Learn Forex Factory

How to Use Forex Factory Free Trading Tools — A Complete Guide
Have you heard of Forex Factory?

You probably do since it’s the leading forum for Forex traders since 2004.

But here’s the thing…

…most traders don’t take the full advantage of what Forex Factory has to offer.

All they do is to go into the forum, enter the “Trading Systems” thread, and look for new trading systems.

Then they apply the strategies for a while and when it fails, they got back to the forum and look for “the next best thing”.

And the cycle rinse repeats itself.

No wonder most traders fail because they are in the cycle of hopping from one trading strategy to the next.

Now…

Forex Factory is more than just a place to find new trading strategies. In fact, they offer useful trading tools that will improve your trading experience, and it doesn’t cost you a dime.



Are you ready?

Then let’s begin…

Forex Factory calendar — stay ahead of the news and never get caught with your pants down

The Forex Factory calendar highlights key fundamental news that’s coming up.

You’re probably wondering:

“If I’m a pure technical trader, does it matter to me?”

Yes it does, especially for short-term traders.

For example:

You don’t want to enter your trades just ahead of a big news event because the spread could widen and put you at a huge disadvantage.

Or if you’re in an open position, you might want to reduce your risk exposure so you don’t get stopped out on the volatility spike.

Make sense?

Good. Now, let’s learn how to use the Forex Factory calendar to your advantage…

1. Select your timezone

Here’s how to do it:

- Go to Forex Factory website
- Select the “Time” button at the top right-hand side of the page
- Then, select the time zone you’re in. And that’s it!

An example:

2. Filter yours news

Now…

There is plenty of news coming out each day from different countries. Like CPI, PPI, Retail Sales, Inflation, Central Bank, and etc.

And most of it does not affect the markets as they are not a major news event.

So, how do you know which news event to pay attention to and which to ignore?

Well, this is where the Forex Factory news filter comes in handy.

Here’s how to do it:

- Select the “Calendar” tab at the top of the page
- Then select the “Filter” button at the top right-hand side of the page

You’ll see something like this…

Next, check the red and orange box. This means the calendar will only reflect high and medium impacts news event (if you want to include the low impact event, feel free to do so).

Then, check all the event types as you don’t know which events are the high impact ones. So it’s safer to just check them all.

Lastly, you can select which country news you want. I suggest checking all of them so you’re aware of the important fundamentals going on around the world.

How to use Forex Factory Sentiment Indicator and find high probability trading setups

This is a trader’s sentiment indicator derived from Forex Factory Trade Explorer. It’s converted into a visual chart showing you how many % of traders are long or short (on a currency pair).

Here’s how to access it:

Select the “Trades” tab at the top of the page. Then scroll down a little and you’ll see something like this…

Now here’s the thing:

I’m sure you can agree that most retail traders enter the market at the worst possible time. Like “chasing” the market after it has made a huge move, or trying to pick market tops and bottoms.

Knowing this fact, you can then use the sentiment indicator as a contrarian approach.

You’ll look to go long when most retail traders are short, and long when most retail traders are short.

Here’s how to do it:

- Identify a currency pair that reaches an extreme reading of at least 60%
- Wait for a valid trading setup that is against the herd

An example…

As you can see, EURJPY has 63% of traders short this market.

This means as a contrarian, you want to go against the herd. So, you’ll look for a long trading setup.

Moving on… the EUR/JPY 4-hour timeframe looks like this:

So, how do you enter this trade?

Well, you could look to get long at the area of Support if there’s a price rejection like Pinbar, Engulfing pattern, and etc.

If you want a full explanation on entries, exits, and stop loss… go read The Complete Guide to Finding High Probability Trading Setups.

And one last thing…

You don’t want to enter a trade just because the sentiment indicator is at an extreme. It can remain at an irrational level longer than your account can remain solvent.

That’s why you need a valid trading setup with precise entries and exits so you can better manage your risk.

How to monitor your trading positions in real time (even if you’re at work)

I know.

You have a full-time job and it’s difficult to monitor your positions while at work.

You’ll probably sneak to the toilet every 30minutes or so just to see how your positions are doing.

But I’ve got good news for you…

…because it’s possible to monitor your trading positions in real time, without sneaking off to the toilet every few minutes.

Here’s how to do it…

Select the “Market” tab on the top of the page.

It’ll look like this…

Tada!

Live Forex charts in front of your screen. No downloads, login, or subscription required.

Do you know what else I like about it?

Just below the charts, you can see what the current market session is (whether it’s Sydney, Tokyo, London, or New York).

An example:

This is useful for traders who are wondering what time does the London or New York session opens, and whether there are daylight savings or not.

With this tool, you never need to second guess yourself again — plus it is synchronized with your local time.

How to find the correct Forex trading broker

I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it’s difficult to find a broker you can trust.

You never know if the broker is on the opposite side of your trades, whether they are financially strong, or would simply vanish after taking your money.

And this is one reason why I never recommend brokers publicly because you never know what’s going on behind the scenes.

Well, the good news is…

Forex Factory can help you filter down a list of brokers that you might consider trading with. They provide a list of brokers you can compare with side by side, so you can identify the ones that meet your needs.

Here’s how…

Select the “Brokers” tab on the top of the page.

An example:

Now, there are many things you can compare across brokers. Their real-time spread, markets available, minimum deposit, platforms available, languages, regulatory bodies, headquarters, and etc.

And I know it can be overwhelming to look at so many things when selecting a broker.

So, here’s my top 5 list to consider:

- How many countries is the broker regulated in?
- What is their real-time spread like during normal hours and major news release?
- How many markets can you trade?
- Is it easy to deposit and withdraw your money?
- Is their customer support responsive?

So do your own due diligence and find out which brokers suits you best.

And one last thing…

There’s an important disclaimer on Forex Factory website that states:

Brokers pay Forex Factory a fee to be listed on this page, so a claim of complete independence cannot be made. However, this product was entirely designed from a trader’s perspective, and several practices have been implemented to ensure information is presented impartially.

This means there are other good brokers that aren’t mentioned on Forex Factory and you must do some digging to find out for yourself.

Now let’s move on…

How to set up a trading journal in Forex Factory and improve your trading results

Here’s the thing:

If are serious about trading, then you must have a trading journal. It’s the only way to keep track of what you’re doing so you can improve on it.

Without one, you might as go gambling in a casino (and it still provides free booze and babes).

However, I bet that 80% of you reading this right now don’t have a trading journal, or you don’t properly record your trades.

So in this section, you’ll learn how to do it using a trading journal from Forex Factory.

But you’re wondering:

“Why set up a trading journal in Forex Factory when I can do it on my computer?”

That’s a good question and here’s why…

3 reasons why you should set up a trading journal in Forex Factory

1. Accountability

The reason why traders give up on their trading journal is that there’s no one monitoring them.

So, by having a trading journal in a public domain, you’re making a commitment and have someone to be accountable to.

This increase the odds of you doing it since it makes you look bad if you go back on your word.

2. You can learn from other traders

Once you start journaling your trades, it will attract like-minded traders to your thread. From there, you can exchange ideas and feedback to improve your trading together.

3. It’s stored in the cloud so you don’t risk losing your information

Have you ever had your computer crash on you? There goes all your precious information that goes along with it.

But by having your trading journal hosted on a cloud, that risk is greatly minimized and you can be certain it will be there for years to come.

How to set up your trading journal in Forex Factory

Here’s how:

- Select the “Forum” tab at the top of the page
- Then select the “Trading Journals” link in the middle of the page
- Then select “Start New Thread”

Once you’ve done it, you’ll see something like this…

Now you’re probably wondering:

“But Rayner, what do I post in my thread?”

Here’s what I suggest…

- Introduce yourself and declare a commitment of 6 months
- Explain your trading methodology and write down your trading plan
- Post the charts of all the trades you’ve entered
- Post the charts of all the trades you’ve exited
- Post your thoughts and reflection for the trading week
- After 25 trades, find patterns that lead to your winners and losers
- Rinse and repeat

Now the key here is CONSISTENCY.

There’s no point doing it for a few days and then stop doing it because it defeats the purpose.

To see results, you must commit yourself to do it for 6 months. If you follow what I said, your trading results will improve.

Summary

I hope you’ve realized that Forex Factory is more than just a forum to learn new trading strategies.

You should take advantage of their useful trading tools like:

- Forex Factory calendar to stay ahead of the news
- The sentiment indicator to help you find high probability trading setups
- The charting tool to monitor the Forex markets in real time
- The broker comparison tool to find the best broker for your needs
- Forex Factory trading journal to improve your trading results

Now I’ve got a question for you…

How do you use Forex Factory for your trading?

SEO

Complete material for beginners who want to learn SEO ranging from basic SEO material to advanced level, with guidelines and learning methods that are easy to follow, even for beginners.

You not only learn SEO materials, you will also know what myths are still trusted by many webmasters about SEO techniques and methods. So that later you don't get caught up in the dilemma.

SEO is a science that you must understand if your website requires traffic that comes from search engines, especially Google. Because now, almost 90% of people will search for information on Google (Search Engines) both search on mobile phones and on desktops / laptops.

Before learning more about SEO, it's a good idea to know the basics of how Google works.

Note that Google Works Based on QUERY, not words, keywords or phrases. The keyword (keyword) is only part of QUERY.

A query is a programming language used to retrieve DATA from a DATABASE. Or simply a query is a command.

So whatever you type in the search engine will be read as QUERY more precisely not KEYWORD.

A query is a programming language used to retrieve DATA from a DATABASE. Or simply a query is a command.

So whatever you type in the search engine will be read as QUERY more precisely not KEYWORD.

But because 90% of Google users use keywords as Queries typed in the search box, many webmasters assume and conclude that Google works based on the keywords typed in the search engine.

Though the Query (command) that you type in the search engine is not limited to the Keyword.

For example you want to find a Camera with a price range of $ 50 - $ 100, then you just type it on google: $ 50 camera ... $ 100. The sign (...) is a range of restrictions ($ 50 - $ 100). And all prices ranging from $ 50 to $ 100 will DEFINITELY be BOLD / bold in search results.

Another example is @twitter query. Try typing on google: Iphone @ twitter. Google only displays social media twitter in search results.

Other queries that can be used:

site: domain.com: Function Only displays search results for domain.com only.
cache: domain.com: Works to view the last (cached) catch for domain.com
allintitle: keyword: Serves to display all websites that use the word "keyword" in the title of the website.

Then what is the relationship between QUERY and SEO?

As I said above, search engines work based on queries and because most people use keywords as queries. So from the SEO side you can optimize your website pages to be relevant to the typed keywords.

In learning seo it will usually be divided into 3 big topics:

Keyword research.
SEO Onpage / page Optimization (page)
Offpage SEO or often called Vote, Link or Backlink.
Each of these topics has another sub-chapter which I will explain later.

RESEARCH KEY WORDS (Keyword)
Keyword research is actually not part of SEO, in SEO there are only 2 topics, namely onpage seo and offpage seo. But why do many SEO tutorials on the internet always discuss this keyword research material?

Because not everyone can choose keywords correctly. For that, by researching keywords, keyword selection can be RIGHT so that the SEO techniques that are applied later are not in vain and a waste of time.

This Keyword Research Orientation is Traffic. Not only traffic, but also profitable for you.

To get high traffic, of course you have to choose keywords that have high searches too. Based on this search level, the keywords can be grouped into 2 types:

Keyword "Head"
Keyword "tail"
If you read articles on the internet that discuss this research keyword, there are still many wrong understandings about this type of keyword.

One of my misconceptions is about "Long Tail Keywords". From several sources that I read on SEO blogs, many interpret the Long Tail Keyword with the number of words. So the Keyword Long Tail is a keyword that has a length of 3 words or above 3 words.

WRONG !!!

Long Tail Keywords have no correlation at all with the number of words. To understand what is a Long Tail Keyword you must understand keyword classification based on the number of searches per month. How keywords can be said is the Long Tail Keyword (Keyword tail / long tail).

In classifying keywords there are 2 parameters that are compared, namely the number of searches and the number of keywords.

It is said the Long Tail Keyword because the shape is indeed like a long tail. And this illustrates the many keywords in the cluster.

Look at the picture above, there are only 620 keywords that have 1,000,000 searches / month, including keywords: facebook, youtube, Instagram. People who type these keywords usually only pass through, to enter the website they want.

The number of keywords belonging to the Long Tail Keyword is very large, but unfortunately the number of searches for the Keyword Long Tail category is also getting smaller.

Keywords that are classified as Long Tail Keywords usually contain 3 or> 3 words. But that does not mean that keywords with 1 word cannot be classified as Keyword Long Tail. Think about the keywords "daffyshaci" (1 word) or "Learning Seo" are classified as long tail keywords?

In doing keyword research choose keywords that are classified as Keyword Long Tail. Because this category has high value keywords for your online business or your blogging activities.

Onpage SEO
Onpage is an SEO activity carried out on the website. The goal is that website pages are more easily recognized and read by search engine spiders in gathering information so that the data obtained by spiders can be relevant to Search Queries.

From the results of the previous Research Keyword (Keyword Research) you have got the keyword that will be processed at the onpage seo stage.

From the list of keywords that you get from the results of the research keyword, then you make it into Content.

Before further discussing content, you also need to know that there is one algorithm that covers content, namely "Hummingbird Algorithm" which is currently also processed by Brain Rank.

With the Algorithm, Google can accurately predict the content of the content you write. What information you discuss and relevant or not with Search Query.

Before the Hummingbird era, the Keyword Long Tail that you got from the results of keyword research would usually make all those keywords into 1 content. But in the era of Hummingbird it will be in vain and ineffective.

Look at the picture above, you no longer need to make all the results of your keyword research into separate content, just make 1 content with the discussion of each Long Tail Keyword that was obtained before.

If you still adhere to this ideology:

Exact keywords must be contained in the title
Exact keywords must be contained in the meta description
Exact keyword must be contained in the url
Exact keywords must be contained in the content
So in this SEO Onpage tutorial you will not find that technique. Because as I said earlier the technique had an effect on the era before Hummingbird, after the Hummingbird era you didn't have to worry about the things above.

On Onpage material you will learn how to create content that is relevant to search queries so that it gets good ranking in search results.

In addition to reviewing the content, you will also learn how to structure content and internal links that are good in terms of themes, templates or HTML code that you use.

Offpage SEO
After you choose the right keywords and make them website content, the last step is to offpage SEO, or optimization from outside the website better known as backlinks.

Backlinks are votes from other websites for your website because you have useful content.

In principle, this backlink is the link / vote that other websites give to your website voluntarily because your content is useful. But in fact there are many webmasters who intentionally backlink.

One type of backlink that Google recommends is content marketing, how to create valuable content and have a triger for people to share and backlink.

The scheme is like this: Content that is valuable à Promotion to the right person à Share & Backlink for your website.

The theory is simple but in reality it is not that simple, for that many people do backlinks on purpose. There are many types of backlinks that you can use. But you must understand the principle of making backlinks that are Relevant and Quality.

If you are not prepared to deal with the Penguin Algorithm and Manual Action.

There are several factors for determining a backlink to say relevant and quality. Here I will discuss thoroughly how to make backlinks and types of backlinks that can be said to be relevant and quality.

In this SEO Onpage material, I will try to discuss these 2 techniques. Content Marketing and Backlink techniques that are deliberately made but relevant and quality.

- Have a good study