Things To Do Before Making Your First Post/Weblog Entry...Part 3

This third "to-do" is intended for totally brand-new bloggers using the free Blogger platform.

3. Make all the necessary settings on your blog template.

This seems too obvious that you'd probably say I shouldn't even write about it. Well, yes and no. Yes, that statement applies to experienced bloggers. But, no, you are likely to overlook this if you're a total newcomer to the Blogger platform, because after completing Blogger's simple three-step registration process, you are prodded to click the "Start Blogging" button at the lower right hand portion of that final page.

Actually, that's exactly what happened to me. I clicked the orange-colored "Start Blogging" button, and proceeded right away to writing my thoughts. So, if you'll see my maiden post in my original blog, there is one small detail there that is not right--the time I published my post.

Officially stamped on my blog was "4:52 p.m.", although my own notes about my first day of blogging said that I clicked the "Publish Post" button at "12:52 a.m". Now, I didn't notice this error until much, much later, when I started wondering why my timestamps did not reflect official Philippine time. But then, time was only one of the several other small details about the Blogger platform that I was oblivious to at the start.

So, I suggest that you get these necessary settings over and done with even before you start blogging. The Blogger "Dashboard" is where you are taken after a successful log-in. You will notice that there are 3 main Manage tabs in that Dashboard--"Posts", "Settings" and "Layout". For our purpose here, the adjustments that you need to do before publishing your first post are mostly in the "Settings" and "Layout" tabs, and these are discussed below:

A. SETTINGS

A.1. Basic

Title -

I used to think that I was stuck with the title of the blog which I used to register with Blogger. No, this is not the case. You can change your mind about your blog's title. The only thing you cannot change is the sub-domain name of your blog, i.e., the keyword that appears before the "Blogspot.com" in your full blog address (technically called "URL").

Description -

It pays for you to spend some time for drafting this. The key is to keep your write-up brief but concise. Use as many of the keywords that you want your blog to be tagged with in the search engines.

If you have done this exercise satisfactorily, you'll realize that it's all worth the trouble when you start joining social networking sites, online directories, etc. All of these will require you to give a short description of your blog.

I doubt if you'll relish the idea of re-writing your blog's description every time you join a new directory or networking site. You just need to copy and paste your blog description in Blogger, if you have done your homework here.

How you set the rest in the "Basic" tab (like "Add your blog to our listings", "Let search engines find your blog", etc.) will depend on your own preferences as well as intention. After completing your adjustments, don't forget to click the orange-colored "Save" button.

A.2. Publishing -

This is where you are shown your official Blog*Spot address. This is also where you can manage your shift to a "custom domain", or where you "point" your own registered domain name to your blog. I will devote a separate post for the latter.

A.3. Formatting -

Show-

How you set this depends largely on how prolific a blogger you are. Some bloggers have the time and energy to write more than one post a day. But some, like me who have a full-time day job, find it difficult to religiously publish even one post a day.

However, whether you are a prolific writer or not, there is something that you need to be aware of when setting "Show"--the loading time for the main page. The more contents on the main page, the more time is needed for the complete page to appear on the computer screen. In fact, if your page has a lot of graphics, images or photos, in addition to text, the loading time would be comparatively longer than that of a page with pure text.

Now, why am I pointing out this obviously technical issue that has nothing to do with writing or blogging per se? It's because there are blog readers or visitors who don't have the patience to wait for the entire page to load before they decide whether to stay or not. Most would simply leave and move on to other sites. That would be a pity, given how difficult it is to attract visitor traffic to a blog.

The rest of the adjustments will again depend on your personal preferences (e.g., Archive Index Date Format, Timestamp Format, etc.) and personal circumstances (e.g., Time Zone). Whatever you do, just don't forget to click the orange-colored "Save" button.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Things To Do Before Making Your First Post/Weblog Entry...Part 6

We are still on LAYOUTS. In my previous post (I'm so sorry about the long interval between the previous post and the present; I've been busy with my budding consulting venture with friends), I discussed Page Elements, Let me move on to the other sub-menus under Layouts:

2. Fonts and Color-

When you click the link for Fonts and Color, this what will appear above the BloggerNavBar:


Explore that and you will realize how much leeway you'll have in customizing the appearance of your chosen template. Let me emphasize the latter because your chosen template puts an upper limit on just what you can do with your blog. Within the physical limitations, however, of your chosen template, you can alter the color of the following :

--Page Background Color

--Text Color

--Link Color

--Title Color

--Blog Description Color

--Post Title Color

--Border Color

--Sidebar Title Color

--Visited Link Color

In addition, you can modify the Font style of the following:

--Text Font

--Sidebar Title Font

--Sidebar Title Font

--Blog Description Font

--Post Footer Font

You will notice from the snipped picture above that the Blogger platform provides you with color suggestions as to those that match your blog template. Of course, you can always opt to disregard these suggested colors and base your choice on your taste or your desired effect; it is difficult really to make any generalized suggestions on my part.

If you feel overwhelmed by the array of color choices available to you, you could opt to click the link for "Shuffle blog colors". With every click, your blog changes color (both text and background), which somehow simplifies your work by allowing you to focus more on the aesthetic aspects of your blog.

The best part of all? If after trying everything and you're still unhappy with your color and text combinations, you can always summon back the original appearance of your blog by clicking the link "Revert to template default." As simple as that.

3. Edit HTML-

When you click the third link under Layout, you will see something like this:



For your first post, there is no need to make any changes or adjustments in your blog template yet. However, as you progress in your blogging activity, I have no doubt you will need to familiarize yourself with the coding of your blog template, even if you're not techie. I will go back to this point at the appropriate time.

4. Pick New Template-

This is the fourth and last link under Layout. While I don't anticipate that you will want to change your template so soon (you have not even made your first post!), should you find it necessary, picking a new template is as easy as 1-2-3. It's really child's play in Blogger.

With that long-winded familiarity tour of the Blogger Dashboard, it's time for you to buckle up for some serious blogging. What are you waiting for? Get on with your "Hello World" maiden post, so you can click the last tab in the Blogger Platform, which needs no explanation--VIEW BLOG!

Things To Do Before Making Your First Post/Weblog Entry...Part 2

In Part 1, I ticked off the blogger's main considerations in deciding on his blog template. For this post, I'll continue with pointers that may seem obvious now that I know my way around the blogosphere, but these did not come naturally to me and I had to learn these lessons from actual experience. I'm not saying that we are in the same boat as newbies, but just in case we are, then read on.

2. Install a blog counter as soon as you have settled on your blog template, if your blog host or blog platform doesn't provide one.

My main worry as a newbie blogger then was content, or what to write about. As for visitors to my blog, I presumed that, as a matter of course, those whom I personally invited--the immediate members of my family, my other relatives, my investment banker friends, the friends of my friends, etc.--would come and read my posts. After the initial comment or two from some of them, however, I started doubting if I still had readers. Sometimes, over dinner, I would test if my wife had seen my latest post by talking her into it. But believe me, since reading blogs is a voluntary thing and we live in a democracy, I've learned not to expect too much even from the wife, much less other people.

So, back to what I wanted to say, a blogger needs to install a monitoring system that is passive and non-intrusive. There are many free blog counters available on the Web, ranging from the simplest (a plain digital read-out installed on your blog) to the most sophisticated (a statistical gathering system that monitors not only the number of unique and returning visitors to your blog but also your RSS feed readers and email subscribers, duration of their stay on your site, country of origin, and many other details). Simply Google the term, "free blog counter" and you'll be rewarded with a long list blog counter providers on the Internet.

My very first free blog counter was provided by BlogPatrol.com. Registering for a free account is a simple, hassle-free process. Insofar as keeping track of direct visitors to my blog is concerned, I was happy with the level of detail that it provided. However, since it could not count those who did not directly visit my site, the stats it reported was obviously understated. For this purpose, I needed a system which could count both the direct and indirect visitors of my blog. One of the most popular, which was recently acquired by Google, is Feedburner.com. In addition to BlogPatrol and Feedburner, I also signed-up more recently for Google Analytics to enhance my statistical monitoring of my visitor traffic.

I'll probably devote a separate post just for the mechanics of setting up your blog for the said visitor traffic monitoring systems, for the benefit of bloggers who, for example, might get intimidated by terms like, "Burn your feed" (I couldn't comprehend then what it took to "burn" my feed, and I didn't know how to get my blog's feed address, so it took me a while before I decided to install Feedburner in my blog).

TO BE CONTINUED...

Things To Do Before Making Your First Post/Weblog Entry...Part 1

The excitement and momentum of successfully creating my first free hosted Blogger (Blog*Spot) blog carried me forward to rushing my first ever written work published on the Web, after I settled on the "Sand Dollar" template. Of course, everything's different when it's your first time, but having learned from that experience I'd like now to share some pointers that a newbie blogger may want to consider before publishing his/her first post or Weblog entry. I'm careful to use "may" instead of "should" because these advices are not absolute, but just preferable for a practical reason over the long term--you are spared from re-doing many of your widgets in the sidebar of you blog when you decide later on to change your ill-considered first template.

1. Decide on the blog template that you really want.

There are objective and subjective considerations involved in the choice of a blog template. The objective aspects include:

--Cost - There are many free downloadable blog templates for various platforms (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.) available on the Web. For really picky bloggers, however, these free templates may not be good enough. Some websites offer free help for limited customization in exchange for credits thru links in the blog, but in general, a highly customized template will cost some money.

--Ease of use - User-friendliness is an important consideration for non-techies. Blogs are maintained via a so-called "Dashboard". The dashboard is where a blogger controls the publication of his posts, the appearance of his site, and everything else That one finds on a typical blog. The dashboard was where I realized that blogging had a technical side to it that I had not anticipated. Among the free hosted blogs that I have tried so far, I give the Blogger and Wordpress dashboards my two thumbs up.

--Purpose or goal - Some blog templates are more suitable for certain purposes, so it will save a blogger time and effort to be clear about his objective right from the start of his blogging journey. For instance, if a blog is intended to make money, a three-column, AdSense-friendly template would optimize a blogger's ad revenue potential. (AdSense is an ad serving program run by Google). Also, if a blog is meant to project a clean, Zen-like aura, a very basic two-column template like Blogger's "Minima" will suffice.

On the other hand, the subjective aspect can be covered by the term "look and feel" of the blog. Now, this is rather tricky, but critical for a blogger. If you have at least surfed or visited other websites or blogs once before you read this, you know what I mean when I say "critical". First impression is important, don't you agree? It could spell the difference between your decision to stay or leave within seconds of landing on a Website or blog page.

What is frustrating, however, is that I have yet to come across a rulebook that lays down in specific terms what one should consider to achieve a particular look and feel for a blog. For instance, I've seen templates that are classified as "Web 2.0". Maybe, techies understand each other when they talk about a "Web 2.0" template. But believe me, most people don't.

"Look and feel" is a broad concept that encompasses the interplay of colors, fonts, graphics, header, footer and sidebar design, and every little detail that you see in a typical blog. In the absence of any such rulebook, a blogger has to rely largely on his taste and aesthetic sense to decide on the look and feel that is "appropriate" for his blog.

Creating A Free Blogger Blog

Although creating a free Blogger (Blog*Spot) blog is an easy 3-step process for most newcomers to blogging, this post might still come in handy for some with peculiar situations.

If this is your first time to hear about Blogger, there are two ways of getting there--you can do a search of the term "Blogger" (then click the resulting link), or you can type "blogger.com" directly on your browser window. Once you get to the Blogger website:

1. Click the "Create Your Blog Now" link, as shown below:













2. Handle the next step depending on any of two situations that you might find yourself in. The first case is if you already have a Google account (by this Blogger means Gmail, Google Group or Orkut). If you belong to the first case, you can skip Step # 1 by clicking the "Sign in first" link provided, as shown below:










The second case is if you don't have a Google account but have an existing email address somewhere else (e.g., Yahoo, Hotmail). If this is your situation, type your email address in the space provided (see above screenshot) and complete the form provided by Blogger in Step # 1.

3. The next step is to "Name Your Blog". This is where my earlier posts ("Naming Your Blog" and "How To Research Keywords") can be useful resources. This how the form provided by Blogger in this step looks like:

















Except for the trial-and-rror nature of getting your blog address or URL, especially if the blog address you want is popular or in high demand, there is nothing difficult or ambiguous in this step.

4. Once Blogger clears the blog address you want and the word verification process is successful, you are ready to choose the template of your blog in the next step. As partially shown in the screenshot below, Blogger offers a standard menu of 12 entry-level 2-column templates, namely: "Minima", "Minima Black", "Dots", "Son of Motto", "No.897", "Scribe", "Tic Tac", "Thisaway Rose", "Snapshot", "Rounders 3", "Dots Dark" and "Sand Dollar."If you're like most bloggers, these entry-level templates won't be up to your standard or liking. But don't worry. As soon as you have set up your blog, you can customize these templates (Blogger offers some options or variations for these standard templates, although admittedly limited).
















5. After choosing your template (by clicking on the round radio button below the corresponding template) and clicking on the "Continue" like at the lower right hand portion of your screen, you'll be rewarded with this milestone page:










By clicking the "Start Blogging" link at the bottom right hand portion of your screen you are just one more step away from becoming a full-fledged blogger. That last step is the publication of your maiden post (or blog entry)--the first of many such labor of love and late nights. Good luck!

Two Lessons From Free Hosted Blogs

My first online journal was a free hosted blog at Blogger.com (*Blogspot*). Within a week after launching my first blog, I created my second free blog at Blogstream.com, which I have abandoned since posting two or three entries there. Disappointed with my experience at Blogstream.com, and eager to explore other blogging platforms, I created another free blog at Wordpress.com, where I stayed for awhile.

Much later, upon the invitation of friends, I have likewise registered with MySpace.com and Multiply.com and blogged in these social networking sites for some time. Today, I only blog at Blogger.com, even though some of my blogs already have their own domain names. I mentioned all these so you'd know where I'm coming from. Compared to other bloggers, the range of my experience with free hosted blogs is admittedly limited. Be conscious of this context, therefore, when I share the following lessons with you:

Lesson No. 1: Free hosted blogs have limited monetization opportunities-

When I started blogging in December 2006, I was only too glad to be able to blog free of charge. My reality check came soon enough when I already wanted to monetize my blog. Although my free Blogger (*Blogspot*) blog could earn from ad revenues via Google AdSense, I discovered that my Blogspot address was a liabilty in some "make money online" sites like PayPerPost (PPP), where an accredited blogger gets paid for doing reviews of other blogs, websites or products/services. Free hosted Blogspot blogs belonged to what PPP called "excluded domains" in many of the review opps there, as seen in the screenshot below:








My experience with a free Wordpress.com blog was worse--it could not be monetized in any way (even Google AdSense), period. The limitation was inherent in the design and programming of the blogging platform used for the free hosted blogs. As a matter of policy, Wordpress.com blogs are ad-free. It was something I glossed over when I opened an account there. Actually, when you're new to blogging, there are many things you'll gloss over because you don't know any better.

By contrast, there are ads in MySpace and Multiply. However, the revenue is not earned by the blogger; it goes to the host, that's why they can offer their facilities and services for free.

Lesson No. 2: You'll lose your PageRank when you convert to your own domain name later-

"Domain name" has multiple related meanings, as you can see in this link. In this post, however, I'm using the term "domain name" to refer to one's blog address.

It didn't bother me then that I had a very long blog address. It was long because my free Blogger blog had a unique address that consisted of three (3) components, namely: a top-level (".com") and second-level ("blogspot") domain and a sub-domain ("myblog"). These are written in reverse order--i.e., "myblog.blogspot.com".

I decided to finally get my own domain name--i.e., make my blog address "www.myblog.com"--to earn more respectability. Forbes.com invited me in late 2007 to join its network of business and finance blogs. I thought my blog needed a more upscale address if I were to join Forbes' blog network, and I could only achieve that by dropping the "Blogspot" domain.

To my great disappointment, I lost the Google "PageRank (PR)" of my Blogspot blog when I converted to my own domain name later on. PageRank is Google's system for ranking Web pages. It is considered the Holy Grail of bloggers because it is an indicator of an individual blog's value and plays a crucial role in Web searches using Google. It took me many months of hard blogging work just to get a PR2, much less a PR3, only to lose it overnight with my shift to a new domain name. Remember, a blog address or URL (acronym for "Uniform Resource Locator", previously "Universal Resource Locator") is unique. PR belongs to that unique blog address and not to you as the blogger. So, when you shift to a new unique address, even if you still have the same contents in your blog, you'll lose your PR. Google is programmed that way.

Resource Links:

1. Blogger.com.

2. Blogstream.com.

3. Wordpress.com.

4. MySpace.com.

5. Multiply.com.

6. "What is a domain name?"

7. "URL".

8. "Google Technology: PageRank Explained".

Blogging Platform: Publishing Your Blog

You have decided you want to blog, you have access to (if not own) a computer and Internet connection, you have researched on the keyword/s that matter to you, and you have an idea on what to call your blog. Now comes the next logical question: how and where do you publish your blog? Not so fast. It just occured to me that I have been using the term "blog" without ever pausing to define it formally. Well, I think I have to now, because I'd like to make a fine point between a blog and a website after that.

Back to Basics

The term "blog" is the short and highly popular name for a "web log"--an online (that's the "web" in "web log") log or journal or diary (that's the "log" in "web log") whose entries (called "posts") are published in reverse chronological order. They took the "b" from "web" then spliced it with "log" to come up with "blog". That's the long and the short of it, based on the various online sources I visited in the process of my research.

A blog is basically different from a conventional website in how they are written. The latter is great for delivery of content but is mostly static, often impersonal and infrequently updated. By contrast, the former is very easy to update, more versatile and dynamic in content delivery, and allows for two-way communications, making it more personal than a conventional website (click this for more). Realizing this, a growing number of websites now have a blog or several blogs within them.

Blog Publishing Systems

The earliest weblogs were authored by Internet geeks because it was only they who knew how to write in a language that could be read and understood by computers. However, even they grew tired of the difficulties in updating their online journals manually each time. So, eventually they designed a publishing sytem that automated the whole process.

What the Internet geeks came up with was a browser-based (when I say "browser", I'm referring to the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox) software which contained a Content Management System specially designed for creating and maintaining weblogs. Thus, with this weblog software, all that a blogger (even a non-techie) needed was a web browser and Internet access to be able to post to his online journal.

There are several such software applications or blogging platforms. In my case, my first blog was on a Blogger (*Blogspot*) platform for no particular reason except that somebody, whom I met quite serendipitously, recommended it and said I could blog there for free. That got me hooked. But Blogger.com was by no means the only provider of free hosted blogs on the Web, so when I got confident enough with my first blog, I decided to explore other free hosted blogs at Blogstream.com, Wordpress.com, and Multiply.com. Over time, I have abandoned these other blogging platforms and recently started converting some of my blogs into custom domains (I will devote a separate post on this).

Here is a list of some of today's blogging platforms, available either as a service or download, which I have excerpted from www.benh.org :

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is the best and well-known open source Blogging platform. It is widely used commonly by popular self-hosted blogs around the blogosphere. It runs with minimal setup and it requires just PHP/ MySQL preferably in Apache. It rates high compared with other since it can be highly customized. In addition to this there are huge number of plugin authors and theme authors are there to help reduce bloggers effort. WordPress.org also has nice development community that ensures the WordPress core get better and better.

Blogger

Blogger is a free one-push blog publishing platform. Most of the novice bloggers starts Blogging with Google’s Blogger in first place. The new blogger comes in with Widget support that eradicated the use of HTML for templates. Setting up a blog in Blogger is painless and easiest of anything else. You can customize Blogger to certain extend only since they are not an open source solution. There are few popular blogs that still runs on Blogger.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a multi-user version variant of WordPress.org. WordPress.com have their own-hosted solution of newbie bloggers, who doesn’t have a hosting space. WordPress.com comes in with neat option for a newbie. WordPress.com comes with space restrictions; in addition to that you can monetize your blog.

Movable Type

Movable Type is a web blog publishing platform successfully developed by SixApart. It is the one who invented Trackback feature in the first hand that was later devised by other blogging systems as well and now it is more-or-less a standard. Movable Type is written in Perl and supports most of the Database as backend. Movable Type is best suited for business use.

Typepad

Typepad is a blogging service provided by SixApart and it is one of largest paid blogging service available now. Typepad is based on Movable Type and it shares most of its technical functions. Additionally, it also supports multi-user, mobile and photo blogging. Typepad is been successfully used by lot of professional writers.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a CMS that allows you to express your self by publishing your private journal, your blog or your forum or any of a social entity. It is the best in town for writing life journals.

Vox

Vox is a personal blogging service. It’s all about ease of use, privacy control, playing well with other web services, and staying connected to the people you care about. Vox is good platform when it comes to multimedia blogging.

Text Pattern

Text Pattern is a flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites. Blogs works fine as well. Text Pattern also has its own list of plugins and templates.

Drupal

Drupal is a modular content management system and the blogging engine was initially indented for bulletin board system. Drupal is good for building online communities and those communities powers their blogging engine. It is written in PHP. It has a wide community support.

Joomla

Joomla is truly a content management system that forked from Mambo, a pretty good open source content management system. Joomla has won the best open source content management system of the year 2006. Joomla has a decent blogging engine and other extension.

Expression Engine

pMachine’s Expression Engine is not well known but it is a powerful and much extensible software that you may need to give a try. It is a complete content management system with much Blogging feature as well. In addition to Blogging module it comes with inbuilt gallery module. It is more suitable for heavy business blogs. Also the cost associated with it is high.

Nucleus

Nucleus is been around for sometime now and it is not much popular yet though. Nucleus is mature blogging software that comes with most of the required blogging features. Nucleus is also programmed in PHP and runs on MySQL backend.

b2evolution

b2evolution was developed from the same original code that spawned WordPress. b2Evolution is written in PHP and licensed under GPL so is always free to use. It comes with lot of features that you may need to check, which includes antispam, skins, multi-blogs, users, authors, integrated stats, its own plugin framework etc. etc.

TeraPad

TeraPad is hosted blogging solution which takes the blogger beyond the blogging experience. TeraPad comes in with versatile blogging tools, image gallery, PayPal ready shopping cart, event calendar etc. TeraPad places a its ad over the site which might annoy bloggers a little but may be needed for TeraPad to keep its service free.

My Take on Blogging Platform

With the benefit of hindsight, these are the pointers that I'd like to share with you in deciding on your blogging platform:

--If you intend to monetize your blog or if PageRank is important to you, it will pay over the long term to resist the temptation of a free hosted blogging platform (I will devote a separate post to explain this some more. For now, just take my word for it).

--Among the self-hosted blogs (i.e., not free), the most popular blogging platform is Wordpress for the above-cited reasons.

--Between a free hosted Blogger and a free hosted Wordpress (I cannot speak for the rest), the former proved to be the more versatile platform from the viewpoint of monetization.

How To Research Key Words

This is the natural sequel to my "Naming A Blog" post if you want to inject a little science into your blogging. Of course, you are always free to just rely on your gut feel (like I did when I decided on my first blog) and pick whatever keywords catch your fancy as you look up the ceiling or stare out your window. If that's your pleasure, you can altogether stop here and do other things where you can use your time more productively. However, since I've traveled that road before, I can say that time spent for a little keyword research won't hurt, especially if you intend to build a business around your blog later on.

Keyword Research Tools

There are a number of keyword research tools available on the Web. Some are free and some are not (but offer free trial like this). Since there are free tools, you absolutely have no reason for not at least trying them. One of the most user-friendly free online tool to use is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (click the link for easy access to the site). To use it:

1. Set the radio button as shown below:






2. Type the word/s or phrase/s (keyword/s) that you want to research on the box provided, then click the button provided below the box as shown below :









3. After the results are displayed, filter your results by choosing either "Show All" or "Show default" in the drop box provided (you do this by clicking the arrow which I highlighted on the right, then clicking again your choice from the menu that drops down):




4. If you choose the "Show default" mode, only three (3) columns will be displayed, as shown below:




5. On the other hand, if you choose the "Show all" mode, six (6) columns will be displayed, as follows:




To illustrate how one can use the results of this keyword research tool, I typed 4 phrases, namely: "investment banker", "investment banking", "ibanker", and "ibanking" in the appropriate box. The tool came up with 21 major results (although I only searched for 4 terms, remember?) and 114 additional keywords to consider as well. But just to focus on my 4 original keywords, here's a screenshot of the results using the "Show All" mode:







As you can see from the above table, it can be concluded that:

--The keyword "investment banking" has a better average search volume than keyword "investment banker."

--Advertisers favor the terms "investment banking" and "investment banker" over "ibanking" or "ibanker."

--As for their respective short names, "ibanker" gave a better average search volume than "ibanking."

--Searches for "investment banking" and "ibanking" peak during June/July, while searches for "investment banker" peak in April.

In other words, had I known about this tool when I was just deciding to blog, I might have named my first blog as "My Investment Banking Blog" instead of "An Investment Banker's Take On Life" based purely on projected visitor traffic via the search engines.

Search Behavior That You Should Consider in Keyword Selection

These are interesting findings from Oznet.com.au about the behavior of Internet users that a blogger has to bear in mind:

1.They visit a top 5 search engine and type in a word or two.

2. Then they examine the search result, up to 2 maximum 3 pages.

3. If the result does not show them what they are looking for, they will try different keyword combinations.

4. If they still don't get what they want they switch to a different search engine and repeat the process.

If you'll click the above link I provided for Oznet.com.au, you'll discover that there are still more useful tips about keyword research in that site, especially for businesses that intend to sell products or services online.

Resource Links:

For the benefit of others who'd prefer a briefing on the subject of keyword research in video format, I have embedded the following two YouTube videos for their convenience:

1. Keyword Research Video, Part 1




2. Keyword Research Video, Part 2