Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who submitted an entry. Not only were many of them entertaining but they confirmed to us that what’s around the corner in the remaining modules will definitely hit the spot.

Two weeks ago we launched a competition to guess what Market Samurai’s Mystery Module was going to be. The response was phenomenal with dozens of people hitting the mark with a Rank Tracker module.

(If you’re not already using this second to none feature you can get it absolutely FREE when you upgrade to the registered version of Market Samurai here).

After hours of sifting, reading, highlighting and most importantly post it noting, we eventually narrowed down the whopping 1,338 entries to a final two (see pile of comments in the pic below!). Being true to our word, and with so many good guesses we chose the winners based not on their accuracy, but on their creativity and originality.

The competition was fierce and the decision was not easy, but when the votes we’re tallied, Ron and John’s entries were sitting on the top of the pile. John’s WWFFD (What Would Flavor Flav Do) submission had us in a laughing fit which grabbed him the originality and humor votes whereas Ron’s well written Press Release suggestion secured him the creativity votes. (Winners have already been notified)

As a little reminder of what was up for grabs, I’ve added in a few pictures to wet your appetite. These are arguably two of the coolest gadgets around that an internet marketer could have right now. Our winners Ron and John will each soon be in proud possession of one these awesome gizmos.

Here are the winning entries (Drum Roll Please!):

Winner No.1 - John Perry

Ah - I’ve been waiting for this feature, can’t wait to access it soon! It has to be the “WWFFD Module” - or the What Would Flavor Flav Do feature.

Now I can finally feel confident in my campaigns as the Flavor Flav algorithm analyzes my keyword selection, competition and on-site content to report back a “Don’t Believe the Hype”, “Fight the Power”, “Can’t Do Nothing For You, Man” or the sought-after “Yeaaaaah Boyeeeee!” rating.

Can’t go wrong with Flav’s guidance and Marketing Samurai - best IM app on the planet.

Winner No.2 - Ron Martin

Press Release: Internet Marketing World is stunned with release of Market Samurai’s Mystery Module.

“We felt we finally had to come clean” said Brent Hodgson of Market Samurai. Swarmed by reporters and TV cameras outside his Melbourne, Australia office, he said: “All along, we’ve been touting the ease of doing market research with our suite of modules, but we intentionally made it look harder than it really has to be … all those videos about painstakingly researching Traffic, Commercial Value, and Competition … ha … we had everyone fooled!”

At this point he appeared to be stifling a sneeze, but in contrast to his usual refined and restrained demeanor, he suddenly burst into uncontrolled giggles and snorts.

Quickly apologizing, and regaining his composure, he went on to say: “That all changes as we take the wraps off our Mystery Module and reveal it’s true name: the “One Click Campaign Creator.”

To explain, he said: “You can pick a word. Any word. Click the OCCC button, and within less than two minutes, an entire campaign is created for you around that keyword. New domains registered, optimized squeeze pages and content rich blogs created, PPC campaign started, 47 articles written and submitted to multiple ezine directories, Squidoo and Hubpages created, and a complete back linking strategy is developed. You can be making sales within 10 minutes. Just ONE click. That’s all it takes.”

“Rubbish,” said one reporter. “Prove it,” said another. Muffled cries of “charlatan” and “quack” were heard in the crowd.

Unfazed, Mr. Hodgson climbed up on top of the makeshift podium, and with a steely gaze into the unruly crowd from his elevated perch, said simply: “Silence. Now.”

Oddly, the crowd seemed suddenly transfixed by the quiet force of his voice. A silence did, indeed, fall over the crowd.

“Give me a word,” he continued. “Anyone … give me a word.”

“We “Turtles!” said a small child who was perched on his father’s shoulders, at eye level with Mr. Hodgson, and about 5 feet in front of the podium.

“Turtles, it is,” said Mr. Hodgson, as he typed the word into Market Samurai and hit the One Click Campaign Creator button. As promised, less than two minutes later, a computerized voice could be heard from his laptop to say: “Campaign created and running.”

Then, nothing. 5 minutes went by, 7 minutes. Nothing. Gradually some sounds could be heard coming from the laptop above the increasingly restless crowd noises. Little bells and whistles started clinging and chirping. “What does THAT mean?” said one reporter.

“Wait and see,” said Mr. Hodgson.

In exactly 9 minutes and 47 seconds since the Market Samurai OCCC button was pushed, the same computerized voice blurted out: “Report #1. Items sold = 17 turtles, 4 stone ponds, 6 water filtration systems, and 9 pounds of organic turtle food.” An automatic payment of $1,767.23 has been transferred to your checking account #112987.”

“Oops. I wish I had encoded that checking account number,” said Mr. Hodgson. “Oh well, all in a morning’s work.”

Related news. This just in: A coalition of Internet Marketers organized by popular gurus Frank Kern and Mike Filsaime have filed suit in Australian and US courts to stop the release of Market Samurai’s One Click Campaign Creator. In a clip now going viral on YouTube, the normally laid back and hip / cool Mr. Kern is seen completely red faced with a huge gob of spittle running down his chin, kicking violently and randomly at a pile of surfboards stacked in garage storage area. “This is INSANE, I tell ya. Who do these arrogant Aussie morons think they ARE?? A frickin violation of all kinds of anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws. They can’t do this! We’ll rip their (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) off.”

When we informed Mr. Hodgson of Mr. Kern’s comments, he just gave one of those disarming little half laughs we are all familiar with from his videos, and said: “Bring it on.”

Great stuff guys!

Now there seemed to be a common thread emerging among the many suggestions of a magical “do it all and send me money” button. Sounds devilishly wonderful doesn’t it? Well interestingly enough, by the time the final 3 modules are released this won’t be too far from the truth.

Well, there probably won’t be a big, green, shiny button that sends you checks in mail, but you will have most of the guess work taken out of the process to get you close to it.

In the meantime we hope you’re loving Rank Tracker.

-Ben

P.S. If you missed out on the big launch you can still get Market Samurai, and get a free upgrade to the Rank Tracker module along with all the other Market Samurai modules at a steal here.

8 Comments »

Hi Team,

Today, I’m excited to be releasing the Mystery Module to you.

Monitor Your Site’s Rankings with the Market Samurai Rank Tracker

Just like every other module inside Market Samurai, our Rank Tracker’s function is simple.

It doesn’t just monitor and track your position in the search engines…

It helps you to make more money, with less time, and less effort, from your online business.

Let me show you what I mean, and reveal 2 specific strategies for cutting down the time and effort that you put into your web-site, while you get better rankings, traffic and sales:

If you don’t own Market Samurai yet, click here purchase your copy now to get instant access to Market Samurai’s new Rank Tracking module.

The Importance of Rankings

In simple terms, the reason you should monitor your rankings is because every tiny increase in rankings that you receive gives you a substantial increase in traffic.

These are the top 10 results inside Google, and the percentage of times that they get clicked.

Rank	% of Clicks	Visits per 1,000
1	42.1%	421
2	11.9%	119
3	8.5%	85
4	6.1%	61
5	4.9%	49
6	4.1%	41
7	3.4%	34
8	3.0%	30
9	2.8%	28
10	3.0%	30

What Do You Notice About The Clicks?

It doesn’t take much more than a glance to see that the closer we are to the top of the listings, the more potential customers visit our web-site.

Visitors select higher results far more often than they select results below.

So if the search engines were sending out 1,000 visitors per day for a keyword, the #1 result would receive 421 of them.

But each time you step down that ladder, there’s a massive drop in the amount of traffic that you get.

Here’s where ranking matters - big time!

Position #1 might get 421 visitors…

But position #2 might only get 119 (just over 1/4 of the visitors of position #1);
Position #3 would get just 81 visitors (1/5th of the visitors of position #1);
Position #6 would receive just 41 visitors per day (1/10th of the visitors of position #1);

So to step up from position 2, to position 1, could result in 3 or 4 times more sales for us.

Or to step from position 6 to 1 could mean we earn TEN TIMES more sales.

These are tiny steps in rankings – but GIANT LEAPS for your bank balance.

STEP 1: Know Your Rankings

You can’t improve something if you’re not tracking it.

And this is the first thing that Market Samurai’s Rank Tracker module will do for you..

With the click of a button, you can now get up-to-date data on:

• Where all of your web-pages rank in your market;
• In all 3 major search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing (MSN);
• Tracking your rank in any one of 234 countries and regions;
• For as many keywords as you choose;
• Including the details of all multiple listings that you have - not just the first listing;
• Right down to the 1,000th result - the deepest rank tracking analysis of any rank tracker available today

You’ll also get up-to-date PageRank and Backlink data for all of your ranking pages

You will be able to see how many pages are indexed by the search engines on your site…

You can monitor the rankings of ANY Web 2.0 content alongside your website’s rankings - including your YouTube videos, Squidoo lenses and Ezine Articles…

AND - most importantly - you can see at a glance which pages are rising, and which are falling in the search engines, with color-coded charts, and graphs that show your site’s rankings over time:

STEP 2: Focus on the areas of Maximum Results

Once we see where our strongest rankings are, we can focus our efforts on these pages and get the maximum return from our efforts.

That’s because you will have two things working in your favour:

1) The Search Engine Numbers

Remember how we saw that a site ranked #2 in Google could get THREE to FOUR times more potential customers from that keyword if they were ranked #1?

Or if we were ranked #6, we could get a TEN FOLD increase by hitting that top spot?

In both cases, we’re making small improvements to already strong numbers – and seeing BIG returns as a reward.

That’s because it’s not going from position 900 to position 100 in the search engines that gives you the biggest returns - it’s going from position 2 or 3 to position 1 that creates the biggest results for us.

2) SOMETHING must be working already!

The second reason you want to focus on improving already positive rankings is because it’s a great sign if you’re ALREADY getting good results from a keyword…

If you’re already ranking well for a keyword, you’re either doing something right - or you’re in a weak market.

Whatever the reason is, this is a good sign. From here, it’s easy to go the next step - and rank even better.

This is the first thing you should check in Rank Tracker

So Market Samurai’s Rank Tracker tells us where we should be focussing our efforts - by identifying the keywords we rank well for, we can create substantial increases in profits through tiny shifts in our rankings.

That’s the first obvious step to maximise your profits with the minimum amount of effort – to focus on where we can get the maximum profits.

Now, it’s time to be lazy…

Let’s get those results with the minimum amount of effort…

STEP 3: Only Do The Things That Create Results

If you’re an engineer you’ll know that one of the best ways to avoid unnecessary work and delays is to avoid waste.

We want to avoid wasting time and effort on things that don’t work and don’t give us results.

But the problem with SEO is that there are SO MANY conflicting opinions on what works and what doesn’t - and the truth is, many of the “opinions” and “theories” out there are dead wrong!

So let me cut through the confusion, and give you one simple rule…

One Simple Rule for Getting Rankings

Just take one strategy - it doesn’t matter what it is – and do it.

Pick something simple, something that doesn’t take much time and effort, and do it.

Then track it in Rank Tracker.

If your site’s ranking rises, keep doing it.

Do it over and over again until that one thing stops working.

Then, try something else.

Simple, common sense thinking - isn’t it? But it’s only possible if you are actually tracking where you rank in the search engines.

It’s the END of “Hoping” to Rank

That’s the beauty of Rank Tracker… It takes the guesswork out of SEO strategies.

• You’ll see search engines as they discover your backlinks – and see whether or not those backlinks result in better rankings.
• You can put up lots of fresh, new content – and find out whether the volume of content on your site affects rankings.
• You can monitor the affect of new backlinks on your PageRank – then monitor the affect of PageRank on your rankings. Is it SEO voodoo?
• You can test different link building strategies – which ones work, and which ones don’t?

And whatever you do, you can see almost instantly.

It All Comes Down To This One Simple Question…

“Did this increase my rankings in the search engines?”

If it does, keep doing it.

If it doesn’t - stop and try something else.

It’s THAT simple.

The Samurai Edge for Tracking Your Site

Not only are we launching a Rank Tracker inside Market Samurai today - we’re leading the market - launching the most fully-featured rank tracking tool available ANYWHERE.

While most other search engine rank tracking software costs between $99 and $389:

• No other software will track your rankings as DEEP as Market Samurai’s rank tracker - which can monitor down to 1,000 results.
• No other software will give you as much data on your rankings
• No other software will track the rankings ALL of your sites, and ALL of your content - including content on 3rd party sites - like content that you upload YouTube, Squidoo and Ezine Articles.

PLUS - Most other search engine rank tracking software will make you pay to stay updated.

So you might pay $250 to get started for the first year - but to keep your software running 12 months later, expect to pay $250 again (or worse, get locked into a subscription plan!) to get required upgrades every year that you do rank tracking - for as long as you’re running your online business.

But we’re NOT going to do it that way.

As of today, our Rank Tracker is being released as a core part of Market Samurai.

That means there are no subscription costs to pay.

You get full access to the Market Samurai Rank Tracker for a single one-time payment.

So if you already own Market Samurai, you’ll pay no more to get access to this feature - it’s already yours. Just download the latest update, and begin using it right away.

If you don’t already own Market Samurai, you will receive Rank Tracker today at no additional cost as part of your Market Samurai purchase.

BUT THERE’S A CATCH!…

This is something that we can only “give away” for a limited time.

The reason all other rank trackers make you pay ongoing fees for updates is because those updates come at a cost.

Right now, we’re absorbing these costs ourselves…

But this can’t happen forever.

Sooner or later, we will need to raise our costs, or begin charging subscription fees in order to keep up with our exponentially-growing user base.

So if you want the benefits of Rank Tracker, full access to all other Market Samurai tools, and free lifetime access to all updates - make sure you purchase your copy right now, while the price is so low.

Click here to get your copy now - and begin using Rank Tracker right away.

Want More Information on How To Use Rank Tracker?

Head over to the Rank Tracker section of our Tutorials area.

We have created a series of short videos for you view there, designed to take you through how to set up Rank Tracker and begin tracking your rankings.

Brent

Edit: Competition winners from our “Guess the Mystery Module” competition have not been announced yet. Unfortunately, with an incredible 1,338 responses, it’s taking us longer than we expected to read all of the responses submitted. We will be announcing winners ASAP.

168 Comments »

If you’re already an owner of Market Samurai, you’ll already know about 7 modules inside Market Samurai…

Keyword Research, SEO Competition Analysis, Find Content, and Promotion (Link Building) modules that are already available - plus the Monetization, Publish Content and Adwords modules that are in development ahead of their release. These are the 7 module tabs listed inside Market Samurai.

But what you might not be aware of is the 8th module inside Market Samurai - the “Mystery Module”.

…And this “Mystery Module” is just about to be unleashed!

So What is the Mystery Module?

The “Mystery Module” is something that we’ve deliberately held-back specific details about.

Although we mentioned this module on all of our sales pages, we haven’t yet given any specific details about what the Mystery Module does. We’ve kept it top-secret while it was in the research and development phase because of the unique technologies it uses.

What I can tell you is that the “Mystery Module” will be released in just over a week, and will be made freely available to paid users of Market Samurai, as part of the investment that you have already made in the Market Samurai software.

But what does the Mystery Module do?

You’ll have to wait to find out … Keep reading because I’m about to give you a few clues.

First, let’s have some fun!…

Guess The Mystery Module, and WIN!:

To celebrate the launch of the Mystery Module, we decided to have a little fun.

So let’s do something a little different – and give away 2 of the coolest, must-have gadgets that any internet marketer can have to 2 lucky Market Samurai users.

…And you get to choose which prize you want to win!

Prize #1. Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen pack

(Total value around $215.05)

This nifty gadget has probably won more awards than any other device in the past year.

It records audio you hear in seminars, podcasts or presentations, and matches it with your written notes. It means you can just tap a word in your notes, and hear the audio from that moment again - meaning you never miss anything, ever again.

Plus, by connecting your pen to your computer, you can download your own handwriting - and audio - to print, share, upload to the web, archive or just refer back to later. (It even recognizes your own handwriting so that you can search for words you have written!)

(First time I saw it, it was like it was “magic” - such a cool leap in technology, but so simple! It was like waving a magic wand.)

Here’s a few demonstrations showing how it works:

This prize pack includes the larger 2GB version of the pen, spare ink refills, and notepads - everything you’ll need to get full use out of your prize.

Prize #2. Flip MinoHD Camcorder Pack

(Total value around $210.94)

The Flip Mino HD is billed as the world’s smallest high definition camcorder, and probably the most useful (and cool) device for YouTube marketing around today!

The prize includes the high-definition 60 Minute Flip MinoHD Camcorder, and a Joby Gorillapod Flexible Tripod - also a very handy gadget to have, and the perfect small, lightweight tripod to bring with your small lightweight camera.

This is everything you’ll need to begin using your new camera for fun, family, or even internet marketing “carcast” videos (like Eugene here.)

How To Win…

To win one of these prizes, all you have to do is guess what the “Mystery Module” does. You don’t even need the right answer! The two most interesting answers (as selected by our panel of Samurai) will get to choose which prize they want to win.

(Both of these prizes we own, we love, and want to share.)

By now, I’m sure you want to find out more about the Mystery Module - to find out what you’ll be “unwrapping” when the Mystery Module is released, and so that you can start guessing to win these prizes…

Here are Your “Mystery Module” Clues…

The Mystery Module is a set of tools and features that are “the missing piece of the puzzle” inside Market Samurai.

• The Mystery Module helps you to get better results from your internet marketing;
• The Mystery Module takes something that is difficult, time-consuming and tedious to do manually – and does it quickly and easily, with the click of a button;
• The Mystery Module compliments the existing features that are inside Market Samurai;

(Note: Noticing a trend? All of the other existing Market Samurai modules fit into these clues – so think “What are the missing pieces of the puzzle?”. What tools would make Market Samurai “complete”?)

How To Enter…

To win, leave a comment below with your answer before 9:00am Monday the 15th of June, Melbourne time.

(That’s +10GMT, so it’s 4pm Sunday in Los Angeles; - 7pm Sunday in New York; - Midnight between Sunday and Monday in London because of British Summer Time)

The Noble Samurai team will collate your answers, and vote on our favorite answer.

We’ll be closing the competition shortly before the release of the “Mystery Module” – so start submitting your answers now! (Guess early, guess often!)

Remember: It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong – be creative when you tell us what you think the missing piece of the Market Samurai puzzle might be, and your answer might just be the one that wins.

Good luck!

Brent

P.S. - To keep answers secret, we’re moderating all comments (below). That means you won’t see your comment appear immediately.

P.P.S. – If you don’t already own Market Samurai, and would like to upgrade to the full version so that you can access the new module when it’s released, click here.

3 Comments »

Hi Team,

After my last blog post on the new clickable results arrows inside Market Samurai, I wanted to give you some insights into search engines that will save you a lot of unnecessary confusion and frustration - and give you a better understanding of the way search engines work.

Now that you’re getting closer to the raw data sources, and doing deeper analysis, it’s important that you know about the way that Google, Yahoo and other search engines keep their data.

Otherwise, some of their “quirks” can cause confusion.

The Beast with 1,000 Heads…

Most people believe that Google is a single mega-computer.

This is untrue.

In fact, it’s a series of perhaps thousands of computers (servers) - all working together to provide Google users with results for their search queries.

Keeping thousands of computers up-to-date with all of the changes that are happening online is a mammoth task!

These thousands of servers are constantly being updated with new information - but it doesn’t all happen at once.

This means, depending on which server Google gets your results from, you can see slightly different results server-to-server.

Which Data Source is Correct?

It can be confusing for some people, when they see an SEO Competitor count of [say] 104,000 for a keyword inside Market Samurai, and 102,000 when doing a search manually on the same keyword - in “quotes”, just like Market Samurai does.

They ask “Which data source is correct?” or start to wonder if they can trust Market Samurai results since they’re different to what they see manually.

It can be confusing for people if they don’t understand the way servers are structured - but the truth is simple if you know…

Both numbers are accurate.

They both come from the same data source (Google) - and an end user is just as likely to see either.

When you’re doing analysis, it’s rare that the numbers will be substantially different (normally they’ll be fairly close to one-another if there is ANY difference at all.) So it shouldn’t make too much difference to any analysis.

However, if you have concerns, it’s wise to use the more conservative number - the number that works least in your favor.

And now that you know this little tit-bit about how search engines operate, you now know more about the technology behind search engines than many professional SEO’s.

Brent

7 Comments »

Hi Team,

Market Research creates Market Understanding.

Market Understanding creates Market Leaders.

Market Leaders create opportunities in their markets - including the opportunity to choose the direction of your market, and the opportunity to make the greatest profits in a market.

But it all stems from Market Research.

If you’ve been reading Ed Dale’s blog recently, you’ll know that I’ve borrowed the “Market Research; Market Understanding; Market Leadership” mantra from him.

But today, I want to start making it “real” for you.

I want to show you a recently-added feature inside Market Samurai, and share with you some specific strategies for how to get the most value out of something that is so deceptively simple that practically everyone will overlook it…

…That is, everyone except you - because you’re reading this blog post right now.

So let’s open up Market Samurai, and open up some opportunities for Market Leadership…

Getting a Deeper Market Understanding

These new arrows appeared in the latest versions of Market Samurai.

Many of you have noticed them already (you’ll see them inside the SEO Competition and Keyword Research modules) - and their function is very simple…

Click them, and they will open up the raw data sources for you in a web-browser.

This means if you click on the Adwords Advertiser (AWA) numbers in the Keyword Research module, you’ll see the Adwords Advertisers for that keyword.

If you click on the Page Backlinks (BLP) you’ll be taken to a list of the external backlinks pointing to that page.

If you click on the SEO Competition (SEOC) counts in the Keyword Research module, you’ll see all of the web pages that mention the keyword phrase on their sites (all of your SEO competitors)

…And so on!

Simple, yes.

Important? Very.

The value of Digging Deeper

I’ll go into some specific examples of how to use this feature in a moment.

However, as I’ve mentioned already, the real value of going through this raw data manually is to become immersed in your market.

(Obviously this is for people who have already chosen a market - because if you did this for every market that potentially interested you, you could spend forever learning from other sites!)

By working out where, and how, your competitors are getting their links;

By working out what they are selling, how they’re marketing it, and what their price points are;

By working out what value your competitors are delivering to potential customers…

…You will understand the market better, and equip yourself to be the market leader.

And market leadership may be one of the few more valuable opportunities to you in your internet marketing.

What To Do Next

Open up Market Samurai, and start by clicking on the SEOC or AWA results in the Keyword Research module.

Use the results to “dig deeper” into your market and find out what you can discover about your competitors:

• What products do they sell, what price points are they selling at, and how are they pitching their products?
• Are there opportunities to improve your marketing strategy, and use some of their good ideas?
• Are there opportunities to get links from their sites? (Blogs, forums, links pages, etc)
• Are there opportunities to work together with the people who are already making money in the market?

Analyze the top 10 competitors in the SEO competition module too:

• What sites are they getting their backlinks from? Can you get backlinks from those sites too?
• Do they have any Government / Educational backlinks (.gov/.edu)? Can you also get links from the same places?

And analyze the content on the top sites in your market:

• What great information do they have, that you should also be talking about on your site?
• How are they communicating with their market / customers on an ongoing basis? (Feeding the flock)
• What value are they delivering to their market? How are they delivering it?
• With all this in mind, how can you deliver the greatest value to your customers? (Search engine rankings favor the value-makers)

This is how to cross over from using Market Samurai for SEO, to using Market Samurai for Market Understanding and Market Leadership.

So open up Market Samurai now, and play with this tiny new feature.

What do you discover about your market?

Brent

9 Comments »

Hi Team

This is something I’ve never told you about.

Some people have already worked this out for themselves…

And it’s the reason Market Samurai works the way it does today.

In Fact, Market Samurai was Built Around This…

Before Market Samurai was released to the public, we were using the same tools ourselves to do semantic site structure analysis for sites that we were building.

The reason was simple - with the right site structuring, linking and keyword use (all using semantically relevant keywords) we could achieve rankings with fewer links, less PageRank and less site-age.

And that meant a better return on investment from any SEO work we did.

“Better Results? Less Effort? How do I get this!?” I hear you say.

Well, let me show you what we were doing - and how you can do it yourself.

How to “Sharpen” Your Site - Samurai Style!

First, thing’s first…

You need to find a core site keyword - something that has high levels of traffic, high levels of value, and relatively low levels of competition.

Everything will revolve around this one core keyword.

Finding a Core Keyword

You’re looking for high-traffic, low-competition, high-value keywords here.

I like to set my Market Samurai filters to these levels: Above 80 hits per day in SEOT, below 100,000 competing pages in SEOC (although below 30,000 is best), above 15% phrase usage in PBR and over $1 in SEOV.

However, I personally like to see something that is better than the bare minimum levels.

SEO Analysis on your Main Site Keyword

Next, you’ll also want to do SEO Competition analysis to make sure you’re competing in a market where young, low PageRank, poorly optimized sites with few links are already ranking.

What I like about this example is the low PageRanks of pages appearing in the top 10, the lack of on-page optimization on most sites, and the low levels of Page Backlinks to the pages.

The ages of some of the domains, the fact that most sites have DMOZ or Yahoo! Directory backlinks, and the high number of domain backlinks make me think twice about this keyword.

I might still try it out - but with these factors working against me, my chances of getting that illusive top spot easily might be more difficult - and that means it may take a lot more work to get there.

Refocus your Keyword Research

Once you have this core site keyword, create a New Project in Market Samurai for your main site keyword this keyword - because we’re going to refocus our analysis onto this one keyword.

Start by generating keywords around this keyword using the Google Synonym Tool option with “Include Additional” selected.

Find Category Keywords

By tapping into Google’s Synonym Tool to generate keywords, Market Samurai is able to show you up to 200 related “branches” around your core keyword.

You’ll want to (again) filter out high competition, low traffic, low value keywords. The keywords we’re left with will be good for our web-site categories.

In this example, I performed almost identical analysis to before, when I was finding a core site keyword - however, I dropped my minimum traffic filter to an SEOT of 10 or above.

And then, there’s a little manual labor…

Remove any keywords that you see as being irrelevant to your core theme by clicking the “X” on the far right hand side of the keyword. And you’ll be left with a nice list of relevant, valuable, high traffic, low competition keywords - like I have above.

Article Keyword Research

Click on the key icon beside any of your category keywords it to open it up in a new tab - and do some more keyword research to find content topic areas within each category.

For this step, it’s handy to use the Google Search Keywords option, as well as the Google Synonym Tool with the “Ignore Additional” option selected. This will give you a nice “long tail” list of topics.

The next step is researching and creating web-site content in each one of these topic areas.

But how do you research these topic areas?

Find Content: Research or Republish

Market Samurai’s “Find Content” module is purpose-designed for this!

It was built to research the content that is already published on the web to help you to write your own articles, or to find articles that you can legally republish (although check the site terms and conditions before doing this.)

Click on the key icon beside the keyword, go to the Find Content tab, and begin research.

We can analyze the content based on authority factors here.

Content that has high PageRanks, Backlinks and Age might be a sign of good quality information - and a good article to research before writing your own article on the same topic.

Content that has low PageRank, Backlinks and Age might be content that you can republish on your site for testing the niche (because writing content is one of the most time-consuming parts of setting up a niche web-site) - and see if you can get rankings using someone else’s article on your site (a very promising sign if you do!)

(This is something unique to Market Samurai. I’m yet to come across any other software that analyzes the authority of a piece of content in this way.)

Next, we need links…

Get High-Quality Backlinks

Finding backlinks is easy. Focusing on the high-quality backlinks, the ones that will give you the best result for your time and effort, is difficult.

The Promotion module helps here, by showing the PageRanks, Backlinks, and the use of Follow/Nofollow on pages where you can receive backlinks.

You’re starting to see how all of this ties-in, and how each step impacts on all of the others.

And by putting it all together, we can get faster rankings in search engines, more traffic sooner, a better return on our time and effort on SEO, and better results in the long term - with less time and effort required.

But we didn’t do it for you.

We created “Market Samurai” originally (well before we released it) because we were doing these things ourselves - and we wanted to achieve the best results, faster, with less time and effort.

The Next Step

The next step is to just do it!

Market Samurai will give you the semantic keyword relationships you need for site structuring, for internal linking, for link-building, for tagging and more if you use the keyword research procedure I’ve described above.

If you don’t have Market Samurai yet - get it. You can download a free 12-day trial here.

If your trial has expired, you’ll be able to use the Keyword Research features still - but you will need to get the full version of Market Samurai to use the other features. You can purchase Market Samurai for lifetime access to all Market Samurai features here.

As I say, these semantic site structures can help you to get better results in search engines, with far less effort, and fewer links. So I challenge you to try using them for yourself using Market Samurai, and see the results you get.

Brent

53 Comments »

Hi Team,

Lately we’ve been sharing with you a bunch neat strategies for using some new keyword tools and resources.

We’ve looked at:

• Long Tail Keyword Research;
• Semantic site structures, and;
• Finding Niche Business Ideas.

I wanted to go into more detail about one tool that I mentioned briefly in my post on semantic site structuring (and by others in their recent comments here on the blog.)

The Google Wonder Wheel

This is the Google Wonder Wheel - another freakin’ incredible tool that Google has released recently that shows the semantic relationships between keywords - so it’s another great resource for semantic site structuring.

Essentially, if you want to know what the branches of your site structure should look like, this is a great resource to get ideas on what Google thinks your site should look like.

How To Get Access to the Google Wonder Wheel

Next time you’re searching in Google, look for the “Show Options” button.

Click this, then “Wonder Wheel”.

…And you’ll be able to play with the Wonder Wheel for yourself.

I Still Can’t Get Access

The Google Wonder Wheel hasn’t been widely released yet, (unlike the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool,) but Google Blogoscoped was able to work out how to give everyone access.

If you want to try out this experiment yourself, that’s possible. All you need to do is go to google.com and paste the following into the address bar, and hit return – that will set a cookie telling Google you’re taking part in the prototype:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=4a609673baf685b5:TB=2:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1227543998:LM=1233568652:DV=AA:GM=1:IG=3:S=yFGqYec2D7L0wgxW;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

This should unlock the Google Wonder Wheel for you, which will now be accessible via the steps above.

How to Use The Wonder Wheel for Semantic Site Structuring

Because you’re using the Wonder Wheel to analyze keyword relationships for site structuring, the obvious place to start is with your site keyword - or the topic for your site.

From there, the “branches” off the keyword may be logical category ideas - the branches off them may be logical subcategories - and so-on.

(Obviously, by then analyzing the traffic, value and competition around the keywords in Market Samurai - and focussing on high traffic, low competition, high value keywords - you’ll be able to focus your site structure onto the most profitable keywords.)

Have a play with this - it’s a fun tool to have a play with and will give you a good idea of keyword relationships. But, as you’ll see, it can be slow way to do keyword analysis (because it only shows highly relevant keyword relationships - not the traffic strength of the keywords.)

So tomorrow, I’ll show you an even faster way to analyze keywords, and develop semantic site structures.

Brent

13 Comments »

Hi Gang,

When I first came across the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool, and did what I’m about to show you for the first time, I was gobsmacked.

It blew my mind.

I’ve never seen such an incredible resource full of ripe ideas for niche online marketing.

So if you’ve ever struggled to come up with a new idea for a web-site, this is going to blow your mind too:

Here’s How It Works…

You tell Google what you’re interested in, and it comes up with up to 800 relevant, high-traffic keyword ideas that you can put into Market Samurai to begin your research.

Now, imagine if you were getting in on the first wave - that many of these ideas lay untapped online - and that you’re one of the first people to be using the data in this way.

I know - it’s freakin’ awesome, isn’t it!

Brent

P.S. - One more handy tip. Obviously you want markets with relatively high levels of traffic (because a site is worthless unless it has traffic!)

So when you’re picking potential niches, keep an eye on the Monthly Searches column inside this tool, and focus on keywords with several thousand searches per month (they’ll generally be at the top of the page).

P.P.S. - After I stopped the video, I looked at the results that Market Samurai found for that keyword - the keyword I picked at random.

I found 14 of the keywords Market Samurai found around that niche idea had over 200 searches per day (SEOT of 80 or above, PBR of 15% or above), and fewer than 30,000 competitors (SEOC).

Random. First one I picked. Blind.

Did I mention? …Freakin’ awesome.

63 Comments »

WARNING: Advanced SEO Concepts Ahead

Q: What’s the fastest way to cause a riot at an SEO conference?

A: Just mention the words “Latent Semantic Indexing”.

It’s true.

Just about half of the people there will tell you it’s an incredible way to get top search engine rankings; the others will say LSI is a lie or a myth.

What I’m going to share with you today is probably going to cause some controversy, because I use the words “Latent Semantic Indexing” (or LSI)…

…So after I show you this technique, I’m going to put an end to these stupid LSI arguments once-and-for-all.

Perfect LSI Structuring

If you’re creating a site with an LSI silo structure, you can receive a big boost in the rankings that you receive in search engines - put simply, because search engines see you as being more relevant to the topic.

What I’m talking about when I say “LSI silo structure” is categorising content in a logical keyword structure, and grouping content on similar topics together, in a way similar to what search engines expect to see.

And, for the most part, they expect to see tree-like category structures - with categories, sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories all branching off one-another.

The problem is finding the right structure.

If you’re developing a new site, and you’re trying to get the best search engine boost from LSI, how should your content be structured?

What keywords should go where? What should your categories be? What topics should you be building content around?

Or, if you’re actually doing it as part of your core web-site, no-doubt you’re finding categorising content is a pain. You write an article, and then wonder where you should put it to get the maximum benefit.

So you’re always second-guessing the way that the content should be categorised for maximum SEO value - should it go in one category? Or another? - particularly when content can be related to multiple categories.

And once you’ve built categories, how do you know what other topics should go into that category to fill it with the “right” sort of content?

The Google Search-Based Keyword Tool isn’t just good for finding long tail keywords - it’s also fantastic for categorising and grouping keywords.

That’s because the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool is showing you structured, categorised, hierarchical keyword relationships - and blog/site structures tend to be structured, categorised and hierarchical.

And, where keywords are related to multiple categories, it shows you all of them.

Debunking LSI Myths

There’s a lot of confusion about whether or not “LSI” (or Latent Semantic Indexing) is used by Google or not - so let me clarify things.

There’s a lot of convincing evidence suggesting that “LSI” is NOT used by Google - largely because it doesn’t scale well.

(We did our own research and testing months ago to find out for sure. The more information you give it, the bigger, slower and less manageable the structure becomes. With the amount of information Google indexes, LSI doesn’t seem to be a logical solution.)

However, there’s also a HUGE amount of evidence proving that they at least use something similar - another way to work out common relationships between keywords, (as Stompernet also suggested recently.)

And there is a growing amount of evidence that suggests that LSI’d internal site structures, and the way pages are linked (from both within and beyond the site) “turbo-charge” search engine rankings. (Although this is something we won’t go into now.)

If you want to see LSI-style keyword relationships in practice, you don’t need to look far.

You only need to look at Adwords broad-match keyword matching, Google’s new Wonder Wheel, use the Google Synonym Tool, or watch some of the little-known Google Tech Talks where they show their internal related keyword generator being used, talk about how they developed it, and discuss organising information on the semantic web.

So even though “LSI” isn’t a technically correct term to describe the system that is being used, it’s still a de facto name for describing structured relationships between keywords. So if we say LSI, this is what we are referring to.

Back to the Nuts and Bolts…

I wanted to share this with you, even though there’s no financial benefit to us, because we made a commitment to equip you with the best internet marketing tools available…

…And not all of those tools can fit inside Market Samurai.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be releasing one final video in this series - and show you the#1 thing that blew me away when I first came across the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool.

So make sure you’re subscribed, watching your inbox, and ready. You won’t want to miss this one.

Brent

Edit: Here’s the link to Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool - http://www.google.com/sktool

57 Comments »

It was our secret shame - the biggest failing of Market Samurai:

Long tail keywords.

You see, Market Samurai was never built to find the long tail.

Instead, it was built to find relevant groups of keywords - so that we could use it for Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), or Referential Integrity, or Keyword Siloing, or whatever you want to call grouping of relevant keywords.

And to find high-traffic keywords.

Not to mess around in the “shallow end” of the keyword pool - where all the long tail keywords sit.

But when Google’s Search-Based Keyword Tool swung open, and offered up-to 800 of the top long tail keywords in ANY market, we jumped on it!

We made this part of Market Samurai almost immediately.

As a result, for the past few weeks, you’ve had a new way to generate keywords - this time, long tail keywords - and today I want to start showing you how to use it.

This is particularly useful when you want to tag a blog post, video or social bookmark with relevant, long-tail, low competition keywords.

OR

If you find a keyword with very high levels of traffic and competition - and you want to “dig deeper” into it to see if there’s a better, lower-competition, still high-traffic long tail version of the keyword.

Try it out!

Open Market Samurai now, and try this new keyword generation source out for yourself.

It will give you up-to 800 of the most popular search long-tail searches that contain your original keyword.

And watch the blog over the next 2 days - because I’m going to show you two more ways to use this one incredible tool.

Brent

63 Comments »