This series of keyword tips will help you find the best words and phrases that will bring traffic to your blog or website. When you use keywords properly, more readers will find the article you have posted, and the more readers who find your article, the more money you’ll make, either through Google Adwords, affiliate recommendations, or product sales.

Keywords Make Your Article Searchable

After you’ve published your articles, search engine spiders analyze your page, noting the theme of your content and capturing the essence of your message through the most significant words and phrases. The spiders then index your article according to your major keyword.

When a searcher types in the keyword, the search engine will see your article as relevant to the search and list your article. The searcher will then click on the link that leads to your article. If the article satisfies the query, you will begin the process of creating a relationship with the visitor, who may become interested in your content, your opt-in offer, your Google Adwords, your affiliate recommendations, or your products.

Good keywords, then, get you ranked with the search engines and bring visitors to read your keyword-rich article.

Keywords And Google Adwords

Even if you’re not selling anything on your site, but have signed up with Google Adwords, you can earn money. Your keywords will serve two functions: One, they will tell Google Adwords what relevant ads to post on your website; and, two, they will bring visitors to your site to read your article because it relates to their search.

Good Keywords

A good keyword or phrase is one that has at least 100 daily searches and not more than 30,000 competitors. Of course, this is an idealization, but those figures, statistically, will give you the most value for your keywords. These numbers are not absolute, but a general rule of thumb. If you have too few searches, then it means that generally people are not interested in the topic. If you have too many searches, it means that you are unlikely to rank well for that keyword in the search engines unless your site is thoroughly optimized for both on-page SEO and off-page.
Generally, long tail keywords, or keyword phrases, are more selective, and one word keywords are too broad, creating competition that may well run into the millions.

The purpose of keywords, then, is to make your article relevant to what people are searching for and to make the keywords prominent enough for the spiders to notice them.

Next in this series of keyword tips, we will look into how to do keyword research

I’m reading Chuck Norris’ book, The Power Within, and I’m blown away by the depth of his insights about Zen. The book is remarkably well-written, something I would not have expected from a martial artist, an action-adventure movie and a television star.

Somehow I had no idea that his talents extended to wordsmith prowess. He can spin enchanting words as adroitly as his famous roundhouse kick. I’d figure he would be just to busy to learn how to be an artist, too.

Besides being a first-rate writer and philosopher, I’m also learning that he is also a great humanitarian and philanthropist, contributing time, energy, and money toward the United Way, Make A Wish Foundation, and the Veterans Administration among others. He has also created the Kick Drugs Out of America Foundation (Kick Start) to help at-risk kids raise their self-esteem and learn both discipline and respect. Finally, he is a family man, with two grown children, and has two homes, one in Dallas, Texas, and Tarzana, California.

Today I was reading about his past. He was doing well-financially after selling his karate studios to a corporation. He had a new Cadillac, a new home, and a luxurious office in a high rise. Then the corporation had financial problems and sold out to another outfit. This new company ran his chain of studios into the ground. In a bid to save his studios, he bought them back. Suddenly, he was in financial trouble. He lost his beautiful car and home. A business friend suggested that the only intelligent thing to do was to declare bankruptcy. But this was not Chuck’s style. He struggled for a long time–but then made the studios profitable again. He climbed out of his financial mess and rebuilt his business and his life again.

How Does This Story Apply To You

This, then, is what I’d like to talk about today: how you can attain a mindset in your marketing that will make you invincible, bullet-proof you from all the apparently insurmountable obstacles that stand in your way. I understand how difficult it is to create an internet marketing business: no emotional support, no money, no time, no energy, and, to make matters worse, no clear direction on what to do and how to do it.

What Would Chuck Do? (WWCD)

But, let me ask you a question: if you had a mind like Chuck Norris, a tough, determined, focused mind, what would you do to turn things around for yourself?

As a guide, here are some words of wisdom from the man himself. See how you can apply them in your own pursuit of success.

“A lot of people give up just before they’re about to make it. You know you never know when that next obstacle is going to be the last one.”

“A lot of times people look at the negative side of what they feel they can’t do. I always look on the positive side of what I can do.”

“I think setting a goal, getting a visual image of what it is you want. You’ve got to see what it is you want to achieve before you can pursue it.”

“I’ve always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you’ve got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish.”

“Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”

Is that Zen enough for you, grasshopper?

Now go out there and practice those roundhouse kicks in your Internet Marketing.

I’d love to hear your comments.

Online market research consists of discovering, interpreting, and developing a system.

Discovering

Discovery can be finding new products, new ways to promote new products, or changing a product to fit the market need.  It can also be finding new ways to improve traffic and conversion.  Or it could simply be adopting a solution that somebody has discovered.

Discovery happens when you are curious, open-minded, and choose to learn new marketing techniques.

Interpreting

This is actually an extension of discovery.  Once you have discovered something, you have to interpret it.

Suppose, for example, you discover that writing articles for ezinearticles.com has improved the traffic to your website.  Now you have to interpret that event.  You have to look at the type of article you wrote, how you wrote it, and where you placed it.  You have to identify what it is that worked.

Once you have your interpretation in place, you have to test it.  Write another article, and another, and another, each time noticing what it is that made a difference.  Perhaps, you conclude that it is the way you chose your keywords that made all the difference.  Now, you have a formula.  Write articles optimized for keywords that have at least a 100 daily visitors and no more than 30,000 website competitors.

You arrived at this formula by noticing what happened, coming up with hypothesis after hypothesis, and testing each one.

To interpret something then is to make a distinction.  It is to distinguish one thing from another.  It is to pull out of a mass of data something that can be used in a formulaic way.  It is, in essence, replacing chaos with order.  When you can see a pattern to something, then you have made a discovery.  Identifying a positive pattern helps you to replicate it.  Identifying a negative pattern helps you to avoid it.

Observing what works and what does not work in any of your marketing efforts is creating something new.  When you learn to step out of feeling elated over success and dismayed over failure and instead take a scientific perspective on what is happening on not happening in your marketing, you are in the process of growing in your marketing skills.

Developing A System

Once you’ve discovered something and interpreted it, you have a formula.  As you continue to collect formulas, you will develop a system.  Using your system, you can organically develop a highly successful Internet marketing business.

For example, a system might look like this:

1.  Build a blog to reach my target audience.
2.  Write interesting articles that add value to the visitor’s experience.
3.  Write articles in a keyword-targeted way for ezinearticles.com to
get people to visit my blog.

Over time, this list of things that work will continue to build up.  Over time, you will have created a successful business.

Through using online marketing research, you were able to discover new things, interpret them, and develop a system.

What does education have to do with internet marketing?

Everything!

Recently, one of my readers wrote me asking why my newsletters are different from those of other online marketers.  He said that he found my emails educational, but he wondered, from a marketing perspective, why I chose to not focus on taking a more business-like approach and work on sales.

I found his letter provoked some insight that I would like to share with you.

Basically, his letter made me ponder the question:

As a marketer, how can you provide value to the people who visit your blog or website or sign up for your newsletter?

I personally believe that the most important thing that you can give your readers is education based on your own experiences.

Here is my philosophy about education in a nutshell…

Education is a form of empowerment.  It’s not filling a bucket, it’s lighting a fire–because education is about ideas, and ideas create a world.

This education has to be practical:  You have to show how something is done, rather than tell people about it.  As William Butler Yeats once said, “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.”

Another thing to improve your connection with your reader, a way to build a positive relationship, is to make the education entertaining and fun.  We do not forget what we learn with pleasure.

I believe education, rather than selling something, is the soul of business.  After all, it’s something that can be passed from one person to another.

It should be remembered that education is not the same as instructions.  Instructions end in the school-room.  Education begins with life.  By educating someone about some aspect of marketing, you add to the quality of their life.

So I write my blog posts and emails the way I do because I want to share what I know.  By sharing, I educate, and by educating, I improve lives.   In the words of Epictitus:  “Only the educated are free.”

One of the most important thing to keep in mind when dealing with frustration in internet marketing is that your finest moment will usually appear when you’re feeling unhappy and unfulfilled, for it is then that you reach for something deeper within yourself.

It’s only when you’re in a rut that you look around for something better.

It’s only when you’ve run out of your stock answers that you look for new answers.

This is why in your quest for economic freedom through your own home business online you must pass first pass the test of courage.

Feeling frustrated at your lack of progress does not empty tomorrow of its promise, but it robs today of your strength to serve your dream.

Creating your dream online is not a constant high.  It also has its moments of deep discouragement–and when these occur, it’s time to pause and take into account your great love for freedom and self-expression, and it’s time to remember your longing for great achievement.

All massive change involves great risk, including the risk of having to believe in yourself.

There is something else more important than the fear that you will fail:  It is your passion.  You have got to follow it.  You have got to figure out why you love the possibility of creating an income independent of working for others.

Your courage led to the decision to quit following arbitrary rules established by others on what things mean.  The courage that you displayed in making that decision is the only real courage anybody really needs; after all, it is the courage to follow a dream.

Your talent may be your gift to life, but it is your courage that will bring your talent to life.  Your courage is the spur that pushes you on past doubt and despair to a place where anything is possible for you.

May your path to success online be lonesome, dangerous, bewildering, because if you stay on it long enough, you will come to the most amazing view and the mountains of your achievements will have risen high above the clouds of your doubts.

You have everything to do, and you’ll do it.  You will be supremely satisfied in the end.  After all, a day will come, when from morning to night, you will do exactly what you want to do.

If you want to see a rainbow, you may have to walk through the rain.

In closing, let me leave you with this one last thought about dealing with frustration when it comes to Internet Marketing:

If you want to succeed in your internet marketing business, you must improve it; but to improve it, you must practice building and marketing it; but to practice building and marketing it, you must learn how to go about doing it,  and to learn this, you must fail over and over again.

The best way of dealing with frustration is to look beyond what is not happening to what it is that you must first learn before you can overcome your problem.  See the gift in the frustration.  What new possibility is it pointing out to you?

There is a reason why 95% of the population can’t achieve financial wealth, and it’s not because of the government, corporations, or the banks.  The reason is their financial programming.  If you’re not as rich and as successful as you would like to be, there is only one person to blame.  Yes, that’s right.  It’s YOU.  And although you are to blame for all your financial problems, it’s not really your fault!  This, then, is the wealth paradox.  Let me repeat, you are to blame for your lack of financial abundance, but it’s not your fault.

You Are At Cause

You are to blame because you are the cause of everything that happens in your life.  At some level, your thoughts, feelings, actions attracted to you the things you now have, for better or worse.  So, at some level, consciously or subconsciously, you are the singular causal factor behind all your experiences.  Even if others have betrayed you, you picked them to show up in your life.

Although this sounds like a condemnation, it is actually a liberating idea.  If you’re not really a victim, then that means you can change things.  You are at cause in your life.  If you don’t like how your reality is playing out, you can change it.

It’s Not Your Fault

Now let’s look at the other side of the wealth paradox.

You’re not really to blame for what has happened to you–because you have received false information about the reality of prosperity ever since you were born.  Parents, relatives, friends, teachers, and role models did not know the truth, and so passed on the lie of scarcity.  Similarly, schools, jobs, and the media continued the brainwashing.  The only message your mind has consistently registered is that there is not enough to go around for everyone.

Wealth Rules Are Unreliable

You have been fed myths like your wealth is a result of your job, how much value you can offer, or how hard you work.  Yet if this were always true, then those who had illustrious careers would never go broke, those who sold drugs and masterminded Ponzi schemes would never make money, and those who dug ditches all day long would be millionaires.  Since for every reason attributed to wealth, there is an exception to the rule, none of these reasons can be true.  By following rules, people are running around in circles.  If creating wealth was as simple as following some rules, then almost everyone would have discovered these rules, applied them, and achieved wealth and success.  Since so few people can decide on the right rules, let alone follow them, it makes the whole idea of wealth rules questionable.  Rules are satisfying because they simplify the complexity of reality, but from experience you have probably already figured out that they don’t work.

This is so important, I’ll repeat it:

Frankly, none of the rules you attribute to prosperity is true.  Since all rules about life have exceptions, then they can’t be reliable indicators of truth.

If 95% of people don’t know the rules to prosperity, what rules do the 5% follow?

The 5% don’t follow rules.  Instead, they make decisions.

Five Wealth Decisions

These are the five primary decisions wealthy people make for themselves.

1.  Reprogram.  They consciously and subconsciously program their minds to expect wealth, even when they have no idea where the money is going to come from when they do this self-reprogramming.

2.   Study.  They study their field, getting better and better at the skills they need to know to leverage a positive change.  For example, those studying internet marketing learn new ways to provide consumer value, communicate unequivocally clear marketing messages, create trust in their products, and generate traffic to their websites.

3.  Focus.  They constantly work on erasing fears, doubts, and inadequacy through positive self-talk.  They reframe experiences so that they can still keep their hope and faith alive and stay in the game.  Even in the depths of defeat, they learn to refocus their minds on what they want and keep it off the things that they don’t want.  As the great spiritual teacher, Lester Levinson, an awakened man who became a millionaire, once said, “If you only keep your mind on what you want that is all that you will be getting.”

4.  Filter.  They avoid listening to the nonsense circulating around them about why scarcity, lack, limitation are real events.  They avoid buying into the myths propagated by angry and agitated people all around them.  They have no patience for indulging in self-pity and listening to victim stories.

5.  Manage Resources.  They know that they only have three resources, and they do their best to manage them well.  The first resource is time.  The second resource is energy.  And the third resource is relationships.  By using their time well, by learning how to harness their energy, and by working to live in harmony and cooperation with others, they can move their projects through to completion and enjoy abundance, not only of money, but also of happiness, peace, and well-being.

Moving Beyond Rules, Into Decisive Action

Notice that these are not rules in the traditional sense.  Most money rules are based on the “if, then” formula.

“If I work hard, I will prosper.”  Sometimes you can work hard and prosper and sometimes you can work hard and stay poor.

“If I am talented, I will prosper.”  Sometimes talent wins the day, sometimes blind luck does it.  How much talent does it take to win a lottery?

And so on.

So instead of rules, the 5% make decisions about how to conduct their mental, emotional and physical energy.   Rules have exceptions, but decisions have consequences.  You can’t do much about exceptions, but you can learn from consequences and keep what works and get rid of what doesn’t work.

3 Ways To Reset Your Mindset

Before you can internalize and truly express the wealth decisions, you have to reset your mindset.

1.  Remove Negative Feelings

Whenever you feel fear, doubt, confusion or any other negative feelings, this is a sign that a subconscious program is running in the background.  When these feelings arise, you have to remove them.  There are a number of techniques to do this.

One is to use the Emotional Freedom Techniques.

Another is to use the Swish Pattern of Neurolinguistic Programming.

And another is to use the Sedona Method.

(Note: You can find posts related to these three techniques on this website.)

2.  Reprogram Your Mind

First, write down exactly how much money you want to have in your life.  Let’s say, you decide that you want to earn $10,000 a month.

Second, before you drop off to sleep, see an image, either still like a photograph or moving like a video of what it would FEEL like to have that money.

Third, when you wake up, hold that image in your mind.

By the way, even 10 seconds is enough to reprogram your subconscious mind.  If you want to bask in the image, then that is fine, too.

3.  Create A Wealth Ritual

By using daily habits, you can change how you relate to money.  Wealth rituals can vary from one person to the next.

Here are mine:

(a) At the beginning of each week, I set goals for the coming week.

(b) I write down 6 tasks to achieve each day.

(c) At the end of the day, I write a journal of how I did that day.

(d) At the end of the week, I evaluate how I did.  Then I go back to step (a).

This four step ritual has served me well, making it possible to regularly achieve my goals, sometimes even overcoming great obstacles.

Big Take Away

If you are not prosperous, you are trapped in a financial wealth paradox.  On one hand, you are at cause for not enjoying wealth and success.  On the other hand, you have been brainwashed since birth into thinking you are a victim of circumstances.  The way to break out of this paradox is to quit following “if, then” wealth rules.  While it is comforting to simplify reality with rules, you have to simply accept the complexity of life.  Instead of rules, decide on following five core decisions about wealth.  But, before you can follow these rules, you have to reset your mindset, with three special techniques.

Entrepreneurs hate following rules and they hate the constraint of shackles.  What they want is freedom to do their own work in the world in their own way.

The antithesis of an entrepreneur is the traditional worker, who is willing to give up every last trace of independent thinking and self-will for the lure of financial and social security.

In the quiz below, read the reasons, notice if the description fits, and score one point for everything that appears to be true for you.

1. You want freedom

You want to do things your own way, and you just hate following orders.  Your credo is that it is better to do your own work poorly than to do the work of another well.  For better or for worse, you did it your own way.

2. You hate pessimists

As an entrepreneur you’re totally committed to your vision of making the world a better place and the idea of listening to somebody whine and complain about their difficult life, their endless litany of problems, drives you to want to shout at them to take some initiative and be at cause in their lives rather than live out the play of effects.

3. You love personal growth

The idea of becoming a better person, smarter, more efficient, more alive and more eloquent and expressive fires you to take one self-improvement seminar after another, listen to audio tapes in your car, and scan the bookshelves of your local library for that one book that will change your life.

4. You relentlessly pursue education and training

While other people want to spend their evenings at home watching television, you want to learn more, so you’re on the computer researching, or in a classroom, or reading a book, or listening to an audio, or watching a video.  You’re excited about learning, expanding your knowledge and improving your skill sets.  You want to learn how to do what you love even better.  You’re passionate about education and training because you know that ultimately it’s the quest for knowledge that defines the quality of your life.

5. You love new ideas

New ideas thrill you the way catnip excites a cat.  You just can’t get enough good ideas.  You may even carry around a journal to record your ideas and you will wake up in the middle of the night to write in it.  If you meet somebody who also is thrilled by the power of new ideas, you feel an incredible sense of connection.

6. You think work is fun

You believe that work should be fun.  In fact, you have a tough time differentiating between work and play.  As far as you’re concerned, they may as well be synonyms.  While everyone else has already dismissed you as a workaholic, you get the most pleasure from pursing your dream.  Even the most boring aspect of your work is but a minor interruption in the pleasure you derive from your work.  What most people consider fun, leisurely, and relaxing bores you to tears.

7. You want to give back

You have an extraordinary capacity to appreciate all your lucky breaks in life and the things that are now working for you.  As this feeling of gratitude builds up in you, you feel a need to give back.  You’re connected on a subtle level with the urge of life to express itself more fully; so, appreciating the circle of life, the ebb and flow of giving and receiving, you’re constantly looking for ways to give back.

8. You want your own business

If given a choice between working for someone and instantly making a great income and creating your own business and working hard at it for a long time before you make a decent income, you would rather have your own business.
Your dream of what is possible for you is more real and more compelling than the faux security you get from building someone else’s dream.

9. You think big

You are cognitively incapable of thinking in small, limiting, and restrictive ways.  You strap your ideas onto rockets of imagination and extrapolate them beyond the known facts.  You think big because that excites you and you believe that it makes no sense at all to try to play it safe by choosing a myopic vision.

10. You want to be rich

Money is not just a way to handle the bills and to meet your basic needs.  You want more money so that you can enjoy a wider spectrum of life.  You want to be rich because money is a vehicle that will allow you to enjoy a spectacular life, one rich in innovation, contribution, and unbridled self expression.

Scoring:

0-2:  Cold.  You should hold a mirror in front of your face to see if it fogs.

3-5:  Warm.  Some signs of life.  You need to practice yogic breathing to awaken dormant life force particles.

6-8:  Hot.  You’re alive!  If you kindle the inner fire, you could be dangerous.

8-10:  Fiery.  Watch out Donald Trump!  There’s a new player in town.