In economics, supply and demand describe market relations between prospective sellers and buyers of a good. (wikipedia.org)
In search engine optimization, we can use the supply and demand model to describe the relationship between the people searching for specific keywords (the demand) and the people creating content to meet that demand (the supply).
The following is a simplified explanation on how to visualize the supply and demand of keywords.
If you don’t have one already and you use Firefox, Wizz RSS is a good add-on that allows you to preview and read RSS feeds within the browser’s side bar. If you are looking for an online-only reader, Google offers one as well (Google Reader ).
What’s RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and when you subscribe to an RSS Feed, you will be able to view all the latest additions, posts or stories added to that specific web site. The RSS Feed Reader allows you to view all your subscribed-to RSS Feeds all in one place.There are many RSS Feed Readers available, Google it, try a few, and pick one you like.
The easiest way to do this is to simply Google “top __________ blogs” or “best ___________ blogs”. Fill in the blank with your industry.
Visit each blog, and look for a link to RSS, ATOM, or a symbol that looks like this: 
.
This is the link that you will want to send to your Feed Reader. Each reader will have a different “add” method, so if you have problems, check first with the help section of your RSS Reader. (If you can’t find the help section or how to add an RSS feed, it’s probably time to try a different RSS Reader)
Want to be the first to announce ideas and concepts? Read up on what is going on outside of your industry but inside of related industries and you will be able to come up with some powerful and unique material to post on your blog or web site.
If you not looking for material to write about, finding out what is going on within related industries may clue you into what may be heading your industry’s way – allowing you to make better business decisions and plan ahead for future bumps or successes.
Use Google Alerts to get the latest information related to search terms or keywords you define.
Skim through these top blogs, alerts and any other useful blogs or RSS Feeds you come across to pick out what is on the cutting-edge. Many times you can get tips from industry insiders, or stumble across events or activities that are happening before they have time to show up in traditional forms of media.
Although this step takes a little work and dedication, as you get used to your feed reader, you will be able to skim through the latest feeds and posts rather quickly.
Living in the middle of San Diego and trying to find out the latest news on the fires and evacuations has lead to some interesting discoveries into the power of the Social Web.
Hats off to the San Diego Union Tribune. They have outdone themselves in the way they have presented the news using social media.
The San Diego Union Tribune created a blog called Wildfires 2007 that is updated almost every 10 minutes or so giving the latest information and resources for the San Diego fires.
Running History
What makes this incredibly helpful is that by using the blog format, San Diego Union Tribute has created a running history, with date and timestamps of all the events and information that are happening with this emergency.
Social Contributions
Because it’s a blog, people can make comments on all the updates. Many of the comments are congratulating the paper for being the best resource out there for up-to-date information. However, some of them are sharing details that only the citizens involved could do.
Here is a sample comment stream from one of the San Diego Union Tribune blog posts:
RSS for Updates
Again, because the Union Tribune is keeping this blog updated many times an hour, people can subscribe to the feed and get the latest information on their cell phones, PDA’s, laptops, or any other device that would have access to the internet and a feed reader or web browser.
Outside of the satellite imagery, some of the best photos of this fire have been taken by people who have been there and have shared their digital photos with the world through Flickr and other photo sharing sites. In addition, because of the social nature of the photo sharing sites, many visitors are leaving comments — giving you a human side that is often left out in mainstream news media.
Some Examples…
MSNBC.com provides a service called First Person. It is a collection of images and videos sent in by the users of the web site.
I like that they are including a social element into their site. All the images look fantastic, so it also looks like there is a human editing element in place to really showcase the videos and the images that will provide the greatest impact. Although this filters out the lot of bad images that people take, I can also see how this type of “selection” could lead to media-glorification-for-ratings through the guise of Social Media.
I’m especially impressed with the San Diego Union Tribune and the authors who are constantly updating their blog through this time of crisis.
In addition, I would like to mention the 1,000’s of bloggers that share their side of the story during events like the San Diego wild fires. These contributions have changed the way we read our news and learn about our current events. It’s easy to take this for granted and amazing to think that not long ago this wasn’t even available.
I believe that the web will be changed for the better as more and more organizations and businesses alike begin to use the power of Social Media and user contributions.
The more information you can gather when determining your most valuable keywords for SEO and SEM, the better. With IceRocket’s Blog Trend Tool, you have the ability to find out what is most popular in the blogosphere and view the trends for any keywords (comparing up to three at a time).
Google has a similar tool called Google Trends (see: Keeping Ahead of your Competition With Google Trends). However, Google’s tool focuses mainly on the search volume and news stories for keywords.
IceRocket.com now has a trend tool which allows you to see the popularity of your keywords over a period of time within the blogosphere.
At the end of this article, I give examples of how to use the two together.
If you do, or if you hire someone that does, you may reconsider after reading this post.
I’ve struggled with this for years. Deep down I tell myself that if I don’t build a site or web app from the ground up, then I’m probably going to regret it in the future.
However, as the internet develops and standard models emerge, there are some “tools” that are becoming the basis of almost every site I work on these days.
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According to a number of sites, as of August 2007 www.netscape.com was the #2 social bookmarking site. However, if you type in netscape.com now, it looks like… eww… AOL!
What happened to all the news, and the social bookmarking, and the user accounts??! I don’t want AOL, I want the #2 social bookmarking site dammit!
Alas, all is not lost, it’s only moved… to www.propeller.com.
When looking for information on URL redirection, most searches turn up these amazingly long blog posts or technical documents with just a couple examples, none of them are a huge help.
Instead of all the explanation, we decided to make it simple, and provide a quick reference for URL redirects using Apache and Rewrite Rules.
In less than 14 hours a blog post regarding the Do-It-Yourself creation of keyword research and analysis heatmaps appeared #1 on Google for the phrase “analysis heatmap tool”.
Recently Overture’s Keyword tool has been shut down. To help the thousands of developers out there that used that tool, Chief Ingredient created a short list of the alternatives available.
This was posted our new site on the 17th of September, 2007, and within 18 hours had already reached #5 under the term “alternatives to overture”.
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