Narrowing Your Focus – Day 3 of Cowpetition
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If you have been involved in making money online for more than a couple of years, you will remember that as recent as 2 years ago all that was needed for market research was to find a program that could generate mass amounts of keywords for you. You really did not care too much about anything except getting the biggest list possible.
Today, that is a risky and ineffective way to go. The search engines are getting smarter all the time and their goal is to serve their customers the absolute best search results they can. In order to achieve this, they have hired incredibly talented people to help them design complex algorithms that allow them to automatically filter out good sites from bad sites.
One of the more recent technologies that have been getting a lot of attention is called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). What this technology (algorithm) does is it tries to imitate the thinking process of a human visitor to do its best to determine if the results of their query are relevant to what the person would be searching for. So when looking at a web page, it would look at the content from a perspective of how a human conversation would take place.
The easiest way to understand it is to think of an example. If you are sitting in your buddy’s garage looking at his new car, do you just say:
“Wow, I love red cars. That is a nice red car; I would love to go for a ride in your red car. How much did your red car cost?”
No! Of course not, because that is not natural. Instead the conversation would probably go more like:
“Wow, I love the color red on vehicles. That is a really nice set of wheels; I would love to go for a ride. How much did your car cost?
See how the keyword “red cars” is not even used? That is because most conversations are not so direct or specific. The human language relies on a lot of assumptions and generalities. When you read the second phrase, you understand that there is a red car but you are not beat over the head with the keyword phrase itself.
Now if that was a 500 word article, I am sure you could actually fit the word “red cars” in there, but as the above example shows, you would use other terms as well. Those other terms are terms that are commonly used with the primary term or topic of the conversation, which means they are related.
Another example would be a forum conversation. If you spend any time in forums you will know that when a topic is started, it is not uncommon for it to head in an entirely different (although related) direction. So for example, a topic on “Scuba Diving Goggles” may be started and after a couple posts some one might comment about how they got this great set of diving goggles at a store when they were diving in Fiji. Another person would then refer to that and talk about an experience they had scuba diving in Fiji and some other locations they have visited. Another person might then relate to another location the previous person referenced and how they had a great scuba diving instructor there who recommended a certain type of goggles.
Now, the above example is just that, an example, but this is very much the same as how human conversation is. The mistake many niche bloggers make is they get content that is too focused on a specific keyword and only that keyword. What ends up happening is the content is useless from an end-user standpoint. This strategy has had its time and place, but in the last year alone, many improvements have occurred (especially in Google with LSI) and this strategy is becoming less and less effective.
Content needs to be focused on themes and created like a conversation. You need to not focus in on one single word, but instead focus on the theme for the topic and what conversations occur around that theme. With the use of LSI, Google is better able to determine the relevance of a website by quickly comparing its content to that of existing websites that Google considers trustworthy. So if your web page does not contain the verbiage that is frequently associated with the subject matter of related sites, then the new website will not be considered to be part of that theme or market, which is not good from a long term rankings perspective.
So when you start your market research you need to keep this in mind. We are not looking for those magic individual keywords, we are not doing keyword research but we are doing is Market Research. This will become very clear as we move on.
Where to Start? How About Selecting a Niche?
As the saying goes, the first step is always the hardest. This is very true for individuals starting out for the first time with market research. We can hear the cries now:
“Where Do We Begin?”
The question you first need to ask is what type of business are you creating?
- Do you want to create a blog that is something you will personally author and become a known name for?
- Do you want to create lots of small niche specific affiliate focused blogs?
- Do you want an online store front for your current off line business?
- Are you creating blogs to turn around and sell?
- And the list goes on and on
You see, if you can not answer the question of “what you want to do”, then you really can not move to the next step effectively.
Question for You –> What type of business are you creating?
John Cow Answer –> For this contest we are creating a blog that we want to turn around and sell in 30 days. This means we want a market that has a potential for lots of traffic, has lots of passionate people, is already a proven market (we do not have time to test new markets), we know where to find contacts (because we know the market) and is something we are familiar with so we can ensure that the content is good for the time frame we have.
IMPORTANT –> Do not worry about boxing your self in to one type of business. For example, you might want to start a blog on a specific market that you want to be personally known as an authority for. This does not mean you can not later create small niche sites that promote affiliate products, but what it does mean is that can not be your main focus right now. You want to distinguish the two because it influences the decisions in the next step.
We Know the Business… Now What?
As you can see from our breakdown of reasoning, there are limitations to the type of market we can select because of the criteria for our business. We would not want to pick an emerging health niche that we have no interest in or knowledge about because the research and testing would be too time consuming. For us this next step was to brain storm all the markets we…
- Already know there are markets in
- We have knowledge about
- We know how to find contacts in
- We see similar “market related” sites selling at sitepoint.
The last 2 points are the most important in our opinion. First of all by us understanding the market, we know exactly where the people are that are influencial in this industry. Not that this can not be researched and found but we are very limited on time with this challenge and to create the absolutely best results we need to purely stick to what works… very little room for exploratory research. The second point was critical because we want to know that these types of sites are actually selling… which really is the end result we are after.
So we brainstormed all the possible markets and 4 immediately came up…
- Video Gaming
- Mountain Biking
- Karate / MMA
- Online Business
These are four markets we are knowledgeable in and are some what passionate about. So we now broke down this list and gave points to the specific ones that best met our criteria and we came up with the selection being “Video Gaming”
This market has lots of passionate people, we are knowledgeable about, know where contacts are easily found and appears to have related sites selling (or so it appears).
STOP –> You may have chosen to start with building a different business model such as niche specific blogs that are purely for promoting affiliate products and generating Adsense revenue. If that is you then you need to check out the “Market Research” series that we started a couple weeks back.
So Now We Have Our Market — What’s Next?
Now we need to map out our plan and time frame. We know the goal, we talked about that in the previous lesson, but now we need to map out how we are going to reach that goal in the needed time frame.
This is where we absolutely LOVE dry erase boards. Since starting full time online we have never been without a dry erase board and the reason is they are perfect for standing up and putting in front of you what you need to accomplish.
Obviously you do not need to go out and buy one… but it is what we use and so we are telling you about it 
The first step is to list all the tasks that need to have done and we designate them into short term (Urgent Need), long term (Non Urgent but Important) and “Maybe” tasks:
Urgent Tasks: (Need to be done first above everything else)
- Decide on specific niche in the “Video Gaming” market to target
- Initial content decided on using LSI principals
- Domain set up with the blog installed
- Design and graphics started
- “Link Bait” Content ideas agreed upon
- List of sites to contact for joint ventures
- Plugins installed and set up
- Gmail account created
- Feedburner and aweber account set up
- Get legal documents in place (privacy and so on)
Non Urgent but Important Tasks:
- Niche specific content for blog and promotions research (will explain difference from initial needed content tomorrow) using LSI principals
- Social site accounts set up
- Videos planned for promotions
- Start Contacting potential JV partners
- Start viral marketing engine
- Maintenance plan
Maybe Tasks (these are ideas that came up that could potentially be scope creep and so we will look at as time allows). We are not posting any of these here, but if we have time to implement them we will share them. Some are ideas we have not seen tried before and since this is public to all.. sorry not sharing them yet.
The above is just a general summary of the tasks that are needed to accomplish our goal, yours very well may be the same. One thing to note is that because our end goal is to sell this, we have to keep this in mind for all services and accounts we create, they will need to be made available with the purchase.
Task For You –> Create a list of all the tasks you know need to get done and put them into three categories
- Urgent & Important
- Non Urgent and Important
- Maybe
Tomorrow we will walk you through each of the above tasks that we listed and how they were broken down and assigned.
Start of Cow Rant –> Garry Conn quit crying that we have not mentioned our niche yet… why have you not publicly mentioned yours yet? We have everything out in the public for everyone to see. Do you really think we give a care what market you are picking, that would only slow us down. Instead of complaining, do yourself a favor and actually read the training we are providing and maybe you can actually stand a chance…. awww who are we kidding, you are going to get killed here. <– End of Cow Rant
As always, please provide feedback on this post. We are exposing all to you readers here and we hope you appreciate it because we sure appreciate you all!
John Cow dot ComNarrowing Your Focus – Day 3 of CowpetitionPosted: 21 May 2008 12:35 PM CDT
Decide on specific niche in the “Video Gaming” market to target; Initial content decided on using LSI principals; Domain set up with the blog installed; Design and graphics started; “Lin… Original post:Narrowing Your Focus – Day 3 of Cowpetitionby at Google Blog Search: list of blogging terms Technorati tag: List of blogging terms
comparing search engine over time using Google Analytics. Yaro Starak is allowing people to join his affiliate program again; worth a look. The John Cow vs. Garry Conn “Cowpetition” is well under way. Day 1. Day 2.Day 3. Day 4. Blogstorm find some interesting results while using Yahoo’s search engine. I agree, Yahoo sucks. Courtney Tuttle breaks down the basic of you can make more money with your blog. Had zero success with BlogRush
in tomorrows post. We are not making any guarantees that we will answer every one, but we will try our best. To help spark your memory, here are the past weeks COWpetition posts… Day 1 – Build a Business Not A Blog Day 2 – The Big Picture Day 3 -Narrowing Your FocusDay 4 – Dividing Up the Work Day 5 – Diamonds in the Rough If you do NOT have any questions or clarification and just want to provide some feedback of those posts, then please comment below
in tomorrows post. We are not making any guarantees that we will answer every one, but we will try our best. To help spark your memory, here are the past weeks COWpetition posts… Day 1 – Build a Business Not A Blog Day 2 – The Big Picture Day 3 -Narrowing Your FocusDay 4 – Dividing Up the Work Day 5 – Diamonds in the Rough If you do NOT have any questions or clarification and just want to provide some feedback of those posts, then please comment below
Solid post. We heard about this contest a few days ago, and have been trying to fill in the blanks about this tussle. We don’t think we know everything, but we also got the feeling that Garry was complaining/whining/nervous about you not “revealing” your niche.
Not too sure the actual niche subject matters as much as how you develop it.
Good luck on this, we will be following along very closely!
TheYawkeyWays last blog post..Jose Canseco Will Fight You
got my urgent/non-urgent/maybe list ready to go. btw, i believe garry already publicly disclosed his niche…its consumer credit card debt. what do i get for telling u?
“…The winner of this writing assignment will then have the exclusive
opportunity to work with me and three of my professional business
partners in helping you expand your article into an eBook which will
then become the flagship eBook on the blog that I will be using
to compete with against John Cow dot Com.”
Anthony Dinh – Diaries of a Blogger Contest!s last blog post..Cowpetition – The Price is Right Contest
Well then that shows me for listening to others. I am not following Garry’s stuff because we do not want to get distracted but one of the readers here emailed it to us, and they asked for a reward too lol
Sorry Garry and as for bribing people to write content for you… impressive low budget technique… of course it will not help you but nice out of the box thinking.
Anthony for sharing this here… here is your thank you…
HEY EVERYONE CHECK OUT…
Diaries of a Blogger
Hope that is an OK thankyou
sweet, i’ll take that
Anthony Dinh – Diaries of a Blogger Contest!s last blog post..Cowpetition – The Price is Right Contest
Wow–the LSI discussion alone was worth showing up for today! I confess that I am following both you and Garry. I think there is a lot of value in watching how different people approach things. I was going to submit an article on credit card debt as requested on his site, but the title of this post sums up why I didn’t–NARROWING YOUR FOCUS.
My niche is the 35-55 year old Female begining entrepreneur worldwide and that has very little to do with Garry’s theme. So I bowed out. I’m glad too. But, I did take my baby step and put my opt-in free gift on my site. Already have signs up and thank you for a good article. Also, I did my first interview today–they wanted to interview me! Finally starting to get some traction–not bad for 19 days at it. Oh, yeah, baby! I like it!
Keep writing, John. It’s good stuff.
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..Wanted: Fiery Woman to Cause a Stir on My Blog
I’ve done a lot of SEO but somehow I never heard of “LSI” specifically. Although, naturally, I had often wondered about that very concept, I just never heard it confirmed before now. Very interesting, because that really gets the wheels in my head turning.
One thing I want to ask about is that you haven’t mentioned a domain at all. Do you plan on registering a new domain, buying an aged domain, or using a subdomain? This is a dilemma for me every time, because while I’ve used newly-registered domains more than once, I could never determine whether they were “sandboxed” or anything, and if they were, to what degree. That’s a BIG source of confusion, because then I’m left wondering whether it’s a lack of inbound links, a lack of domain age, or a niche-specific rule that’s leaving my SERP’s curiously bad. I think I’ve underused social marketing, but I’d still like to hear your opinion on domains.
I like dry erase boards a lot too, by the way, lol.
This contest was with a brand new domain and tomorrow we go through how and why we selected ours.
I am an absolute novice and have never done any of this before but looking forward to the learning curve and achievement. I know nothing about games what so ever. I have not selected topic yet, would like to do somethiing for my business after some recent setbacks and am not sure if that is the best place to start or pick another area of expertise such as martial arts.
Do you have any thought on that?
unclear what you are asking… what place do you want to start?
I am referring to the choice of topic
Well, its hard to say… do you see a market in martial arts
I’m really just interested in the best topic for the exercise that will generate good hits and income. I’m not sure of the best topic to do that. I know that it may be a difficult question without knowing my background but I ma just not sure what would be a popular topic online, so these are my areas of expertise in are;
1. Hire and Finance – http://www.ezehire.com.au (30 years)
2. IT Outsourcing and SLA’s (14 years)
3. International Business and Tax (3 years)
3. Martial Arts (35 years)
4. My business delivers IT online services and Outsourcing and this started because I really want to get some online income flowing into it.
My hobbies (if I ever get time) are fishing and boating. And I love to travel and have travelled the world twice.
I have to admit, most of this is way over my head. But I’m learning as I go, so that can’t be bad, right?
No it sure isn’t
Remember what we said in the first lesson… OFT… on the job training.
If you are just starting out, then just follow along but once done… go back and now implement it. Thats when all teh lights really come on and you have lots of ah ha moments.
Interesting point about LSI. If google’s process involves contrasting the linguistic patterns in your content with those it’s already deemed credible, then I guess it makes sense to take long hard look at the basic content structure on the sites in niche with the higher PR and organic listings.
Lot’s to think about here, thanks!
Jonathan Fieldss last blog post..Drive-by Book Reviews: The Bounce Back Book and Escape From Corporate America
It’s going to be an interesting lesson tomorrow.
PrincessCraftss last blog post..Floral Stationery Downloads – 3 New Today
I am confused… are you saying i did not explain LSI good enough?
Interesting stuff, I like the idea of the dry erase board and splitting up tasks. I usually do that in a little notepad document lol
Stak Loaded – How to make money doing nothing!s last blog post..Anyone want a Macbook Air?
Excellent tutorials thus far.
I signed up for Garry Conn emails too …. when he asked for peopel to write articles for him I lost interest.
The quality of the lessons here make John Cow a winner already.
I see your rss feed has jumped off the clock.
Well done ….. the LSI was clearly explained to me …. and an interesting revelation it was too!
Keep moovin’ on up the ladder of financial success John C!
Thanks for the encouraging words
Great info….thank you
Dry erase board..what a concept
Somehow, I knew the ‘keyword’ thing wouldn’t last long. Articles were /are getting ridiculously un-readable! My son ‘plays’ with AI on his computer – says he’s trying to ‘teach it to talk to him’. Hhmmm…Soon they’ll have the search engines ASKING us what we are looking for! Or feeding it to us before we even know what we ARE looking for?
Something to ponder…
Have my task sheet made and completed…
See you tomorrow
Jennie H
Jennie Hs last blog post..Creating Information Products That Sell
Interesting thoughts about LSI. I read a lot about SEO (even implement a thing or two) and although I’ve heard others mention it, I’ve yet to hear anyone mention Google using it (except you).
I’m following both of you guys and did even submit an article to Garry. And you’re right it was very clever, but he did offer a back link to the site and since those can be hard to come by why not.
I’ve done some work on my site, but I will be using ideas from both of you to get to the top.
I really don’t know either of you well enough to vote for one or the other, but your lessons so far are top.
BankCD Man
WOW COW….you gave a good MOO sound in the best….Very informative….Just a question….Video gaming niche is a broader one, How yu gonna cope with this?
Sudarshans last blog post..Hair Loss and Chemotherapy are they really related?
In the next post we explain how we focus down on this niche to a targeted segment. This post just talked about the identification on the general market… not the target niche.
We are actually almost done the site already but we are laying it out like this for the readers benefit as it is too much to take in all at once.
Terrific definition & description of LSI! Thanks!! It’s something I had on the back burner to learn about. I’m glad I understand it now — this will help tremendously as I write content and keep doing SEO. I really appreciate all the effort you’re putting into making this stuff understandable & actionable. Excellent!
WOW… Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
So obvious… just blog like you are talking to someone.
Brilliant post… again
Ian McConnells last blog post..The Top 10 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Blog!
Loving this hilarious competition.
I hope the best Cow wins
Seriously, thank you for once again shedding light on a topic I’ve been thinking on this week, which is writing with related wording and LSI instead of keyword stuffing. I think the whole idea of a certain % of keywords is going to go out and dynamic LSI content, with Google getting smarter of course, will have to come in.
Thoughts?
lawton chiless last blog post..I Love The Way This Taught Me About The Marketing Subject
OK conspiracy theory time…
Actually we think that everything is moving more and more to the social aspect of things, where people make all the decisions based on their actions as to the success of sites. LSI is just one step closer to tyring to mimic something that really can’t be fully mimicked… and Google is buying these all up and using that data. These social sites are already generating equal traffic to google and growing. People that create garbage for content and offer no real value will be filtered out… sort of.
We say sort of because those black hatters always find a way.
Interesting. I write fully developed paragraphs but include the keyword phrase 3 to 5 times in the article. Am I overdoing it?
No, not from our experiance. Keywords in the content are still very important but what we recommend is when doing market research make sure to look for related terms that are not phrase match. People often build blogs that are focused on one term with lost of variations.
As for the content itself, what i recommend is create the headline or title first. Then write about the title, not the keyword. Do not even think about the keyword. Then when you are done you will have an article that is a true conversation… not a piece of spam. Now go back and see where you can effectively fit you keyword in the content a few times… but make sure it fits in logically.
Thank you for the specific advice.
I just wanna say that those articles you are writing about building an online business are so strong and well written. I have never been so fanatic of your website but now i am so glad that i came back to check what is going on and i found this cowpetition. You guys are really smart and it will be nice to follow you over this 30 days trip. The best luck for you guys… big regards from Ecuador
Very informative and it’s good to see an honest approach on making money online. It’s very refreshing! I’m looking forward to your next post.
LSI should be an advantage to Bloggers as the majority read like they are in a converstion with you. Asking questions and explaining products in laymans terms. Am I right in this conclusion?
I’m still stuck on the part “Where to start”. I got tons of ideas but need to filter and focus on a few to get going.
Gords last blog post..A Whale Of A Presentation
It does not have to be in laymans terms, as long as you are talking in the terms your targeted audience can relate to but you are absolutely right about the conversation point.
Hi John,
good posts, I made my lists. And I have questions for you
Will you share which wordpress theme you use and which plugins?
What is a good place to get legal documents from? (I don’t want to hire a lawyer).
Link bait is a great concept, but how can we apply it effectively (just like with “viral marketing”)? It takes some really killer content that takes up many days to develop from my experience to make something that really works.
Tips on deciding specific niche?
“Initial content decided” = you decide what topics you’re going to cover? (like: “1 article about the best brakes for downhill cycling, 1 article about the choosing the right helmet, etc.”?) Or is it the first content that you put up?
How do you do your niche specific content research?
What’s the maintenance plan?
- Good thing you don’t charge per question
Cheers,
Richard
Info Products last blog post..The Easiest Info-Product Creation Ever (Really)
Re: the way social networking is shaping LSI/keywords. When I did my initial Kahuna analysis (one of the people involved in your contest), it told me my site was themed around organic living, but it’s a female entrepreneur site. Although I was disappointed at first, because I have lots of content about women in business, I also have a lot of inspirational, holistic approach to business and life stuff there too. LSI basically saw conversation about empowerment and holistic attitudes and drew conclusions. It’s also a relatively new blog so I will adjust in some ways how I write to move it toward the entrepreneurship side a bit more. Lesson learned.
Instead of being disappointed about my result, I targeted some organic living sites and posted to blogs in that arena and I got a slew of converting traffic. Part of the reason is that “women entrepreneurs” are often in a family or life section, not business, and it’s not yet a strongly developed theme. (It will be if I have anything to do with it!)
Point is, it’s actually fun and interesting to see what google themes your site has and work from there. If you already have a blog that you are improving, the insight is helpful.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
Vicki Flaughers last blog post..The Value of Relationships: Why I Quit the “Convincing” Business
Successful Blogging is an art. I created our blog just 5 months ago and it’s we’re already going to be featured in Forbes Magazine as NASCAR’s Biggest fan.
Successful Blogging takes hard work and dedication… you have to have fun with it.
I like the contest.. keep up the good work Mr. Cow.
Ron Ripple
That is cool and we love your template
lol… The template looks a little familiar?
Great series so far Cow, really looking forward to the juicy stuff later on
Money Making Schemess last blog post..2 Practical Tips To Help You Make More Money With Adsense
[...] optimization (SEO) has been all the buzz. Optimize your website or blog with keyword phrases, make it look human with Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), link clusters or other specialized linguistic patterns in an effort to make yourself appear as [...]
[...] and aggressive time line that needs to fit into or other tasks that can not be ignored. Not… Narrowing Your Focus – Day 3 of Cowpetition – 2 days ago If you have been involved in making money online for more than a couple of years, you [...]
Hey John I just started following everything you are doing there is one question I have about this post. When you say “We know how to find contacts” what exactly does that mean? In my case I am playing catch up so I have not decided on the niche but lets say I went with gaming like you, what exactly are my contacts that I am looking for, people that review games, and/or people that just play games and can give me their opinions? Only thing I am lost on otherwise this is going great.
Wow man, you are great. I want to do some online business, but was not decided on where to start. Your articles are great help. I have question for you, as you mentioned blog setup on domain. I have actually changed DNS settings of my domain to wordpress, but they don’t allow Google Adsense.
Any suggestions?
Prasads last blog post..CSS Specificity
Self-host it. Hostgator is pretty decent for wordpress. Its what I use and its not too expensive as well
EmmaBs last blog post..A Must Have EBook!
This might be a dumb question but,
I knew the web changed at a rapid pace, but after this article I feel as if I need to go back and learn SEO to keywords all over again. I published my first site last week and everything you said in re LSI flies in the face of all I had been tought thus far about search engines. I will be looking into LSI.