After a few months I target ‘web hosting promotion’ keyword, now this site is number 1 on Google.com.my for the keyword even though the keyword is one of the competitive high paying keyword that most people know.

This is the results on 14 November 2011. As time goes by, my rank might be different and probably no longer on the first page.

So how the hell I manage to beat other web hosting companies in Malaysia for the keyword? What’s the real secret behind it?

This is what I did.

First secret: Internal linking

If you see on the sidebar, there is a link with anchor keyword ‘web hosting promotion’.

The advantage of a blog compared to company websites is that the a blog usually has hundred pages while a company website usually has around 10 pages.

I clearly beat them in term of internal linking.

Second secret: Guest post in specific country

I have written two guest post that contains backlinks to this site with ‘web hosting promotion’ as the anchor keyword.

Those companies probably have done a lot of link building such as forum profiles link building or article marketing.

However nothing beat the link juice that come from authority website in the specific country. If you want to rank well in Google My, you need to have backlinks from Malaysia website. You either need to pay others for link, or you can have win win situation by writing good quality guest post.

Third secret: Don’t lazy to do off page SEO

To be honest, I don’t like to build backlinks since it consumes a lot of my time.

Thus I only use FREE software such as Social Monkee that automatically submit your page to various social bookmarks.

I know that links from social bookmarking sites cannot be counted as quality backlinks. But if you are the only one that do that and your competitors don’t do it, then you will be the winner for sure.

The Crucial SEO Mistake one should never do

Okay, that’s for the rank on search engine.

Since I get to target high competitive keyword, for sure my traffic will increase drastically isn’t it?

That is what most people think.

Something seems beauty on the outside might not be so in the inside.

I target the keyword because I know the keyword is one of the high paying keyword without doing the proper SEO keyword research first.

Just now when I check it using Google Adwords Keyword, I get to know that the keyword has a fatal flaw that is the monthly searches from Malaysia are too small.

What can I expect from a keyword that only receives 45 search query per month?

That’s only the search query. Not the number of users that actually click your website.

From 45 searchers, I believe only 50 percent will click the link provided.

So you try like crazy doing SEO on a keyword until it reach the top spot on search engine, but at last you realize that the spot only gives you 30 unique visitors per month.

Is it worth your effort?

That’s why SEO keyword research is the most important phase that you should pay attention before optimizing a keyword.

If I have taken some time to do proper keyword research, for sure I will optimize ‘web hosting in Malaysia’ keyword which receives around 4000 monthly search queries instead of ‘web hosting promotion’ keyword.