Several online sites let you monitor that information. They’re all simple to use: sign up online, then input data through the web, through Twitter or through your mobile phone. Then you can generate reports, observe trends and even look at cost projections to help with budgeting.

MyMileMarker.com lets you use your PDA or smartphone to enter info through their mobile site. One of the hardest parts of using a service like this is remembering to actually use it. I don’t know about you, but despite my best intentions to record the info when I get back to the office from the gas station, by the time I actually arrive my brain has already moved on.

Mobile access means you can update the info every time you stop at a gas station, while you’re still thinking about it.

Other similar sites:

MPGTune.com. The site is kind of confusing, but MPGTune.com offers another nifty way to enter data in addition to mobile access: via text message.

FuelFrog.com. Like MyMileMarker.com, you can also input account info using Twitter.

TrackYourGasMileage.com. Though it has the most descriptive name, it’s not quite as powerful as the other sites.

AccuFuel. Not an online site, but a $.99 app for the iPhone which serves the same function.

AutoKeeper. A $3.95 program for Windows Mobile devices.

In the last step, we used business competitors to brainstorm possible keywords. Now we’re going to look at keyword competitors. Remember the subtle difference:

• Business competition – you should know these companies or people already. They’re competitors for your customers.
• Keyword competition – websites using the same keywords you’re considering. You’re not competing for customers in this case, but for search engine ranking.

You may want to do this research step for every keyword on your list, or you may just pick out the top contenders. It depends on how thorough you want to be, and how much time you have.

1. Using the search engine(s) of your choice, search for the keyword term or phrase.
2. From here, it’s the same as the previous step, studying your business competition. Click on some of the top sites that come up and look through them.
3. Pay particular attention to words and phrases in titles, headers and bold text. See any keyword ideas?
4. Once again,we’re going to get a little more technical. We want to look up the source code for their website.
   

   • In Firefox, select View from the menu, then choose Page Source.
   • In Internet Explorer, select Page and then View Source.

   We want to find a piece of code that says meta name=”keywords” content=” as well as meta name=”description” content=”. The page may or may not have this code, so if you can’t find it, don’t spend too much time. What follows that last quotation mark is a list of keywords that website has chosen. Are there any that would work well for your site? Add them to the list. Do they inspire any other ideas or variations? Add them too!

Remember, these are the sites that are already successful with the keyword you entered (they’re at the top of the search engine results when you did the result), so they’re doing something right.

Keyword Relevancy

As you search for keyword terms you may notice something. Many times the results that come back have nothing to do with the service or product you offer, or are only peripherally related. Search engines are pretty good (far from perfect, but pretty good) at leading people to what they’re looking for, and many times people just want information about a subject.

If the results from a keyword search don’t yield companies like yours, that implies that keyword may not bring targeted traffic to your site. We haven’t really gotten to the point of analyzing keywords yet, but you might want to make note. I put “??” after a keyword if I think its value is questionable, based on the search results.

For example, I do SEO writing professionally. But when I search for “SEO Writing,” I get a lot of informational articles about the subject, rather than businesses offering the service. That implies people who search for the term “SEO Writing” are looking for information about how to do that kind of writing, rather than looking for someone to do it for them.

It’s premature to eliminate a keyword at this step, but I’ll note that the keyword is iffy with a couple of question marks. I often also create a brand new column in my spreadsheet entitled “Notes,” and I’ll enter a comment with more detailed information.

Keyword Competition

This step also presents an opportunity to begin research into the competitiveness (or difficulty) of a keyword. That means how hard it is to rank for a particular keyword. Right now (Step 2), we’re focused on expanding our keyword list, and we haven’t started doing the actual research and analysis yet.

However, when we’re ready to look at keyword difficulty, we’ll be coming back to these sites. You have a couple of options. If you’re new to keyword research, don’t worry about it now. Just follow the steps in order as I’ve outlined them. Yes, it entails a little redundancy because you’ll be looking through the same sites twice. However, you don’t want to confuse or overwhelm yourself too early in the research process. Plus, the keywords you’re using may not be the same keywords you want to analyze for difficulty later.

That being said, for myself, I frequently integrate these two steps in order to avoid that redundancy factor. Like I said, if you’re new to this, just go through step-by-step. Once you’ve been through the process of a few times, and you have a better feel for it, you might want to do both aspects of keyword competition analysis at once. The second aspect is detailed in Step 3.

Summary

By now your list is probably growing longer, and we haven’t even hit the step of using an online tool to generate keywords. The list will explode at that point.

So you might be looking at your list and thinking, Wow, this is a lot of work. Yes, it is. That’s why so many companies hire professionals who specialize in SEO (like me. ahem.) to do this work for them.

My first response is, don’t worry. This step-by-step guide is designed to make the process as easy, efficient and painless as possible. I’ll be here holding your hand from beginning to end.

My second response is, that’s the point. On the surface, the difference between “Freelance writer” and “Freelance copywriting” is fairly subtle, but until we do the research, we don’t know if one gets significantly more traffic than the other, if one is substantially more difficult to optimize for, etc. The point of the research is to take words that are by definition similar, and find the best one to use to generate new traffic.

So please be patient. (If you’re in an awful crunch, I will be posting some “quick-and-dirty keyword research techniques” in a future post. You’re also welcome to contact me to help you out, of course!)

Next up: we’ll continue expanding our keyword list by “building” keywords.

An Aside Re: Directories

When you search for keywords, not all the sites that come up will be business competitors. Some will be information sites, like articles posted on the subject. Other will be directories, compendiums of businesses and/or information resources. I recommend you make note of those directory sites in a new file (or new sheet on your spreadsheet) entitled “Online Directories.” Then don’t worry about it; it’s a ways off before we’ll start to use these resources, but directories can be an important source of inbound links, which comprise an important part of a comprehensive search engine marketing program. I’ll talk more about cultivating inbound links in an upcoming series.

Who knew that computers could enjoy enlightenment too?

Zenware is a class of software designed to minimize distractions and promote focus and concentration.

Writes Jeffrey MacIntyre of Slate.com:

The philosophy behind zenware is to force the desktop back to its Platonic essence. There are several strategies for achieving this, but most rely on suppressing the visual elements you’re used to: windows, icons, and toolbars. The applications themselves eschew pull-down menus or hide off-screen while you work. Even if you consider yourself inured to their presence, the theory goes, you’ll benefit most from their absence.

Jeffrey goes on to review several zenware applications.

LifeHacker.com writes about the ‘Top 10 Distraction Stoppers.’ They include hiding different elements of the screen to minimize visual overload and using filters and blocking tools to reduce unwanted (or at least unhelpful) intrusions.

WebWorkerDaily.com offers a roundup of zenware tools. Their coverage is heavy on simplified alternatives to the confusing and cluttered modern word processor program.

Of course, this whole zen thing is supposed to work for people too. Or so I hear. You might enjoy the following 72-minute video where Jon Kabat-Zinn (author of Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Mindfulness for Beginners and Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness leads a mindfulness meditation at Google. Jon lectures on mindfulness and meditation for the first 25 minutes and then begins the actual guided meditation.