First, I got an email from Yoast and a friend (one of my web-clients too who does Short Term Missions Training and cross cultural training for businesses) asked me about keywords for his new website. I told him – “ask people who are your fans to tell you keywords. Ask your customers. You MIGHT know your keywords- but others will more likely know your keywords”. Well, after reading some books, I was correct – this is sound advice. Now – some links to help you ….

Here is my short list of instructions … I think my friend has a really good chance at rating high

• I assume you have the Yoast plug in your WordPress installation
• I assume you have set up Google’s Sitemap and WebMaster tools
• buy Content SEO from Yoast
  • look at Yoast Suggest
  • check out Google Trends
  • SLOWLY READ THIS BOOK. It is short and packed with the “why”
• read the almost free Kindle book for ideas SEO for WordPress: How To Get Your Website on Page #1 of Google…Fast! [2nd Edition] [Mar2014],
• check out the 3 tools listed below (Keyword Eye)
• blog often – short short short blogs with links to the real info you want to show people

You can stop reading now.

How I got to the bullets above … the longer version

After trying Google Keyword Planner and finding myself at the “enter credit card number now”, I researched it and a web article said [free] Google Keyword Planner is dead. They recommended 3 other tools

• Keyword Eye
• Keyword Spy
• SEM Rush

Yoast was selling some books at 10% off – I clicked on Content SEO and bought it. GOOD STUFF. Why did I get this? Because I don’t do any SEO on my own website – it is the content itself that gets me ranked on Google. When doing research on obscure topics that no one else is good at – I get in my own way – I find myself on Google lots. Bragging? No – my point is Yoast’s point – good content is the key.

But first, I went to Kindle for the <$10 kindle books. Here is the first, it was good, SEO for WordPress: How To Get Your Website on Page #1 of Google…Fast! [2nd Edition] [Mar2014], but Google keyword planner is dead, so that section was outdated.

Oh – look – a popup from Yoast giving me a free e-book Yoast’s small SEO guide to optimize your website , Crap – they won’t send it to me.