywords. This business of site building, as I have mentioned several times in the past, often does not give you instant visible results from the work you do. This business is about being consistent and having a plan. It is so hard to stop and start in this business and using the analogy of a wheel, it takes less effort keeping a wheel already rolling, in motion than it does to get the the wheel rolling. Even if you only map out 1 day in advance, at least you have a plan. I try to work 7 days out now and yes it never goes perfect and often times gets altered. At the very least though, I know what I have to get done tomorrow, do you? Try it. I promise you will get more done and thus get more results.

Using SEO Quake To Mine Niches & Keywords

Happy Independence Day to you all. I am bringing up tools of late in post that I have not posted about in a while. I recently got an email asking how I mine for keyword phrases in niches. The SEO Quake tool bar for Firefox has a great keyword density feature that will show you 1, 2, 3 and 4 word phrases used on any page you surf. You can take these 3 and 4 word phases and research them in your favorite tool such as Market Samurai or Micro Niche Finder to whittle down and find a gold nugget or two to use as a basis to research profitability. Just pick out those sites ranked on page 1 of Google for a certain niche to start with. It may take looking at about 10 sites or so, but you are sure to uncover some great un-tapped micro niches. These types of tools are all around you and free to boot.

ETA: Of course it will save you time to remove the obvious phrases that are not niche related. That should be pretty obvious, but I just wanted to clarify.

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... Rank: wait... Traffic: wait... Price: wait... C: wait...

Finding Related Blogs To Comment On

I do not do a ton of blog commenting, but when I do, I usually try to do 10-20 and leave good comments and try to get a backlink in the process. To find blogs to comment on, I use the free SEO for Firefox plugin and set it to instantly show the number of Yahoo links. I do a search in Google for my keyword I am looking for and then select blogs on the left hand column of Google. I then click the 100 tab just under Google search box and wait for all the numbers to be returned. after that I click the CSV and export the result into Excel. From there I can sort by backlinks number and can start browsing and commenting from there. Not all of your comments will stick mind you and not all will be dofollow. It is just a lazy exercise for building a more diverse backlink profile. I try to dedicate a couple of days or so a month to this process. Occasionally you will strike a powerful backlink in the process and the blog owner might even give you a link in their blogroll as well. It is rare, but it does happen. It is a mindless, yet boring process, but another way as well for you to find ideas for content that others might link to or some new keyword ideas as well. Keep your eyes wide open while commenting.

Socrates Wordpress Theme Download Review

When the Socrates theme was released, I purchased it on the first weekend and installed it on a revamped site. I wanted it to take a hard look at it from a newbie stand point. There has been a ton a buzz about it and now the newness has worn off, so I figured I would give my review on it. First, it is a good theme, especially from a newbie viewpoint. It is much easier to use then the other Flex themes out there. If you like header images, you will like Socrates as well. In addition to huge selection they give you, several others are offering free headers for the theme as well. The large RSS and Twitter buttons are great for sites you are wanting to promote followers with. The rotating ad and easy to add Adsense are also pluses for newbies. I have also seen the support side of things and the creators seem dedicated still to fixing the early bugs and adding a few more features. They have released several updates since I purchased it. Is it the end all, do all theme for Wordpress and the last one you will ever buy? No, I do not think so. It is however, quick and easy to use and great to build niche sites with. It is a theme I suggest only if you can fit it in your budget. It is not a miracle worker, but takes a lot of the little work out of initial site builds. I like it and will continue to build with it when the need or niche arises. I use a large selection of themes, but ones that require a large header, Socrates will be my choice to build with.

50% Off 4th Of July Weekend Blowout From Incansoft

If you read my blog regularly, you know I am a big fan of the Incansoft software and I always try to pass on the word whenever Big Mike has a sale. These usually happen 3 or 4 times a year and this weekend happens to be one of the times you can take advantage of a 50% off offer. I earn absolutely nothing off you buying, I just like the products. For the next 4 days Big Mike gives you the opportunity to grab any products in his catalog for 50% off the retail price until midnight Sunday. To get the discount, just visit the catalog page and enter FREEDOM in the text box above the Add To Cart button. As you add each product the discounted pricing will appear in your shopping cart. If you buy anything, get the GFX Video Writer and start taking advantage of the all the video ideas I have been posting about lately. It is newbie friendly and puts out decent video using images. Give it a go and tell Mike I sent you.