Comments on: What To Write About – Finding Ideas

By: Raj Dash

Raj Dash — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:26:28 +0000

Thanks Markus. CleverStat.com seems to have a few interesting tools. I’ll have to check them out in depth.

By: Markus Merz

Markus Merz — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:16:22 +0000

Raj, I did not test ‘the dowser’ yet but I surely will … thanks for the tip.

There is a nice tool called ‘Free Monitor for Google’ in a free version which does check your Google results with a list of keywords for plenty of pages. You’ll need a Google API key.

http://www.cleverstat.com/google-monitor-query.htm

By: Raj Dash

Raj Dash — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:04:58 +0000

Lonewacko: aah, but I wish I knew I’m still working on that aspect. The only suggestion I have is to try a two-step approach: First, check your keyword report weekly to stay on top of your own site’s most popular keywords. Second, compare the resulting list against some market research.

To do this market research, I use a free tool called The Dowser (thedowser.com). It’s a crippled version in which you can enter keywords and phrases, then retrieve monthly search counts from several engines.

By: LonewackoDotCom

LonewackoDotCom — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 21:23:13 +0000

No, the celeb stories are intentional. I just can’t help myself.

Perhaps this could be a future post: how do you convert lookie-loos, or at least get them interested in coming back for other items?

By: Raj Dash

Raj Dash — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:31:23 +0000

If you’re getting unexpected queries for your blog, it’s possible that your writing has irrelevant words and phrases.

For example, in one of my cooking blogs, I was talking about a fictional peanut butter and banana sandwich with a “picture” of The King, “Elvis Presley”. In a post either before or after that one, I talked about “ginger” root.

Someone did a query on one search engine for “picture of Ginger or Elvis”, or something close to that. Somehow, I ranked high for the search phrase and the visitor dropped in. It didn’t hurt that the blog’s name and URL had “elvis” in it. But I wasn’t talking about “Ginger”, the movie star character from the TV show Gilligan’s Island, nor about Ginger Rogers.

But because of these couple of posts, I still get traffic looking for “Elvis food”. So occasionally I’ll write about food interests of celebrities. But not often.

Do you see my point? Depending on your content agenda, you can take advantage of the terms search engine traffic brings. Or not. Or be more careful when you write.

By: LonewackoDotCom

LonewackoDotCom — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 17:20:06 +0000

I’d imagine that the top celeb blogs are making lots of money, but I haven’t had good luck converting celeb traffic, including having adsense show PSAs. Wouldn’t that time and effort be better spent on blogging about products and other things that involve buying rather than ogling?

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 01:17:12 +0000

You have your answer right there

By: LonewackoDotCom

LonewackoDotCom — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 01:04:08 +0000

So, what if you get a fair amount of celebrity-oriented traffic, but not anywhere near enough to be in the same category as the top celeb blogs?

And, what if you run a serious political blog and, while you have occasional celeb posts you don’t want to be a celeb blog (at least at that site).

Doing a spin-off might work to a certain extent, but it would take a lot of time and effort to make it worthwhile.

And, how do you convert that traffic? Most are lookie-loos and not buyers.