Can't stress enough - keywords, keywords, keywords!

I wrote some time ago about how I'd signed up for Jaaxy and reworked all my keywords based on new searches and updates. With so many new members joining every week, I wanted to make sure everyone knew just where to start when writing a new blog entry or article.

My site is on baking. I chose that topic because I'm interested in baking and I already do a lot of it. I already subscribe to several magazines. I'm a member of several baking blogs. I get emails from companies I like, like King Arthur Flour (the BEST baking site), and a number of others. I visit my competition regularly to see what they're up to. All that I was already doing before I joined WA about 8 months ago.

It's not difficult for me to get an idea for writing. What's difficult is to WAIT until I've had a chance to research the keywords to make sure the article is laser-focused on the right topic.

I have a sticky on my computer screen that stares at me all day. It says, "SELL." It doesn't say "RANKINGS", it doesn't say "SESSIONS." Neither of those things make money themselves. But to sell, you do have to get people to your page, and you have to get them to stick around long enough to read your content. So you need your keywords to be PINPOINT accurate with respect to your article. When people click on that Google search, they need to be brought to exactly what they were hoping to find. Otherwise, they'll just click away again and your page will suffer. So be sure to research those keywords and make the article match it as closely as you possibly can.

So I take my ideas and I jump into Jaaxy and research them. Recently, I did a post on Coconut Cake. In my research, I found that "coconut cake" alone had tons of competition. "Easy coconut cake" was popular, but I found that all the articles there tended to rely on a boxed white cake mix as the base. My site is called "Baking Naturally" . . . I don't do boxed cakes with artificial ingredients. So I kept looking. Finally, I found "old fashioned coconut cake." Good traffic, low competition - GO GO GO!

You see how the keyword research actually informed my article? When you do it the other way around, you cause confusion for your readers, and problems with your rankings. So before you start writing, make sure you're clear about your keywords FIRST. You'll be miles ahead of your competition that way.