15 replies to this topic

[don1]

I kid you not. We have chewed on this question for many moons and we still have a hard time putting into words what we do/sell never mind a keyword phrase. How do I really find that ultimate keyword that says "Here we are" or "This is what you are looking for"?

[Jill]

Don, you don't. Why limit yourself to one phrase? Why not hundreds?

Jill

[don1]

Why not hundreds?

Oh goody. I love to talk about what we do. It's more like a passion than work. You mean that if I can somehow translate what we do 1) search engines will be able to pick up on it and 2) someone out there may actually be looking for it? If so, translating it into phrases or words for search engines will be the challenge. Where are the tutorials for that?

[DanThies]

Don:

How do you and your customers talk about it? That's the same way they'll ask about it, most likely.

[qwerty]

The first step is to brainstorm. Think of all the things you do, all the things you offer to your customers, all the advantages people gain from buying your product or using your service.

Write them down, trying to boil them down to two or three-word phrases.

Then go to WordTracker, plug in the terms you've come up with, and it will give you a bunch of similar phrases that people are entering into the search engines.

By the way, are there WordTracker tutorials out there?

[don1]

...it will give you a bunch of similar phrases that people are entering into the search engines.

Maybe there was a glitch when I used it because it came up with some off-the-wall words. Stuff I never heard of, things I couldn't see how they were related.

I'll try again.

[OldWelshGuy]

The strongest keyword of all is LOVE, without love, all this would be without meaning.

[Haystack]

Great point OWG. Love is the key to happiness.

Don, it sounds like you could use some guidance on how to research terms relevant to your business. I get the impression that you might benefit from a read through Jill's Special Report on the subject:

http://www.highranki...seo-writing.htm

Check it out and let us know what you think.

[Jill]

Don, it sounds like you could use some guidance on how to research terms relevant to your business. I get the impression that you might benefit from a read through Jill's Special Report on the subject:

Umm...actually, my report doesn't go into the research part of keyword phrases. Just what to do with them once you have them all figured out!

Jill

[qwerty]

It would be nice if somebody had a tutorial for using WordTracker. The pdf manual they provide is a bit hefty, at something like 50 pages.

[Peter]

Don,

Keyword research is not difficult if you know what the important elements are. Basic important elements are:

Popularity (how often is it searched for?)
Competition (How many web sites show up in the Results of a search engine?)
Relevance (Do people have your product in mind when using that keyword? Does a search engine show these type of web sites in the SERPs)

Popularity and competition need to be compared, a nice indicator is the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index). An other indicator, which I like better,. is the KER (Keyword Effectiveness Rank)

If you like to read more about keyword research check it out here: Keyword Research

Regards,

Peter

[DanThies]

Popularity (how often is it searched for?)
Competition (How many web sites show up in the Results of a search engine?)
Relevance (Do people have your product in mind when using that keyword? Does a search engine show these type of web sites in the SERPs)

Those are the three big factors, but I sort of look at competition as a separate question.

First, I want to know how popular a search term is. Related to that, I want to know how relevant it is, and I want to quantify that. That way, I can put some weight to the popularity. 1000 searches a month, with 50% of searchers actually looking for what the site offers, is really worth 500 targeted searches a month.

Once I have an idea of how many targeted searches there are, I can look at competition, but that's relative to the site I'm working on, especially where we are in the process of promoting it and building links:

- If I am confident that I can plant a listing in the top 3-5 positions, I'll get a very good click-through rate, and I consider this to have maximum value. The top 5 listings easily get 2/3 of the clicks.

- If I believe that I can "probably" get into the top ten somewhere, maybe with a bit of work, I consider this search term to be worth at most half as much.

- If I believe that it will take considerable work and link building to get into the top ten listings, I'll put that on the back burner and reconsider it every 3 months, as our links build.

[don1]

as our links build.

Expound on that please. Are these links from search engines or other sources? Are you saying it will become more popular over time (3 months or more)?

[DanThies]

It takes time and effort to promote a site, and get more incoming links. If we spend a month working on it, the results of that month's effort will show in a couple months' time.

We never stop working on links, so it's worth revisiting every 3 months or so, to see if we're in a better position to compete. Nobody's going to "out-optimize" us, but if they've got far more links than we do, it's hard to compete directly on the same search terms.

Are these links from search engines or other sources?

That would be links from other websites, not search engines.

Edited by DanThies, 04 October 2003 - 06:34 PM.

[Peter]

Don,

Link popularity does not include links from search engines. These links are temporary and don't exist in a permanent page. A SERP (Search Engine Result Page) is created the moment it is searched for, send to the person that does the search, and then no longer exists.

Building link popularity takes time because it can not be automated (Not counting link farms and FFA (Free For All) sites that will get you penalized). You need to do it manually.

Regards,

Peter