10 replies to this topic

[PatrickGer]

I'd love to ask a question:

When I think of a website, online marketing, SEO...I usually wonder: based on what skill can I outperform the competition?

If you go after highly competitive queries, then obviously link building is one of those "difference makers"..at which you can outperform the competition, if you're great at it.

How about keyword research, though? Is this something where some SEOs (or PPC marketers) truly excel and can find plenty of profitable keywords that simply aren't on the radar of other SEOs (by digging deep into the keyword data)? Or is keyword research really just something along the lines of "either you get it right...or you don't..."?

thanks

PS: I assume keyword research cant really be a sustainable competitive advatnage in any competitive market as the competition can easily grab them from you, if they know what theyre doing..right?

[chrishirst]

If you go after highly competitive queries, then obviously link building is one of those "difference makers"..at which you can outperform the competition, if you're great at it.

Not necessarily, or possibly if you are short-sightedly chasing the vagiaries of "rankings".
But even then a few "good" links can "outweigh" thousands of mediocre ones.

AND of course with anchor text you can only chase one or two phrases and if they are the wrong ones or public tastes change your work is wasted and very few or no SE referrals with be coming your way.

The other big mistake of "industrial strength link building" is the only target page is the "home page" which is probably the least useful page to get traffic to.
rather than repeat myself I'll just link to this post

Basically the only skill needed to out-perform the rest is the ability to think for yourself rather than following the (usually poor) generic advice of the "experts"

[Jill]

How about keyword research, though? Is this something where some SEOs (or PPC marketers) truly excel and can find plenty of profitable keywords that simply aren't on the radar of other SEOs (by digging deep into the keyword data)? Or is keyword research really just something along the lines of "either you get it right...or you don't..."?

That has always been a huge differentiator that many in the SEO biz seemed to miss. It's not always an obvious when when doing competitive research, as you can't often tell exactly what keywords and their variations are bringing traffic to a website. Focusing on just a few keywords, imo, is SEO suicide. While it might bring lots of general traffic if you rank well for those few phrases, it will likely convert poorly.

Keyword research to find keyword gems (not long-tail kws) is extremely important. Unfortunately, Google is continuing to make that more difficult than ever and there aren't many tools that work well to do the necessary research. Which in turn forces people to use Adwords for their research--exactly what Google wants.

[idrive]

The keywords that are successful for your competition may not be those that are successful for you IMO. Let's say that you offer an online faxing service. It is possible that your competition has fax templates and/or a free trial. If you don't have those things, you don't have that content, and therefore can't really get traffic on those phrases.

I do find that local webmasters that claim to offer SEO services often choose the wrong keyword (it's great to be ranked for #1 for "some really obscure keyword phrase"; it's not so great if one person per month searches on that phrase).

I would worry less about the kw my competition is targeting and worry more about getting a range of organic traffic - if you sell ten products are you receiving organic traffic on all ten products plus your brand? And then there are categories of traffic, competitor brands and other opportunities for keywords. I would focus on increasing the amount of organic traffic I get each month (segmented by product or other) and working on increasing conversions of the traffic I am already getting. Why look for more customers if you could just increase the sales of the existing customers?

[Michael Martinez]

The most successful Websites draw more traffic from UNtargeted keywords than from targeted keywords. If a site cannot outperform itself in the UNtargeted-versus-targeted keywords comparison, there is something very off.

The search optimization community has been obsessed with keyword-based performance for years, but many people have come to recognize that the UNtargeted "long tail of search" is a rich source of vital traffic. It generally requires far less optimization effort than most people believe.

[scorpioilya81]

The most successful Websites draw more traffic from UNtargeted keywords than from targeted keywords. If a site cannot outperform itself in the UNtargeted-versus-targeted keywords comparison, there is something very off.

The search optimization community has been obsessed with keyword-based performance for years, but many people have come to recognize that the UNtargeted "long tail of search" is a rich source of vital traffic. It generally requires far less optimization effort than most people believe.

Your approach assumes your keyword research is flawless and you can perfectly guess high converting long tail keywords. What if you're wrong and the few clicks you DO get yield no sales, when you were betting the bank on the high conversions. That can be a costly mistake in terms of man power and time, while bills pile up waiting for sales to come in. I propose a different approach.

1. Rank for a known converting high traffic keyword...at least 2nd or 3rd page...at that point you'll start getting traffic for related long tail keywords...example

if you rank on page 2-3 for lawn supplies, you may end up ranking 4th or 5th for organically grown lawn supplies, or lets say "new approach to lawn supplies", without any targeting. At that point you'll see through analytics if and how many long tail keywords actually convert into form submissions or phone calls or landing page visitors, etc. When you have that DATA, you can then create separate landing pages FOR those keywords, and significantly improve your on-page score coupled with some low level linkbuilding (article submission, forum profile building, etc) you'll rank for those long tails easily, AND for the RIGHT ONES

[MidnightRider]

Focusing on just a few keywords, imo, is SEO suicide. While it might bring lots of general traffic if you rank well for those few phrases, it will likely convert poorly.

Hi Jill,
Can you explain why it is suicide? And if you can not use Google for research then what do you use?
Thanks!

[Jill]

Can you explain why it is suicide?

Why target traffic for just a few phrases when there are likely hundreds of different ways people might look for what you offer at your website?

And if you can not use Google for research then what do you use?

I do use Google KWR tools.

[MidnightRider]

Why target traffic for just a few phrases when there are likely hundreds of different ways people might look for what you offer at your website?
I do use Google KWR tools.

Thanks Jill. Do you still use the strategies you taught from Lynda.com videos? (Your signature link "Click Here to Watch Free SEO Training Videos") Has this method for KW research changed with time?

[Jill]

I still use that method to the extent that Google allows it. They have a new KWR tool, which does basically the same things. But measuring the competitiveness of keywords is trickier these days as Google isn't a fan of allowing too many "allintitle" searches. I still do them, but in a more discriminating fashion.

[PatrickGer]

thanks for the replies @ everyone! (only read the replies, now - sorry!)