30-Day Challenge
From The Graham English Wiki
Contents |
Pre-Season
Get Firefox
Addons:
Stumbleupon (Must have account)
Stumbleupon Bookmarklets (for Safari)
30-Day Challenge Toolbar (Must be logged in)
Social Sites
Sign up for the following:
Feeds
Ed recommends Bloglines But I'm partial to NewsGator/NetNewsWire and Google Reader
Subscribe to the following feeds and podcasts:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThirtyDayChallenge (Subscribe in both iTunes and your feedreader)
Day 1
Overview of the program:
Part 1: Market Research
Part 2: Traffic
Part 3: Conversion
Part 4: Product
Day 2
Come up with 7 ideas:
eBay Pulse
Use the eBay categories for ideas.
Technorati
Use the Popular menu to find top searches and top blogs for idea starters.
Google Groups
Browse group categories. Look for groups with high activity.
Also...
Day 3
Put your seven ideas into:
If people are searching for the term, copy and paste into a text file.
Also, put your seven ideas into Google and look for competition to see if the idea is marketable.
Days 4 and 5
Catch up days.
Day 6
YouTube HowTo
Get into the habit of subscribing, "friending", Stumbling, rating, bookmarking at Delicious, posting to Twitter, sharing on Facebook, etc.
Day 7
Add Wordtracker Keywords Search to Firefox: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Add Wordtracker Keywords Search to Safari using Saft or Inquisitor. Once installed, open Safari's preferences and add the following URL to shortcuts in Saft and to the additional search engines in Inquisitor:
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/?seed=%
&suggest=Hit+Me&adult_filter=remove_offensive
- Having trouble with my wiki. Add the two URLs together with an "at" symbol in between them.
Saft allows you to create a URL shortcut that you type in Safari's address bar, like "wt foobar" while Inquisitor allows you to add additional search engines to Safari's search box and assign keyboard shortcuts. I use both apps regularly.
Competition Research
Goal:
Find an umbrella phrase: a keyword phrase that has an acceptable amount of competition (less than 30,000 competing pages phrase matched) and an acceptable amount of traffic (80+ daily searches).
Phrase matched = put quotes around keyword: "keyword"
Looking at your keyword research from day 3, search Google with your keywords (phrase matched) that have 80+ searches. If the number of pages returned is less than 30,000, mark it for later.
Day 8
Using the keywords that passed the test from day 7, go to Google Trends and complete the following search (be sure to put your keyword or keyword phrase in quotes):
male yeast infection, "keyword"
Compare the graphs. For comparison, traffic beginning on 2007 for the keyword phrase "male yeast infection" correlates to about 500-550 searches a day. If your keyword phrase is similar to Wordtracker's estimates, you can proceed to the next step.
Productivity Hack: Watch this video: http://media.thirtydaychallenge.com/TDCumb.swf and then install this toolbar into Firefox: http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/tools/tdccomp.html
You can do a similar search in Safari (minus the split screen and regular Google search) with Saft and Inquisitor. The "at" symbol breaks the wiki so you have to adjust the URLs.
Saft: Add following URL to shortcuts:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=male+yeast+infection,+"% (connect URL with "at" symbol here) "&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Inquisitor: Add to additional search engines:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=male+yeast+infection,+%22% (connect URL with "at" symbol here) %22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Day 9
More Google Trends
The order of your keywords in Google Trends is important:
male yeast infection, "keyword/keyword phrase"
If your keyword doesn't show up in the top chart (which is likely), compare the traffic ratios in the English Language section. You're looking for 80-100 searches a day. The blue bar represents 500 searches a day. This means the red bar--your keyword--should be at least 1/5 the length of the blue bar.
Day 10
Search Google with your keyword looking for Web 2.0 properties using SEO for Firefox. Ideally, you want to find very few or no Web 2.0 properties (del.icio.us links, etc.) for your keyword.
Search Google News with your keyword using exact match (keyword in quotes). Subscribe to the Google news feed in your feed reader. Also subscribe to the Google Blog search for your keyword (you'll find a direct link in the left panel). Read each post and take notes with Google Notebook or your favorite note taking app.
Gary Halbert's Golden Nuggets Strategy Method
- Look at the top 10 sites (20 is better)
- Take lots of notes
- Pay attention to "things that make you go hmmmm."
- Join mailing lists
- Search and join related groups on Facebook, Google Groups, MySpace, and Yahoo.
Days 11 and 12
Market research based on Day 10. Narrow your keyword list down to two niches.
Day 13
Write three short articles for each keyword. Put your keyword in the heading and first sentence. Keep it light. Just get it done.
