I know, I know old news is just so exciting isn’t it? So when I tell you that overture, Wordtracker, Google Keyword tool and others all seem to have 2 or 3+ month old data, should that really surprise you?

Not really, Google’s honest about it right in their stats showing “monthly search volume for october” right now when you search and it’s NOVEMBER!!!

Where’s november’s stats?

Well, if you wanted to, you could use Google’s Insight’s for Search and that does seem to show the RISING stats, but only shows the top 5, so if you want some more detailed data or the LONG tail phrases which show what people REALLY want, and not just the top trends… Then your simply out of luck. Google doesn’t provide this.

I Checked nichebot, and a few others, because the niche i’m looking into right now is actually SO NEW, that there’s no data in Google or any other keyword research tool I’ve looked at yet, because it only came out early November kinda range…

Being a technical electronic device, people are bound to have questions and problems with this product and in this niche just as they did with previous version of this product and there’s a need for an online resource about it, but where do you get that research??

There’s no “Twitter” Of keyword research yet… But is there?

Introducing 7Search’s keyword research tool. Thru quite a bit of testing, it’s proven to show me active volume of searches that ARE happening in the last two weeks. I dunno if it’s a fluke or not, but getting long tail phrases AS they happen lets you write blog posts about what people care about TODAY!!! and not one or two months ago!

Note, I see that it says these searches are from October, but thru testing — But there are some search volumes showing for certain features & options that weren’t available in October… So their tool even though it SAYS october is showing newer searches.

Boy is that ever useful!

Daniel J Deyette

The old myth has been circulating around the internet for over 8 years, and I even believed it, thinking if a client had a brand new domain, with very little link popularity or even zero that there was no way to expect any kind of organic Google traffic early in the game…

PPC being your only option to getting some testing & search traffic up and going until we did a pile of link building and general press before you got traffic…

Last week, Google proved me wrong. Thanks Google!

Domain Created on: 18-Nov-09
Links built on the 20th (about 8 ~ 10 directories submitted)

Yes, within 10 business days, the site received about 20 hits via very specific searches. No, no waterfall or firehose of traffic by anyone’s stretch of the imagination, but still! Within 6 days, it started ranking in organic searches for search terms… Many clients have wanted the domain to show up for it’s own NAME within 2 weeks and that doesn’t happen, this one not only does that but also gets searches for it’s content!

Proof there are still niche markets to be had out there. Keep hunting, because treasure troves are still out there. No, 10 searchers is nothing to get excited about, but I will say that this market I’m referring to is huge, so when it DOES start ranking for the terms we’re aiming for we’re in for a BIG bonus.

Just wanted to clear that myth up because truth is the more content we post and the more links we build the more that will really come into play in the next few days.

I won’t post the topic or niche though because this client deserves a fresh chance at the market before anyone else jumps in…

But still, you should know it’s possible!

Until next time
Daniel J Deyette

So, with the widespread publicity around Google’s Chrome OS one might start asking themselves, why not go ahead and get into it the second it’s ready? Before you start thinking that this could solve your PC computing problems for good and that this is your next big move away from Windows & Mac operating systems and into the cloud computing world where data backups aren’t neccesary… Consider the Google track record for customer data and security…

Consider when A bank forced the suspension and deletion of a Gmail user’s account and all his emails.
(Imagine if that was your "email" program on Chrome OS)

Or when one of the writers on Lifehacker’s Wife had their Gmail account hacked and started sending out weird emails to her list…. (Imagine if that was your Chrome OS)

Or when one of the Twitter employees had their Google Docs account hacked , giving them access to her notes, spreadsheets, calendars and other documents the company relied on…

Cloud computing is a dream everyone shares, but it’s also a big nightmare waiting to happen. Google and others are saying you wouldn’t rely on this for your full time computing needs but a great thing for netbooks, but often I think the tasks we do on our netbooks and other gadgets are sometimes the most sensitive tasks we ever do!

Paying bills, buying things, logging into accounts remotely to check up on things, accessing our work VPN.. Many things you wouldn’t realy want to trust Google Chrome to help you do… If you really do everything online, that’s great… But I would suspect that Chrome OS might not be your best friend for all things "internet".

Consider Google’s track record for helping users with their "Free" services , and at what cost… I mean, when even Twitter’s Google Docs get hacked, who’s safe?

Well, Despite my worst fears, it finally arrived. I haven’t had much time to throughly test it, yet so I can’t say much… What I *will* say is despite the battery cover being a pain in the butt to operate that this thing is very slick, the keyboard is more than adequate and the web browser is actually very impressive.

What shocked me was this blog loaded perfectly fine, where on my old one it woudln’t load the CSS but I could read the articles… It works brilliantly.

The trackpad definitely takes some getting used to, so that’ll be an odd adjustment… I’ll report later on battery life, picture quality and other things.

I made numerous reports on various sites complaining , and complaining and complaining some more that I had not received it, I ordered it on a tuesday, and 3 weeks later it finally got here… THAT i’m not impressed with. I phoned Yesterday (Thursday) and said that if it wasn’t on it’s way I was going to cancel it. I didn’t need to be bothered and emotionally upset by how long it was taking that badly, I could wait until they worked the bugs out of the silly thing.

I go by Dano77 on most places, and Thumbtyper on some bberry forums.

Ryan Healy truly is someone I find hard *not* to respect. The guy gives free copy writing tips and interesting advice on his blog, and despite the chance his freelance clients might complain, often discusses the intricacies of the client/freelancer relationship that many of us would be afraid to discuss.

I’ve been freelancing now for about 2.5 years and I know myself that the *last* thing I would do is post what’s going on in my challenges in their accounts even if I didn’t mention a client name.. Just the thought of them reading something like that on my blog sends chills down my spine.

– Anyway –

I too suffered major skin problems when I was a kid… And this lesson Ryan speaks of is so paramount to all levels of business, copywriting and everything in between that it shakes the foundations of how you should write on your blog, website, twitter, facebook, fax campaigns, direct mail, print, tv, radio.. I can see it applying to everything!

See – If you did do that initial market research I’m always talking about, then you’d easily begin to see what challenges, pains, jealousy, frustration, anger, pride, fear or other emotions that you SHARE with your customers that you totally understand…

And as Ryan Explains… That – builds trust.

Trust is probably one of the hardest things to get.. Online or offline in a new relationship or when you first meet someone (we’re talking prospects & customers here..) and any extra tool in the toolbox is brilliant!!!!

Until Next Time!
Daniel J Deyette

Another question from the old email grab bag…

"how to make my website searchable?"

Good question!

I’m a big fan of the Google CSE for basic sites and even some moderately advanced ones…  It’s not complicated to use and it lets you build a search engine that only searches your website and even collect money if someone clicks on an ad.

Truth is, it seems Google has perfected the art of finding things based on phrases, similar words and popularity even within a single site and you’ll see by many government websites that it’s almost never a good idea to try and build your own search engine from scratch or rely on basic text searches which may bring up very relavent and extremely old documents! … And that sucks!

Google won’t do that to you.

Until next time,
Daniel J Deyette

I thought I’d take the time to answer some emails that I get from time to time here on my blog.

This week’s question was "how to make my website appear on google?"

I’ve spoken to this topic tons of times at various events and conferences, but the gyst is based on these 3 things.

Relevance (having the words you want to show up for somewhere on your site)

Popularity (having other sites linking to you)

Trust (having a site that’s old, or having older sites link to you)

Now that is an extreme over-simplification of a very complicated algorithm, but let me share some secrets if you’re new to the game and NOT trying to rank for competitive terms.

To get your site into the Google index and appear for searches like YOUR name or business name, directory submissions at places like Business.com, Yahoo Directory and such can help BIG time. Another great trick is using eBay’s Kijiji.ca where for only $1.00 via paypal you can get a link that gets listed in Google pretty rapidly in most cases.

Are you trying to rank for a phrase that’s really competitive? Is it going to be REALLY hard to rank for?

I wrote an entire book on this topic, but if the sites your going up against are really old, or have tons of popularity, you might consider re-visiting the Google keyword research tool for less competitive phrases.

Until next time!

What’s different about writing copy specifically for the Web vs writing for offline media, flyers brochures etc?

The Click!

Yes, one mouse click and your gone, or another mouse click and your deeper into the website. Absolutely true and that completely simple. Beyond that, the same words that have been exciting, driving and creating demand since the 1400s still work today.

Tip! Whenever you ask visitors to click you loose 40 ~ 80% or more. Scrolling is a mindless activity that requires no thought, so always try and include as much as you can on one page as possible. Focus your efforts on what people want to hear. Ensure you’ve done enough research and competitive intelligence, look at existing samples.

So much data available today!

Use emotional words like provided free in my opt-in offer on the right! Anyway, more on all of this another time.

Absolutely Facinating..

AWL shows a dramatic cast of what the future of the newspaper business looks like in his recent post showing the various newspapers we’ve all come to know and love and read growing up over the years. Not small newspapers but huge ones like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily News, Washington Post, New York Post and their falling readership levels year over year.

Check it out

It’s a graph worth looking at… You may need it some day for a powerpoint presentation you may give…

Experts have said for months that Yahoo has really given up the ghost, by "selling out" to Microsoft letting Bing run the search engine instead of Yahoo’s engine.
Yahoo’s apparently addressing that issue on their marketing blog discussing "the next wave of search" .

Yahoo posted how they are still creating innovations in search, paid advertising and consumer relevance.

Yahoo, I know your trying to remain viable… But the MS deal still seems like a sell out. Even if Yahoo does come up with all kinds of innovations in the search market, I still can’t see them being a viable business in the long term unless something somewhat dramatic changes in the background.