30 Day Challenge: Day 3, Competitive Analysis

My journey through the 30 Day Challenge continues. I understand that a few of my AfroSpear colleagues may be joining me on the 30DC journey. I hope that they will also share their thoughts as they engage in the process.

Anyhow, Day 3 is all about analyzing our competition. The first two days helped me to determine the keywords that I plan to use in building an online business. Today, Guru Bob showed us that it is one thing to find a phrase that has the right number of searches and the right amount of traffic ... it's something else entirely to determine if someone has already staked their claim on that phrase, making it extremely difficult for us to compete.

There are two videos that run about 40 minutes in Lesson 3:

1. SEO COMPETITION ANALYSIS - Guru Bob walks us through Market Samurai to map out the competitive landscape in your niche. I had two keyword phrases entering into this analysis. At the end of the analysis I settled on the one phrase that I think I have a good chance to compete with other webpages that are currently in Google's Top 10. Over the next 27 days I will find out if my decision was a good one or not.


2. TRADITIONAL COMPETITION ANALYSIS - Ed Dale uses the second video to show us how to get the same data provided by Market Samurai using a free plugin for our browser. Unfortunately, this plugin is only useful for folks using Firefox or Flock operating systems. I'm old school. I still use Internet Explorer. So, this video didn't help me as much.

Today's lesson again showed me the power of Market Samurai. I still have 38 days left on my trial period with that software. I haven't seen the cost to upgrade it yet. Are any of you using the paid version of Market Samurai? If so, what are your thoughts.

30 Day Challenge: Day 2, Market Research

I continued my journey through the 30 Day Challenge. Whether you’re an Internet newbie or a bricks and mortar business owner looking to expand your web presence, these 30 days should provide rock-solid techniques for building a real, live sustainable business online.

The focus of Day 2 is market research. Choosing a market and selecting the best keywords to reach it are where the majority of mistakes are made when getting a new online business off the ground. I had a rough time with this lesson because I don't have a tightly defined niche market. However, I did make it through the full lesson. I had to redo one section four times before I was able to get it right.

We only saw Ed Dale briefly during today's lesson. He introduced an amazing tool that gives us keyword data to help accurately assess our potential niches and make our workload much lighter.

There are five videos in Lesson 2:

1. UNLEASHING MARKET SAMURAI - Ed introduces the magic of Market Samurai and walks us through how to download and install the software. It is a straightforward downloading process. 30DC participants receive a complimentary 40-day trial of the complete Market Samurai software.


2. KEYWORD RESEARCH - Guru Bob, head of The Lab, introduces the major concepts of keyword research. He also lays out what sort of numbers we should be looking for when you begin considering niches. At this stage of the game, he wants us to find micro-niches (keywords with less than 30,000 searches per day). He does a good job of defining terms in this section. I know the difference between a 'market' and a 'niche'. I also know that successful online marketing at my level requires me to identify a 'micro-niche'. This section focused on the theory of keyword research. In the next section, we actually do a case-study and apply it to our personal online business.


3. KEYWORD RESEARCH CASE STUDY - Guru Bob shows us Market Samurai in action, drilling down in the market "Guitars." It sounds innocent enough. I spent a great deal of time in this section because my preferred markets ('African Americans' or 'Information Technology') didn't yield me viable 'micro-niche' markets. Anyhow, I finally found two micro-niche keywords that I plan to carry forward into tomorrow's lesson.


4. MANUAL KEYWORD RESEARCH - Dan Raine steps us through how to do "manual" market research if Market Samurai doesn't work on your computer. I didn't complete this one. I'm counting on Market Samurai to cut away the weeds for me!


5. MARKET SAMURAI TUTORIAL - Ed shows you where to find in-depth Market Samurai tutorials and how to get support if you need additional help. This video was about 2-3 minutes in length.

The videos together run about 60 minutes, however, it took me much longer because I kept having to repeat that 3rd video. Anyhow, my advice to anyone who is just starting is to spend adequate time on the Day 1 lesson. Make sure you have a clear idea of the 5-10 ideas you want to use for this 30DC. I didn't have that clear in my mind ... and it cost me today.

30 Day Challenge: Day 5, Getting Some Content

My journey into the 30 Day Challenge continues. I used the first four days to identify my keyword phrase, affiliate product, and initial ad copy.

The focus of today's lesson was on finding content. Ed Dale makes the point that content is the engine that drives the Internet. People go online to find information about a particular topic or to be entertained. Content is what they seek ... and content is what the search engines use to find our site when we are in position to provide relevant, unique information to our site visitors.

Anyhow, we learn how to create content (300-500 word mini-articles) without having to be writing superstars.

There are two videos (30 minutes) in Lesson 5:

1. FINDING ARTICLE CONTENT - GuruBob shows us how to use the Find Content module of Market Samurai to find content relevant to our target keyword. This is a very good tool that provides analysis on the strength of that content for our purposes. For example, we can see when the article was written, how many back links to it, what the Page Rank is for the article's spot in the Internet and how many times are keyword phrase is embedded in the article. This is a worthy feature of Market Samurai and gives me another reason to consider purchasing the upgrade at the end of the 40-day trial period.


2. MAKE YOUR OWN CONTENT - In this video, Ed uses Google Reader to show us other ways to collect news relevant to our target keyword and turn it into content that is uniquely ours. Ed also explains the Attribution Method for creating content fast.

Our homework for today is to create 5-10 mini-articles based on our keyword phrase. I haven't completed the homework as I type this blog post ... but, I plan to get it done before the end of the day! Wish me luck...