My (TKA) The Keyword Academy Experiment

I’ve been dabbling in writing articles online and internet marketing on and off (more off) for around 12 months now. I am sad to admit that I’ve made under $50 for many hours spent writing articles (approx. 20 articles). I was active at Squidoo for around 7 months which made me approx $20. It’s not so much the lack of profit that upsets me, is that I cannot seem to get decent traffic to my articles.

These last few weeks I’ve decided that I need to step up my efforts and give writing articles and internet marketing a really good shot. I keep hearing about The Keyword Academy. Ordinarily, I am not one to pay anything for anything online claiming to teach me how to make money. However I have noticed that the Keyword Academy is offering a 1 month free trial, so I literally have nothing to loose.

I’ve decided to document my experiment with the keyword academy here. They currently have a challenge to see 1000 of its members earning $1000 a month by June. That sounds tempting, but I’ll have to see how this one month trial goes before I commit to being a member till June.

I know that a one month trial wont amount to revenue. I am not after a get-rich-quick scheme. I am more interested to see if the TKA is offering information that isn't already saturated all over the internet, and whether there is a noticeable increase in traffic on my articles.

My first thoughts upon joining The Keyword Academy and gaining membership access is that their website looks pretty basic but effective and relatively easy to navigate. I think I was somehow expecting something a little more flash, but I think this design gets right to the point.

Another thing that stands out is how much content there is in the form of articles, core videos that they suggest you start off with and webinars. Let me be honest, I don't know how I am going to fit all this in. Maybe that's why they give you a free months TKA trial as they know it might be difficult for some people to watch all the videos in the time frame giving. Overall, I am impressed with the volume of information accessible.

I've started to watch the first videos about keyword research. I'll be honest, I am not impressed with the quality of the video. By quality I am referring to the audio. Whilst you can understand what is being said, it has a "homemade" feel to it. Maybe I am being too harsh as I am a freelance filmmaker and I am pedantic about these things. It could be that the following videos quality will improve. I hope so!

I won't get into too much content specific details about the video itself, as I am sure TKA wouldn't want me doing so, I'll just say that the first video is about picking the right keywords based on potential revenue and goes into thorough detail about this. I've gone back to a few of my hubs and Squidoo lenses and tested out my main keywords using the technique and formula taught and its no surprise that those articles are having no success as I have chosen weak keywords.

I am yet to put into practice any of the skills taught. I am still watching videos so far and have started to read the chapters in the ebook. The one thing that is becoming obvious to me is that, the TKA is no get rich quick scheme..

One topic which has left me feeling uneasy with TKA is article creation. Court, one of the founders and narrator of TKA videos, explained that he has students who spend hours writing 1 article when they don’t have to. He explains that articles ‘Doesn’t have to be that good, but reads well.’ He does stress that the article still needs to be informative to the reader and he by no means implies you write poor quality articles. My writing isn’t perfect, but I do spend quite a bit of time researching and writing and rewriting, so this bit of advice has left me scratching my head.

Other than that little rant, I have to admit I did learn some important tips on how to be indexed by Google. However, I haven’t had time to put any of the principles into practice yet, as I want to research and study as much as I can before taking the next step.

Resources:

The Keyword Academy

I did not end up signing up to TKA, not because I don’t believe that they are an effective program, I know some people have had great success with them, but rather because I ended up doing a module on search engine optimization at university. It's possible if I had not gone down that path, I would have extended my time on TKA as it does seem to contain practical information.

I also temporarily stopped writing articles for third party websites. The reason for this was that I had decided to trial adding adsense to my existing niche blog, which I had never really looking at setting up for profit before. To my surprise the adsense hits started rolling in. I haven't quit my day job yet, but I am in the right direction.

Another surprise was that even though I had backed away from Squidoo and other such sites, the pay checks were (and still is) rolling in! I have around 30 lens/articles on various revenue sharing sites, yet through direct site payments and affiliate relationships, (such as amazon associates) I have generated a nice revenue in the last 12 months. I do think I lucked out, as some articles in particular, brought me a higher amazon commission, as it seems people were having an Amazon shopping spree!

Either way, I'm happy, especially considering I pretty much have neglected most of those articles and have done zero third party marketing since publishing then!

Yes the above resource link to The Keyword Academy is an affiliate link. I'm going to be upfront about it. I did debate with myself about whether I should use an affiliate link.

This article is not set up to promote TKA. I am simply writing it as I see it, so that if someone is wondering whether or not to join up, maybe they can read my experience to help them decide.   In all honesty I do believe the best way to suss out TKA for yourself, is to sign up for the free trial and be mindful of the 30 days so you can cancel your membership before having to pay if you are not happy with the services.