Part Time Webmaster Blog

What is Google Insight? Here’s Google’s definition:
With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

Here’s the link to Google Insight:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

So, how do I use Google Insight to help me?
Well, with any keyword, you can see their search trends. So what right? Well, imagine if you are selling 2 different things. If you did a comparison of those two things using Google insight, you may be able to see which product is becoming more popular. And, you can find when people search for it. This can be extremely helpful if you are marketing. You can see the exact time when people are searching and their peak times. This will allow you to focus your marketing during those peak times.

Here are some of the general uses for Google Insight:

• Categories: Narrow data to specific categories, like finance, health, and sports.
• Seasonality: Anticipate demand for your business so you can budget and plan accordingly.
• Geographic Distribution: Know where to find your customers. See how search volume is distributed across regions and cities.
• Properties: See search patterns in other Google properties.

Here is a link for some examples written by Google:
http://www.google.com/support/insights//bin/answer.py?hl=en-US&answer=96693

So, how do we use this? Let’s take an example using webmaster.

I typed in webmaster into the default search. What I found was that the searches in Cote d’Ivoire were the highest. If I were looking for a job or would like to advertise services, I’d probably start there.

Next, I’m going to try locations. Since I’m in the US, I can search for webmaster in the US. It shows me that the highest interest is in California. My state is number 8! It’s also telling me what the breakout searches are as well. Number 1 is Google webmaster tools. So, if I need to get more visitors, I need to talk about that more. In fact, that’s a breakout search in Georgia as well. Because of this, you’ll probably see some slight changes later

Next I chose time ranges. After choosing the time ranges, I was able to narrow down to my actual city. And, it look like the searches are peaking at this time. Holy cow. Now is the time to advertise.

So, hope you liked the quick example. Keep in mind, you can do this too with any topic!

The direct link to the Google Search Engine Submission page is here: http://www.google.com/addurl/.

But, before you proceed, this is probably not the fastest way to get indexed. The fastest way is to add your site link to someone else’s site! For example, you can add your site link here, we’re indexed.

Another easy way is to create a blog at Google’s blogger.com, then reference your site. Once you create your blog, make sure to do the following:

1. Log into the admin
2. Click on the settings tab
3. Scroll down and choose YES for the question, “Add your blog to our listings?”
4. Then, choose YES to the question Let Search engines find your blog?

I haven’t tested the speed of adding your link to a Google Blog, but I have noticed getting listed in a couple of days with by adding your link to another site.

The easiest way to see if you are listed is to search for your domain name. For example, do a Google search for parttimewebmaster.com

Google’s search algorithm is advanced, I’ve never actually sat down and tried to figure it out. But, time and time again, it seems as though, they (Google) always mentions DMOZ.org. So what is dmoz?

According to DMOZ, here is a description of the site and service:

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

So, why do I need to know this? Google uses dmoz to help give credibility to sites. It’s Google’s way of cross referencing a site by having an actual human look at the site. So, if you get your site into DMOZ, chances are your rankings will go up. If your visibility doesn’t go up, so be it. But, if anything, you only lost about 5 minutes of your time, so what do you have to lose.

So, here’s how to submit your site to the DMOZ open directory.

1. Go to dmoz.org
2. In the search box, type in your website address. Example: parttimewebmaster.com
3. If it comes up, you’re golden, if not continue.
4. Search for an appropriate category until you see the option to Submit a URL. Make sure the directory is not too overloaded, choose a more focused and smaller group if possible. This may help speed the process. This hasn’t been validated.
5. Once you’ve found the directory, click on Submit URL and enter your information.
6. Wait…wait. It can take a long time to get into dmoz, but one day you’ll get in there.

Best of luck!

Not too long ago, I wrote an article on how to choose my next blog post. In it, I discussed how you can use Google Trends to find the next topic to write about. Well, most of us may not have a blog. For those of us that don’t and are looking to make money through ecommerce or their services, it would be nice to see what types of leads the competition is getting. So, if I’m selling a service, I want to market the latest trend to get business. After all, I don’t want to optimize my site for something no one wants. So, here are some steps on taking advantages of the latest trends in your industry.

1. Choose a service or product you want to sell.
2. Run a google search on it.
3. Copy down (or keep a browser tab open) of the top websites found.
4. Go to Google Trends
5. Type in these website addresses into the Google trends search box, and hit search.
6. Chances are, you may not get any results, so look below the search box and click on the link titled “Websites”
7. Now, you may see some results.
8. Continue searching until you see something pop up in the section on the right titled “Also searched for”
9. Now, you have your latest trend!

Best of luck!