Why Am I Doing An SEO Experiment?

For those who haven’t heard, I have been reading a lot about search engine optimization recently and thought I would try out some of the SEO techniques that I have been reading about.  What I did was to write a post on my blog targeting the keyword phrase “SEO experiment”.  I picked this particular phrase for several reasons.  First, it is unlikely to be one that I would ever want to use in any other context.  Second, it only has just over 300 monthly searches and a CPC of only $0.05.  So, I really don’t care if anyone wants to try and steal it from me.  It won’t do a whole lot of good.  Finally, it seemed like it would present sufficient challenge that I could learn something, but not so difficult that I would get easily discouraged.  There are just about 23,000 search results to compete against.

So I have answered what I am doing and why I picked that term, but what about why I am doing the experiment in general?  The same reason that I go to the driving range and putting green before playing golf.  So I don’t screw up during the real thing.  I certainly wouldn’t want to take a great keyword that I had found with plenty of searches, a reasonable CPC, and little site competition and use that for my first time ever SEO efforts.  You gotta be kidding me!

There are secondary benefits to this exercise which may or may not be apparent, and I will share those as well.  I enjoy teaching and sharing what I am learning.  I also think that by being able to explain this to others will help solidify the concepts in my own mind.  I also am seen by those reading my blog, this article, and the forum posts as being straight-forward and honest, which I most certainly am.  I have nothing to sell and don’t need the income from my internet ventures.  Sure it will be nice to earn something and maybe I might put together an e-book someday.  Who knows?  But I simply want to share what I learn.  I am not too worried about the competition since I know that earning on the internet is a lot of hard work and most people aren’t going to put in the hard work to succeed anyway.  And those who will, I am more than happy to help mentor and learn from as well.

Another benefit from this project is the potential for increased traffic.  By putting out all the articles and “buzz” associated with the SEO experiment, I might pick up some interest from viewers who might not otherwise have noticed.  They might read some of my other helpful writings on investing and portfolio management which is another passion of mine.  They might add a link to their blog or site enhancing the reputation of my blog and other HubPages articles.

This project also gives me something to do while generating a fair amount of content by itself.  I have posted 3 blog posts, a Hub, and an eHow article.  I have this Hub answering a specific question.  I have completed an InfoBarrel article and will have 3 more link wheel spoke articles plus some more blog posts associated with this giving me at least 10 if not 15 pieces of content.  All of these articles (except ezinearticles) will have AdSense ads next to them as well. 

As you can see, there are several reasons why it is beneficial for me to conduct this project.  Not only do I force myself to learn about these techniques in order to practice them and share with my readers, I will also receive potential short-term and long-term benefits.  It is my desire that my readers receive benefits as well.  All in all, it seems like a win-win.