Promoting Your Amazon Kindle eBook

Kindle is the newest craze and it could be a huge source of income
for you, so you need to take advantage of it. However, having your
Amazon Kindle eBook finished is only the first stage in the process.
If you want to be really successful, you need to promote it.
The Amazon market has a huge potential and you can't afford to
miss it. On the other hand, despite the fact this is a new niche, the
competition is really fierce, so if you want to stand out from the
crowd, you need to make your book attractive and easy to find.


Of course, you must apply all the conventional promotion and SEO
strategies, like building backlinks to your page and promoting it on
other sites, but there are also some special steps to take in order
to make your product visible. Here they are.

1 Choose a Good Cover

The cover of your Amazon Kindle eBook is its face. The cover
appears in the listings when you search for a book and in addition to
the title of the book, the cover is what makes a user click to see
more about the book or move to the next title in the listing. Lots of
times a catchy cover gets additional clicks and even if users don't
buy your book only because of its cute cover, these additional visits
to your page make it more popular, which in turn brings more
potential buyers in the long term.

2 Choose a Perfect Title

The title, together with the cover, are the first (and frequently
the only) parts of your book users see when they search for books on
a particular topic or in general. Needless to say, your title must
contain your keywords because this way it will appear more frequently
in relevant search results. On the other hand, don't stuff your title
artificially with your keywords because this will have the adverse
effect ‐ we have seen this too often and this keyword stuffing
hurts the rankings of otherwise good books a lot.


The second major requirement for a perfect title is to be catchy.
Amazon searchers are humans, not bots, so they don't care about
keyword density in the title. What they care about is a catchy title
that provokes them to click on and see more details about the book.
Similarly to covers, high click throughs and purchases will give you
a better rank in a popularity filter search (and maybe even relevance
filter) and this pays in the long term.

3 Optimize the Description

After the catchy cover and/or title has done its job to land
readers on the page of your book, you wouldn't like to miss them,
right? This is why you need to come with a concise, yet truthful and
attractive description. This description also needs to be keyword
rich without being keyword stuffed.

4 Pay Attention to Tags and Reviews

On the Amazon product preview page there two other very important
things: tags and reviews. You can use keywords for tags but you also
need to come with more ideas. Basically, see what readers search for
in your niche, and add these words and phrases as tags.

As for reviews, they are simply vital. You can obtain reviews in
many ways but probably the easiest is to give away a few copies of
the book in exchange for favorable reviews. There are Internet
marketing forums where you can find potential reviewers and it is
best if they are Amazon veterans with a positive rating on their own
because this makes their word weigh more.

5 How to Choose the Keywords to Optimize for

As you have probably guessed by now,
keywords are very important on Amazon, too. You can use the keywords
you use for SEO but you can also take advantage of the options Amazon
offers.
For instance, Amazon gives you a bunch
of 'Related Searches'. Check if these keywords are OK for you. Keep
going on till you get the keywords that best match your book. Try
sticking to keywords found in the 'Related Keywords' suggestions
because these tend to be the most popular ones. If this piece were an Amazon book rather than an
article, some of the other keywords we would have chosen to optimize
for are: Kindle Listing Optimization, Kindle Optimization, Kindle
self publishing Optimization tips, Make your Kindle Ebook free.

6Make Your eBook Free - Enroll in KDP Select

In order to get even more free publicity, you might consider the
KDP Select
service. This service helps you reach new audiences and even though
it might not lead to direct purchases, your presence in the program
helps you in indirect ways.


Now, you might be wondering how this can help you make money with
your Amazon Kindle eBook. KDP Select will allows
you to list you book for free for 5 days in a 90 day range, which is
an excellent way to get additional reviews and spread the popularity
of your book. It also allows you to lend books to Amazon prime
members, which is an additional avenue for selling books ‐ if a
prime member likes your book, chances are he or she will buy it after
the lease period is over.

7 Take Advantage of Listmania! Lists and Amazon's
Author Blogs

Listmania! Lists are one more place to get free publicity. You can
create a list and include your book in it. You can also ask your
friends and partners to include your book in their lists. This way,
people who are browsing Listmania! can encounter your book and click
on it.

Amazon author blogs are also a place for some more exposure. They
are great as establishing yourself as an expert in your niche, which
in turn increases the trust users have in your expertise. When users
consider you to be an expert, they are more likely to buy your book.

8 Participate in the Discussion with Potential
Buyers

It always makes a difference when there is live contact with the
author. This is why you might consider spending some time in
discussions with potential buyers.

9 Promote Your Book on Forums and Social Media

Finally, don't forget the power of forums and social media. Use
them to promote your book and drive traffic to your Amazon listings.
This might not be shortest way to sales but it also helps.

How to Get Free Press Coverage

There are two types of marketers ‐
the ones who believe that press coverage does miracles and the ones
who believe it doesn't work at all. If you have never experienced the
benefits of coverage by main media, you might fall into the second
group but if you have, you know how beneficial to your business press
coverage can be. So, how do you make yourself interesting to the
media? Here are some tips to follow to get free press coverage:

1 Know Where to Stop

Before we get into the ways of getting
free press coverage, a word of warning: yes, there is too much
exposure and it can hurt. This is why, before you learn how to
attract media attention, you need to learn that measure is key. If
you are constantly in the news without being newsworthy, this will
harm you because people won't be interested in you even when there is
real news about you. So, don't imitate Z-list celebrities that get
coverage on a daily basis because soon you might end into the Most
Hated list instead.

2 Do Your Homework

It might sound obvious that in order to
be covered by media, you need to be something. There are so many
companies and individuals out there that if you aren't standing out
in some way, you are not newsworthy. This is why you need to position
yourself properly in your niche ‐ think what is special about you
and what makes your company unique. Also, come with a clear message ‐
a short and to the point one. For instance, if you create affordable
sites, your message could be, “Affordable sites ARE professional”
or something similar that stresses you are not expensive but this
isn't because of poor quality.

3 Start the Hunt for Media and Reporters

After you know where you stand and what
your message is, the next step is to start the hunt for media and
reporters. If there is some really important news around you,
reporters will find you but since this is highly unlikely to happen
to the average company, you need to be pro-active. For a start, think
of which media you want to conquer (local,
national, newspapers, magazines, TV shows, etc.) and establish
contacts with their reporters who are responsible for news in your
niche.

4 Get in Touch with Reporters

Very often reporters aren't that
difficult to get in touch with. However, it pays to get familiar with
their work and style first and then contact them. You can watch/read
their previous work to get an idea about their style because it might
turn out their style isn't what you are looking for. As for the ways
to contact a reporter, very often publications list their reporters'
contacts, or they are available in the article/video. If this doesn't
help, you may want to search for the reporters of interest to you on
social networks and contact them there.

5 Always Celebrate Major Company Events with a Press Release

Reporters aren't lazy but they certainly appreciate when news
lands in their inbox. This is why, when you have a major news to
report, don't be shy but write a press release about it and send it
to the media on your list. You could even invite reporters to your
premises for an interview. However, be careful that you correctly
identify what a major company event is ‐ a new product release, a
new office opened, etc. Don't spam with press releases about
insignificant events because this could easily make you a persona non
grata with the media.

6 Comment on Breaking News in Your Area

After you have established a contact
with reporters in your niche, when a major event happens, consider
sending them an email or calling them with your point of view about
the breaking news. If you are a real pro, reporters will be happy to
quote you as an expert on the subject.

This way you are maintaining your
contacts with the media and you are also maintaining your public
image as an expert. Alternatively, when a major event happens, you
can also comment on blogs in your niche - this also helps to build
your reputation as an expert.

One practical hindrance could be the
lack of news or more precisely the fact that you learn about the news
long after it isn't news anymore. If you don't have the time to
monitor news in your niche, consider using the free Google Alerts
service. Set alerts with your keywords and Google will mail you every
time a piece of news matches your criteria.

7 Invest in Your Relationships with Reporters

Reporter relations are one of the major
assets for any PR practitioner. What is more, today's reporters are
tomorrow's Editors in Chief and it pays to be on good terms with
them. For instance, it always helps when you are being interviewed to
provide useful materials to the reporter he or she can use later
because this way you are making his or her work easier. You can also
send follow ups ‐ this also helps to maintain healthy relationships
with the press.

8 Make Your Social Media Profiles Outstanding
and Easy to Find

If you are really newsworthy, reporters
will be finding you, not vice versa. In order to make yourself easy
to find, you need to create public profiles on social networks, such
as Facebook,
Twitter,
G+, LinkedIn, etc. and allow people outside your network to contact
you.

9 Regularly Release Useful Information for Free

You might not be a news source but you
can be the source of tons of useful information the media will gladly
quote. Some suggestions are to release poll results, reports, market
research, case studies, tutorials, videos, and any other material you
deem useful and send it to the media for free. Not every media will
quote you but even if one in ten do, this is a great way to get some
free press coverage.

10 Create a Gallery of Publications about You

A gallery of publications about you,
preferably in reputable newspapers/magazines in your industry, is a
great bait to show to reporters who are still not certain you are
newsworthy. You can create such a section on your site and point
reporters to it. However, always ask for permission from the media to
list their publications about you. Alternatively, you can include
only links to such publications but from time to time don't forget to
check if the links are still working.

11 Promote the Articles/Videos about You

Getting into the news is awesome but if
you want to amplify the effect, you need to promote the publications
about you. Always promote the articles/videos about you among your
partners and followers! If you manage to drive lots of traffic to
them, the reporters will be happy and will consider you a popular
topic to report about again.

12 Measure Your Success

Last but not least, your free press
coverage includes metrics. You need to know how all this coverage
affected you and your business. Did you get more traffic, new leads,
new partners, etc. as a result of the free press coverage or not?
Which channels proved most efficient? These are all questions you
need to find the answers to because even though free press coverage
is great, it might turn out you are doing it out of sheer vanity and
the positive results on your business are not worth the time and
effort.

Free press coverage can be a huge help
to you. The tips in this article are just the tip of the iceberg and
there is much more to learn, if you want to be a media star. However,
for a start even these simple tips will help you to get the most out
of free media coverage.

Google Adwords Alternatives

When it comes to running a PPC
campaign, the first name that comes to your mind is AdWords from
Google. While this is a really good ad network, it is also a very
expensive one. Even with careful keyword selection and targeting, it
is not an exception to pay more for AdWords ads than you make in
revenue. Cost is the main reason to look for alternatives to AdWords.
Fortunately, such alternatives do exist and the best is that some of
them could even outperform AdWords in terms of return on investment.
Here are 12 great AdWords alternatives to consider.

1 Facebook Paid Ads

Facebook paid ads are a
great alternative, especially if you are targeting a younger
audience. Facebook
is the number one social network and (almost) the whole world has an
account with it. Facebook ads offer lots of targeting options ‐ you
can choose age, location, gender, hobbies of the audience to watch
your ads. However, do have in mind that with Facebook generally the
click through is lower, so don't get discouraged if on Facebook you
get fewer clicks on your ads than on other networks ‐ this is
pretty normal.

2 Yahoo!/Bing Ads from Microsoft

Bing and Yahoo are Google's competitors not only in the area of
search engines but also in online ads. Yahoo!/Bing
Ads, formerly known as Microsoft AdCenter appeared after the ad
networks of Microsoft and Yahoo! joined forces in order to beat
Google AdWords. Yahoo!/Bing ads isn't a cheap alternative to AdWords
but you should also consider it because it is really good. Basically
they offer search advertising (i.e. ads are placed in the search
results of Bing search engine) and if you manage to correctly
identify your keywords, you can see huge results.

3 Amazon Product Ads

The biggest online marketplace is also a huge ad board. Amazon
Product Ads place your ads on product pages. This makes the
positioning very targeted because if a user is reading about a
product similar to yours, your ads are likely to catch his or her
attention. Since Amazon sells everything but space ships, it is a
good alternative for almost any niche because chances are there will
be numerous products in your niche to publish your ads alongside.

4 Clicksor

In addition to the big three AdWords alternatives (i.e. Facebook,
Yahoo!/Bing ads, and Amazon), there are many smaller ones that still
serve millions of impressions a month. One of them is Clicksor.
It isn't the cheapest alternative because it has $0.05 cents a click
minimum but it is a good one because its conversions are known to be
excellent. If clicks are expensive for you, check the other forms of
ads offered by Clicksor, such as popunders and interstitials that are
CPM or mixed CPM + clicks.

5 7Search

In terms of cost, 7Search is
probably the most cost-effective ad network. It has low per click
minimums, high conversions (though this depends on the niche) but
also high numbers of fraudulent clicks, as some marketers complain.
Nevertheless, even with these allegedly high numbers of fraudulent
clicks, it is still a very good alternative to Google AdWords.

6 AdBrite

AdBrite is another big ad
network and some marketers claim it works really well for them. Costs
vary a lot depending on your keywords, so as an alternative it isn't
necessarily very cheap (though the same keywords cost much less than
on AdWords). AdBrite offers lots of flexibility in targeting,
numerous ad sizes and types (text ads, banners, BritePic, which are
cute photo ads), and decent conversions ‐ what more can you ask
for?

7 Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser is very
similar to Adsense and AdWords. It is another big network of
publishers' sites. What is most distinguishing about Bidvertiser is
its relatively low CPC with moderate to good conversions. It isn't an
alternative for all niches but overall is a good choice.

8 Dynamic Oxygen

Dynamic Oxygen is a
relatively unknown ad network but with some good offers. Similarly to
Clicksor and AdBrite, they offer many more types in addition to PPC.
Its PPC division is not very expensive ($0.03 min bid per click) but
conversions could be a problem because Dynamic Oxygen doesn't have
that many sites to match your ad with, so your ad might end in sites
that are not completely relevant to your niche.

9 Infolinks

Infolinks is great for
intext ads. Its clicks are cheap, but targeting is a bit of a
problem. It has a requirement that you spend at least $15 a month,
which isn't much (many marketers spend ten times more a day on ads),
especially compared to the $50,000 a month min at Chitika, for
example.

10 BuySellAds

BuySellAds is an ad
marketplace. It's not a PPC network but you can buy ad space on sites
of your choice. Prices vary a lot depending on the traffic of the
site but it is possible to buy an above the fold spot on a relatively
high-traffic site for $15 a month or less. Because of this,
BuySellAds could turn more profitable than PPC. If you choose the
sites well, you can do great because for a flat fee a month you might
be getting targeted clicks at under 1 cent a click.

11 Adknowledge Miva

Adknowledge Miva is just one
more ad network to consider. It offers cheap PPC with decent
conversions, at least in most niches. They have a huge base of
publishers, which means you stand a better chance for your ads to be
run on relevant sites. Some webmasters have complained about
fraudulent clicks but unfortunately these are present with any ad
network.

12 BlogAds

If you are interested in ads on popular blogs rather than ads on
search engines or other types of sites, BlogAds
is the place for you. They specialize in ads on popular blogs, so you
might want to check if the blogs you are looking for are listed
there. They also do social media advertising, so if your audience is
to be found on social media, you could consider this as an
alternative to reach it.

It is not possible to say which of the AdWords alternative is
best. In some cases one network might do brilliantly, in others it
might be a complete failure. This is why you'd better test with a
small budget how a network works for you. Try the same landing page
with multiple ad networks and see which converts best. And never
forget ‐ you must always measure performance because even if one ad
network used to perform well in the past, things change and you
wouldn't like to waste your money on expensive clicks that don't
convert well.

Top Paying Adsense Keywords List 2013

I have compiled my own list of the Top 20 paying Google Adsense keywords, these are based on the CPCs returned by the Google Adwords Keyword tool.

Highest paying Adsense keywords

The Importance of Using Google Webmaster Tools for SEO

It is hardly difficult to guess from the name itself that Google
Webmaster Tools is a set of tools for webmasters. However, what you
don't know right away is that this is a very useful toolset that
allows you to communicate with Google and adjust many aspects of how
Google sees your site, such as list the external and internal links
to your site, adjust the crawl rate at which Google bot indexes your
site, check the keywords users typed to land on your site, as well as
the click through rate for each keyword, see your site's statistics,
and many more.

One issue that needs mentioning is privacy concerns. Since you are
giving Google a full access to your site's stats, you might be
worried about how they handle this data. While Google is a reputable
company and it is not very likely they will abuse the data you are
giving them access to, if confidentiality is a top concern for you,
think twice before letting Google (or any other statistics solution,
for that matter) to your site's secrets.

If you use Google Webmaster Tools together with Google Analytics,
the results will be even better. You can access your Google Webmaster
Tools data directly from Google Analytics, so if you are already
using Google Analytics, with just some more effort you could easily
integrate it with Google Webmaster Tools, too.

How Do I Get Started?

In order to use Google Webmaster Tools, you need to join it first.
You can do it from here.
After you join, you need to go through the verification process, so
that Google knows you are the legit owner of the site you want to use
Google Webmaster Tools on.

There are several ways to verify ownership. The first one is to
download an HTML file and to upload it to the root directory of your
site. Another one is to add an HTML tag into the head of your home
page. If you are using the same Google account for Google Analytics,
a third option to verify ownership is through Google Analytics. There
are more ways to verify ownership but if you are interested in them,
check the Google Webmaster Tools settings and you will see them.

Google Webmaster Tools to Use Daily

Once you have verified your ownership and have Google code in
place on your site, you can now start enjoying the advantages of
Google Webmaster Tools. When you log into your Google Webmaster Tools
account, the first thing you see is the Dashboard:

From here you can access all the major sections - Search Queries,
Links to Your Site, Crawl Errors, Keywords, and Sitemaps. Clicking on
any of these will open the respective section.

Search Queries

The Search Queries section shows the keywords that led users to
your site.

This long list shows which keywords users searched for when they
came to your site. It is best if this list matches the keywords you
are optimizing for but very frequently this list contains good
keywords you were unaware of. In this case, pick these good keywords
and start optimizing for them, too.

In the Search Queries section, you can also see the number of
impressions and the number of clicks, which gives you an idea about
the CTR for this keyword. All equal, a higher CTR means the keyword
is relevant, so you might want to invest some more efforts into this
keyword. However, if you notice that as a result of your efforts, the
CTR goes down, it is best if you don't touch this keyword anymore.

Links

The second very useful section of Google Webmaster Tools is the
Links to Your Site section.

Here you can see where your backlinks
(internal and external) come from, as well as the pages they are
linking to. As with other link checking tools, don't expect that
every single link to your site is displayed but nevertheless this
list of backlinks is useful to check from time to time.

One of the advanced uses of the Links section is to disavow links
to your site you deem harmful. Links from bad sites can hurt your
rankings, so if you want to get rid of them, follow the instructions
in this
article.

Crawl Errors

The Crawl Errors section shows the errors Google bot encountered
on your site. The data you get is similar to what you get when you
use the Spider
Simulator and it shows inaccessible pages, missing pages, server
errors, and all sorts of problems that prevented Google from
correctly crawling your site. You also get some other crawl stats
(such as the number of pages crawled a day) that are useful to know.

Keywords

Similarly to the Search Queries section that also deals with
keywords (but it is the ones users type to get to your site), the
Keywords section also shows keywords. However, the difference is that
here you see what keywords (and their significance) Google has found
on your site. The two lists (of keywords users type and the keywords
Google finds on your site) could be very different, which means you
are not optimizing for what users are searching for.

The Keywords section also allows to see the theme of your site,
which post Panda
has become even more important.

Sitemaps

The last section you can access from the Dashboard is the Sitemaps
section. Here you see the sitemaps
of your site Google has found and the number of URLs in them. If the
sitemap found by Google is different from what you expected it to be,
you can submit a new sitemap for Google to use.

Robots.txt and Other Advanced Stuff

The sections described so far are the basic Google Webmaster Tools
sections. There is also a lot of advanced stuff in each of them but
we won't describe it into details. For instance, you can use your
Google Webmaster Tools to submit a robots.txt
file, or to set the preferred domain syntax (i.e. with or without
www) to be displayed in search results. Google Webmaster Tools also
allows to know if your site is infected with malware. If it is, you
need to clean it first and then resubmit it for review.

Google Webmaster Tools is a really valuable instrument for SEO. It
gives you at a glance data about all important SEO aspects of a site,
such as keywords, links, crawl errors, etc. If you don't use it
already, take the time and get familiar with it ‐ it will help you
get better rankings for sure.

Google Keyword Planner and Other Keyword Volume Tools

Keyword research is a make-or-break
stage in any SEO campaign. If you do it wrong, all your efforts (and
money) are in vain. This is why you need a reliable keyword research
tool. For many years THE tool for keyword volume research was the
Free Keyword Tool from Google and it was all we needed but
unfortunately this great tool is history now.

The good news, though is that
fortunately there are alternatives for keyword volume research. For
instance, the new tool from Google with similar functionality ‐
Google Keyword Planner does many of the things the old tool did but
unfortunately it is more suitable for PPC
keyword research than for organic SEO research. There are also other
tools, such as Bing Keyword Tool, or WordTracker Keyword tool, or the
numerous paid tools and each of them has its advantages as
disadvantages, as we'll see next.

Google Keyword Planner – Still the Best Keyword Volume Tool

The new Google Keyword Planner offers much of the functionality of
the old Free Keyword Tool from Google and is a much better option
than most of the other tools, including the paid ones. Here are some
of the advantages and disadvantages of Google Keyword Planner:

Advantages of Google Keyword Planner

The advantages of Google Keyword Planner can be summarized as
follows:

• Data comes directly from Google itself. Obviously,
  data is more reliable when it comes from the source than from a
  third party.
  

  
  

• Great possibilities for local keywords. If you are
  doing local
  SEO, then you will certainly appreciate the enhanced
  possibilities for local search ‐ you can target your search to
  your small town audience.
  

  
  

• Suggested keywords are grouped. This isn't a new
  feature but it's convenient when you can see groups of keywords
  instead of single keywords only.
  

  
  

These aren't the only advantages of Google Keyword Planner but
even they are strong enough to make you use it.

Disadvantages of Google Keyword Planner

The disadvantages of Google Keyword Planner are not that numerous
and here are some of them:

• You need an AdWords account. Since the tool is not
  available separately, if you want to use it, you need to create an
  AdWords account.
  

  
  

• No Broad or Phrase search. The new tool lacks a key
  feature ‐ the ability to search for broad and phrase match. Now
  your search is limited to Exact matches only.
  

  
  

• No device targeting. Now you can't search for volumes
  on mobiles and desktops separately ‐ all this is mixed into one.
  

  
  

Nevertheless, despite its disadvantages, Google Keyword Planner is
still a better tool than its competitors.

Bing Keyword Tool – the Second Best Alternative

If you are not pleased with Google Keyword Planner, or simply want
an alternative, you might want to check Bing Keyword Tool.

Advantages of Bing Keyword Tool

The advantages of Bing Keyword Tool are these:

• The best tool if you optimize for Bing. If you have
  decided to concentrate your efforts on Bing, obviously this is the
  tool to use.
  

  
  

• Data range search. Unlike Google Keyword Planner, here
  you can search for volumes during a particular data range. This is
  very useful, if you are interested in seasonal volumes, or holiday
  volumes for example.
  

  
  

• You can see search trends as well. Unlike Google,
  where you need to go to Google Trends, if you need data over time,
  with Bing Keyword Tool this data is visible right away.
  

  
  

Disadvantages of Bing Keyword Tool

The disadvantages of Bing Keyword Tool are these:

• The data is not quite applicable for Google searches.
  The first and major disadvantage is that the data you get is not
  always useful when you optimize for Google. Of course, you could use
  it to spot trends but very often you need more precise data in order
  to do well on Google.
  

  
  

• Requires to signup for Bing Webmaster Tool. Similarly
  to Google Keyword Planner, this isn't a publicly accessible tool and
  you need an account. The problem is that you might have privacy
  concerns about what happens with the data for your searches,
  otherwise the tool is free.
  

  
  

• No good local data. If you are fine with local level
  up to country, then this won't be a problem but if you need more
  detailed local data, such as on a state level, not to mention on a
  city and town level, you are out of luck.
  

  
  

WordTracker Keyword Tool

WordTracker was one of the first keyword tools and even though
today its popularity (and usefulness) is quite low, it's still an
alternative to consider.

Advantages of WordTracker Keyword Tool

The main advantages of WordTracker Keyword Tool are:

• It gives an idea how competitive a keyword is. In
  other words, you get not only the volume of searches but also the
  volume of competitors. This is good to know because if a keyword is
  way too competitive, it might be better to skip it.

  
  

• Multiple search filter. You can narrow down your
  search to exact matches only, or include related terms, or search
  for keywords in any order.
  

  
  

• Paid searchers get data from SEMRush tool as well. If
  you subscribe for the tool, you will get data from SEMRush search
  tool as well.
  

  
  

Disadvantages of WordTracker Keyword Tool

The disadvantages of WordTracker Keyword Tool are these:

• The tool is not free. While it does offer a free
  version with somehow limited functionality, if you want to use the
  tool to the fullest, you need to pay.
  

  
  

• The tool requires registration. This isn't much of an
  issue but still it is a disadvantage.
  

  
  

• Reliability of the data. Since the data doesn't come
  from Google or other major search engine, its reliability is not
  high. Still, you can use it for direction but you'd better double
  check with other tools, if you plan to build your whole campaign on
  it.
  

  
  

These three keyword volume research tools are the best. In
addition to them, there are many other paid ones and some free but
their reliability is seriously under question, so basically they
aren't much of an alternative. Nevertheless, even these three tools
are more than nothing, so use them when you have to research for
keyword volumes.

Website Speed and Search Rankings

Google is constantly modifying its
algorithm to sort sites based on keyword relevancy and while keywords
and backlinks always have the lion's share in terms of weight, more
and more seemingly minor factors are taken into account. For
instance, take website speed. You might wonder what at all it has to
do with search rankings but actually it is also a factor (though with
minor importance, to be precise) that influences your position with
Google.

How Website Speed Affects Rankings

First, if you expected that website speed influences your rankings
big time, we need to clarify that this isn't so. While the two are
related, you won't find a direct correlation – i.e. low ranking
sites might load fast and vice versa.

The results depend on which metric you use to measure website
speed. For instance, if you take into account the time needed to load
the first byte of the page, then it turns out this is a huge factor
because sites that are fast to load the first byte of a page
typically rank higher in Google.

If you take other metrics into account – i.e. the time necessary
to load the main content or the time it takes to load the complete
page (with images and ads), then things change because it seems these
two factors are not of that importance to Google.

Overall, it's believed that website speed has less than 1% effect
on rankings. Google themselves have stated that they take website
speed into account but they didn't disclose details about exactly
what matters.

Nevertheless, many sites report increase in traffic (from search
engines or otherwise) after they optimize their site for speed. This
is a pretty good reason to do the same, if your site is slow – you
are not doing it for Google, you are doing it for your users, your
traffic, and your conversions. Website speed is key to user
experience, so if your site is slow, there is no reason to keep it
that way. What's the use of getting traffic from search engines, when
your visitors have to hang for 10+ seconds before they can see your
content – they will have left much before the page has loaded.

What to Do to Improve Website Speed

If you want to improve website speed, there are a couple of steps
to be taken. First, you need to measure your website speed –
otherwise how do you know it's slow?

1. Measure Load Times

In order to measure load times, you need a good tool. The choice
here is quite rich. Pingdom
Page Load Time tool and Google
Analytics Site Speed reports give a good idea of your site's
general performance. WebPageTest
is a more advanced tool because it allows to test your site in
different browsers and spot slow areas on your site.

These tests could take some time for a large site but since they
give you detailed data about which parts are slow, just be patient.
Good tools report not only the average site speed but elements, such
as first byte, user time, time to fully load, percentage of images,
htmls, JavaScript files, etc., which is useful later when you start
fixing the problematic areas.

2. Move to a Faster Server

One of the obvious reasons a site is slow is that the server you
are hosting it on is slow. The reasons here could be numerous –
from a web hosting provider that lacks the capacity to offer fast
servers, to the type of your hosting account.

The easier solution here is to upgrade your account. For instance,
if you have a large site with many pages and frequent database
reads/writes and you are still using a shared account, then no
provider to Earth can offer the speed you need. In this case, if you
are happy with the provider per se, your solution is to upgrade from
a shared account to VPS (Virtual Private Server) or even to a
dedicated server. The costs for VPS or a dedicated server a month are
much higher than what you are paying for your shared account but if
your site is making
you money (or at least has the potential to), the problem with
website speed is literally killing your business.

On the other hand, if your web hosting provider is not good even
if you upgrade your account, this won't solve your problem. The only
thing you can do is migrate your sites to a good web hosting
provider. Here
is a list of some of the best web hosting providers for you to choose
from.

3. Optimize Your Site's Code and Images

Your server might be fast but if your site itself is slow, you
will still experience speed issues. If your code and images are not
optimized for fast loading, you won't see speed improvements till you
fix them. This task could take a very, very long time, especially if
your code and images are bloated but you've got to do it.

For images, you can use compression
and/or smaller sizes. This will speed loading big time. For HTML,
CSS, JavaScript, PHP and other Web languages there are tons of tricks
(and tools) how to optimize your code.

Website speed is not a factor with huge
importance for search engine rankings, though it does count. The
bigger problem with slow sites is that they are not user–friendly,
which in turn kills conversions. If you don't want to lose money
because of the speed issues of your site, take the time to fix them –
it will pay in the long run.