Research

Information is the basis of all writing.

Information that you have researched, learned, sorted and organized into your own unique way of looking at it is a reason to express what you know. Research is a necessary step whether for a novel, college thesis or self help book. Here's the process I recommend to conduct internet based research in a time effective way.

Pick a subject or target. Come up with 3 or so words that "make sense" as words that describe, define or frame the subject or market.

Use some of these below resources to begin in-depth research in your subject:

1. Keyword Map – Put your words in here and generate more related words to build more ideas and possible research vectors. Note and even copy all the words you get. Look at the websites that are listed for your words.

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For extra bonus points those words can go into: ~ Google Keyword Tool – You will have to sign up for an Adwords account – it's free!

(Then you can use all the cool stuff they got's at the google… weeeee!)

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2. Now go to Amazon.com and put those same keywords into a search for books, etc. Dig into the subject in as thorough a fashion as you need. There probably are books, audio and video and maybe even magazines, articles, studies and reports.

3. Are the books listed in Google Books?

4. Is it a hot subject? Google trends is a powerful research tool.

4.a What blogs are there on the subject? Search Technorati For more on this go to the Research article