Every day, people ask Google for 3 wishes … or maybe a lot more. They search for a blog marketing plan or system, techniques, a network, a guide, tips, a traffic strategy, methods, tactics, ideas, a program, a model, mistakes, advice, and tricks.

These words are magic. The hottest prospects you target for your online business products and services are searching the internet and specific directories for these very words related to your niche, in hopes of getting the exact traffic and conversion results they want.

I see many marketers in the blogosphere who do a lot of advertising optimization analysis, focused on finding the most popular keyword phrase to get ranked for in Google … usually, a “money” phrase that the Google spiders show a high number of monthly searches for. I’m sure that works … but why spend all that time in digital figure-figure on the best keyword phrase, comparing one against another, when you can generate Google clicks for 20 or 30 or 40 good phrases in a single article?

If you can publish one article and get a free listing on Google for 20 – or more – search phrases that your best prospects are actively searching for … that could be very profitable for you.

A 20-Trick Pony

Let’s focus in detail on one facet of my last blog page title, Blog Promotion Plan. Two weeks after this post appeared, here are 20 of the many Google search results which pull up this article:

All of these high Google rankings come from a single blog post! Think about the relationship possibilities … each of these phrases is a term you can realistically see one of my potential buyers keying in to their Google search box. Actually … I could probably search out and list another 20 good keyword combinations that bring up this post, too. But you get the idea. (Also – I believe that as Net Traffic Machine gets stronger, with more good content, and more links, and more authority in Google’s eyes, these keyword results will move higher in the rankings.)

It’s important to understand how Google search works. If you search

apples oranges rutabaga

Google will bring up pages that contain those 3 words anywhere on the page, in any order. So if that’s a productivity phrase that you would like to have your page rank high for in Google, then those words must be on the page.

Important: if you consistently publish quality content and also theme your page with lots of other fruit & vegetable keywords, then Google is likely to consider you an authority … and your page is likely to rank high for your keyword phrase AND a lot of other phrases, based on the theme words you included in your article.

Take a look at the above search grid again. All the words in that grid are included in my Blog Promotion Plan post … giving me much more exposure on Google than just my title keyword phrase.

Do you see a profit opportunity here for you?

Read those targeted keyword phrases again. Notice how each one is a phrase that could trigger a real prospect to actually key it into the Google search box?

Result: I can write one blog post, optimize it with theme words, run it through the Synnd Content Syndication Network, and get free advertising from Google – maybe forever, if I handle this right – under many different search terms that good prospects will legitimately search.

It’s a marketing opportunity to highly leverage the popularity of Google. Hard to pass that one up.

As a blogger, it’s important to know who your real prospects are and what they really want. If you pay attention to what they buzz about in the social media, it’s easy to go to the next step – predicting what categories excite them and which catchy phrases they will search in Google. Sure, it is absolutely a good idea to keep a list of phrases handy from the Google Keyword External search tool. But don’t make a marketing career of that list. Write articles that educate, entertain, and enlighten. Provide your target market with information they’ll find very valuable.

The effect you want to create is that when they do a search, they find your site listed on the first page of Google results. When they click through to your website, you give them exactly the answers and community network they are looking for. You want them to click to add your website to their feed reader, and to buzz about you to others in the niche.

Obviously, you can get plenty of #1 Google rankings for a lot of phrases that no one will ever search. So it’s important to know your global target market and think through exactly what they really want and what words they’ll use to search for it. If you work those branded words into your themed article, Google will give potential buyers a lot of ways to find you.

It’s a very time-effective and cost-effective method to get a lot of free advertising.

Richard Dennis
Synnd Content Network

I offer these tips as a guide to a blog promotion system strategy which I call, “Give Google a bone.” You can get 2 big advertising payoffs with these methods:

1.    High rank for search phrases that your target market is likely to actually enter into the Google search box. If you can do this once or twice a week, the branding and profit payoff can be huge. Getting first page placement in free Google search for popular keywords in your niche will create a lot more click-throughs to your website … plus, it’s easy on your marketing budget.
2.    Creating great content that generates social buzz in your community leads Google to see you as an authority site for your niche.

Results Update

It’s been an eventful 12 days since my post (1) Blog Promotion – and 19 days since (2) Blog Traffic Techniques. First the current article campaign results, and then the digital story behind them. On the left is the keyword search term and the above blog post title it is related to; then the # of Google search results for that target phrase; on the right is the current Google rank of that article:

* – Also included are the rankings of the social media pages bookmarking my blog post

Although Blog promotion is currently #16, it did make the first page of Google results and stayed there several days, in position #8. Even with all the mistakes (coming up …), the post has attracted high Google ranking against some very, very tough competition. Keep in mind that a ton of veteran internet marketers optimize for this keyword phrase. Plus, today there are 28 Adwords ads bidding against each other for this phrase, plus one sponsored link at the top of the search page. This page is valuable online real estate.

Note: It’s important to point out that this blog, Net Traffic Machine, still has a Page Rank of zero with Google! That means almost no incoming links to the pages on this site, and certainly none with any authority. Google’s ranking formula is big on authority. To achieve good Google search result productivity with lousy optimization (zero authority and a messed-up promotion – you’ll get the details in a minute) is pretty interesting performance … and if you are a new blogger, these marketing results should give you hope that attention to planning and theming can pay off for you.

Which reminds me … I’ve written a lot here about latent semantic indexing. Charles Heflin has pointed out that the techniques in these posts and in Google Drools do not really fit the definition of latent semantic indexing. LSI is actually based on a specific mathematical formula, and I’m way too “seat of the pants” for that. My #1 method is really just simple “theming.” For example, in a post like this, I have compiled a list of words related to blogging and another list related to promotion, and I use lots of those words when I write a post like this. My theory is that Google loves a well-themed article, because it is a strong indication that the specific niche market of searchers will find the article both relevant and very valuable. Google may be a robot, but its aluminum heart leaps with joy at the vision of a bunch of happy searchers who get exactly what they want.

Social Bookmarking Visitor Statistics (from Google Analytics)

1. Blog post (3/23/09): Blog Traffic Techniques

Total for the Blog Traffic Techniques article as of April 13:

• 51 Diggs
• 56 clips (Social Median bookmark)

First … since a person doesn’t have to bookmark a website to visit it, the social networks can easily generate more visitors than bookmarks. Next … obviously, not a lot of activity. The real question is … how did that Social Median burst on March 25-27 occur? And the formula is simple. Social Median has a front page section of “Hot Stories.” The Blog Traffic Techniques post received a great push from the content syndication network Synnd, so that it was displayed as a hot story on the front page of every member of Social Median. And then the push came not just from the Synnd community, but also from the Social Median community who clicked on a Hot Story. A little bit of viral.

The Digg page never got that kind of result, because it takes a lot more natural bookmarking to be hot on Digg. However … for almost 2 weeks now, the Digg page has been ranked in the top 6 Google search results for “blog traffic techniques.” That may be a big reason why the actual blog post is ranked #1. So even though the post never got noticed by the loyal Digg community, the Google results made Digg worthwhile.

Conclusion: Why not get that Social Median “Hot Story” push if you can? You can achieve that popularity by syndicating your targeted post Sunday or Monday (it may take up to 24 hours to appear). The drop-off in weekend traffic on Social Median is significant. If you publish late in the week, you greatly decrease your chances of becoming “Hot” … as you’ll see in the next section.

2. A Comedy of Errors – Blog post (4/02/09): Blog Promotion

Error #1: Everything is a test. I’ve had great success with practices like targeting short headline keyword phrases in articles published online. However … this test has made me realize that a simple 2-word targeted keyword title (e.g., “Blog Promotion”) is too risky. There are lots of articles under that same title online, including one already listed in Social Median (one of Synnd’s 3 current bookmark sites).

So the title helped sabotage navigation for the syndication community, and the result was confusion. When I put the job out to the Synnd network to syndicate the post “Blog Promotion,” the article wound up with 3 separate references on Social Median, dividing up the power of the bookmarking. So instead of a focused, profitable social bookmarking boost, submissions were divided amongst:

1. Blog Promotion (that’s the other guy’s page)
2. Blog Promotion Techniques (1st bookmarking of my BP page)
3. Blog Promotion: Net Traffic Machine (2nd bookmarking of my BP page!)

Error #2: On Saturday, the syndication system went out and stayed out for about 36 hours … so no more virtual bookmarks for that time. On the other hand, it was Saturday … probably not much to show for it anyway.

Error #3: Because it appeared to be a lost cause, I shut off the Blog Promotion syndication on April 6. I should have kept it going, because even with the above mistakes, it was a successful campaign.

Error #4: I published this post on a Thursday, which gave it very little time to gain a foothold before the doldrums of the weekend. That helped kill any chance it had to make the Social Median “Hot Stories” list, which would have given it a real boost.

Total for the Blog Promotion article as of April 13:

• 22 Diggs
• 5 clips for Blog Promotion (not my article)
• 9 clips for Blog Promotion Techniques
• 7 clips for Blog Promotion: Net Traffic Machine

Conclusion: from now on, I’ll only target a (minimum) 3-word keyword title phrase. That really doesn’t cost anything, because if Google loves my “Blog Promotion Plan” article, it will still get ranked for “Blog Promotion”, too. And it should prevent this type of mix-up.

Strategy
These results help bring a few tools in your workable, profitable blog promotion plan into focus:

• Target obvious phrases likely to be keyed in to Google search by those in your target market. However … the keyword phrase should always be 3 words or (not much) longer.
• Over time, consistently accumulate multiple first-page Google search results for popular keyword phrases. The result will be more targeted visitors, and also more credibility with Google. This means writing at least one highly-themed, very useful blog article each week.
• Find other ways to get Google to view your blog as an authority site. (More on this in future articles.)

Please use the comment button to let me know your thoughts and questions.

Richard Dennis

OK. I am pumped! Come on, world, let’s get ready to rumble!

Eight days ago, I published a blog post with a targeted keyword phrase headline, Blog Traffic Techniques. (Don’t you love the “Einstein” caveman graphic?) I challenged myself to use latent semantic indexing  to boost the article to first page of Google results for that search term (blog traffic techniques).

I’ve had many #1 search rankings using this strategy with the article directory EzineArticles.com. But this is different. Net Traffic Machine is just me, not a network. It’s sure not a household name to Google. This blog has been active for 3 months. Definitely not an authority site, and probably not first-page worthy content in Google’s deep blue (robot) eyes.

Look. I don’t claim to understand how the Google spiders work, or how Google algorithms measure and brand a website in credibility or authority, or what the page rank strategy is. I’m totally mystified about many things connected with search engine optimization. For instance …

Why did a Google search show 681,000 results for blog traffic techniques on March 24, but today (April 2), the same search returns 581,000 results? Beats me.

By the way … teeheehee … guess whose blog post is #1 for this search phrase on Google today? YES YES YES YES!!

No contest. Holy crap, I get excited over this digital marketing SEO promotion stuff. (Do I sound like a schoolgirl?)

In Blog Traffic Techniques, I wrote about the productivity tactics I’d be using to try to capture a #1 Google ranking from my blog. I mentioned that my blog isn’t exactly an authority site in Google’s eyes. Don’t believe me? Do a Google search for backlinks to this website:

links:nettrafficmachine.com

The Google results page shows 340 links right now … but that isn’t accurate. If you click down at the bottom on page 3 of Google results for this search, the links end there. There are actually 25 inbound links to Net Traffic Machine.

That’s not much.

And you know what? If you join Charles Heflin’s Social Media Science member site and use his Synnd software, I’ll bet after a half dozen of your posts have been bookmarked, you’ll probably have 25 natural incoming links, too. Maybe a lot more.

OK. I’m very excited because it looked like this test was an interactive failure, which is what I expected. After 6 days, I quit checking. Today, on day 9, I googled again … and voila!

blog traffic techniques

We’re Number ONE!

And that’s not all. When I search

blog traffic

there are 46,600,000 results … and my page is #18 on Google. The competition for a keyword phrase like blog traffic is incredible … the best of the best want that one. To reach page 2 of Google results there is … surprising.

OK. So I can get one of my blog posts ranked #1 for a term that a lot of people would love to be ranked #1 for, against approximately 581,000 other results. And #18 against 46 million results for an even better keyword phrase. Sweet marketing success.

The tactics and tools performed. So now we need a real challenge. A bit of theme research turns up a chance to take on the poster child for blogging!

Ever hear of Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.com? Beautiful website. I’ll bet you’ve seen it. Darren is one of the most famous bloggers online. The guy is a content creation animal. He gives value, value, value, every time he posts. I’ve received his newsletter and downloaded a couple of his freebies. In my dreams, I’m Darren Rowse. (In my dreams, I’m 25 years younger.)

So … very popular guy, very popular website. Every blog post he makes gets a ton of global trackbacks and over 100 comments … I see one post with over 700 comments! To Google, it doesn’t get more authoritative than Darren Rowse & ProBlogger.com.

Now … the title of this post is Blog Promotion. When I Google blog promotion today, Darren’s posts are #1 & #2 out of more than 20 million results.

Number 9 on the first page of Google results is DuctTapeMarketing.com, website of John Jantsch, another popular, successful, well-known internet marketer.

I guarantee you there are plenty of people on this Google results page who have spent years getting good at this stuff, who Google really views as authority websites & blogs.

What chance does Net Traffic Machine have?

Well … here’s today’s money game strategy:

1. I’ve chosen a very competitive 2-word keyword phrase title, Blog Promotion.
2. This post has a bunch of LSI words (related to both “blog” and “promotion”).
3. I’ll be farming out the bookmarking again to the Social Media Science Synnd social networking system community. We’ll  see what kind of commotion they can kick up.

I confidently GUARANTEE you I’ll lose this one. But you know what? You & I should both be 100% thrilled if this post can get #10 on the first page of Google. What that would mean for me & for you is that with a little bit of smart work, we can compete with the REALLY big boys in this game.

Wouldn’t THAT be sweet?

My goal is to use this simple system to consistently produce pages that get ranked at the top of page 1 of Google search results. And if I can do that, you can, too.

Are you excited yet?

I’ll keep you posted on the results.

Richard Dennis