In part 1 of the DrToy Story, we looked at some of the site’s basic search engine profile. This time around, we tackle keyword research.

Every serious SEO campaign should start with a thorough keyword selection process. Oftentimes client perceive this phase as just another high traffic keyword hunt in Overture, Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker. In a saturated and extremely competitive market like toys, keyword research actually means discovering profitable keyword niches your competition hasn’t discovered or exploited to the fullest.
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Here’s another Ask Marc request I received December of last year.

Hi Marc,

My friend Archie Flores suggested that I get in touch with you. I am the associate webmaster for the NGO web site www.drtoy.com.

As you know it gets expensive to operate and maintain an extensive web site, and we would like to do what is possible to monetize some of the traffic this site receives. For a long time it has ranked very high on search engines like Google on words such as “toy” and “toys”. The purpose of the web site is to provide a platform for announcing Dr. Toy’s annual awards for
the 100 Best Toys and other award programs. These programs are well respected in the toy industry, and the director of our NGO does extensive publicity work throughout the year on TV, radio and in print. She is the author of several books on toys such as “Smart Play.”

Beginning this December we tried some Google AdSense ads on a few of the main pages. So far we are doing about $20 per day. I have heard of some web sites with similar traffic patterns to ours getting between $500-$700US per day. We’d like to get to that point some day.

I would very much appreciate your review of the website, and any suggestions that you care to make. You are free to mention this in your blog.

Thank you.

Tom Copley

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What’s wrong with the Where Now is the Citizen on Mars blog?

I got quite a few Ask Marc requests during the holiday break but I had to put those on hold because I promised myself a search engine optimization (SEO) and blog-less vacation. But business is business, so here’s our first client for 2006, Major Tom of Where Now is the Citizen on Mars? who also wants to know What’s Wrong With My Blog (sorry MT just had to do that hehe)

Hi Marc,

Greetings,

I have been to your site and I wonder if you could review my site Where Now Is The Citizen On Mars? for some advice of placements and optimizations.

Yours truly,

Major Tom

This is the first time I’ve been asked to review a blog and I’m pretty psyched to do it. I feel like Andy Hagans on one of his Monetization Makeover quests.
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In the last Ask Marc installment, I was asked about site monetization options for a newly launched blog (link love). This time around, we have someone who wants to know the “best” online media buy:

I’ve been asked by my boss to come up with a shortlist of sites to advertise our product on. What ad packages should I look for? What’s the best Filipino site to advertise on?

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This free consultation thing is picking up. I just received my second help me request and I’m more than happy to oblige. BTW, special thanks to Abe and Markku for the link love. Beer’s on me once the next check arrives :)

Here’s Mr. V’s email:

Hi Marc, remember when I told you that I wanted to ask for your help RE: SEO for an upcoming project? Remember when you said “Yeah sure, just YM me” ? That time has come. We’re launching ******** this week and I was hoping you could give me some advise on how to make it as profitable as possible (Yes I’m selling out). What do I need to do first? I’m going after the adult Filipino male niche, something like the Man’s Show on ETC only this time the medium is the blogosphere.

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What do I get out of it?
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One of our international readers sent in this question via email:

Yesterday a friend bought a bunch of domains and offered one to me that he bought as a gift. I’m not sure whether I should use it. My blog is at newbluewidgets.blogspot.com and is currently at PR5 (3,800 backlinks in Y!). He bought www.newbluewidgets.com. What could go wrong if I moved my site to the new domain?

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