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An
Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker. . . thats actually easier too!
By Robin
Nobles
If youre in the search engine industry, or if youre a Web designer
or Webmaster, its an almost sure thing that youve heard of, and probably used,
Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com).
But,
for those who may not know about Wordtracker, lets back up for a minute.
What
exactly is Wordtracker, and why is it so important?
Most search engine
optimizers would agree that one of the most important things you can do for your
Web site is to target the right keywords. If you target the wrong keywords, you
may get scores of traffic but no conversions to sales, or no traffic whatsoever.
Either is disastrous for an online business.
Before Wordtracker, it was
up to the search engine marketer, or the client, to choose the right keywords
for the site. We also had GoTos Search Term Suggestion Tool, which was one of
our only sources for keyword help at that time.
Then Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com)
entered the picture. With Wordtracker, you can plug in some keywords, and the
Web-based service will give you ideas for additional keywords that might work
for your business. Not only that, but the service will also tell you how competitive
those keywords are (how many other Web pages have been optimized with those keywords
in mind) and how many people have actually searched for those keywords in the
past 24 hours at each of the major engines.
Ideally, your goal is to choose
a keyword phrase that doesnt have a huge amount of competition but that (hopefully)
a large number of people are searching for. This is where the KEI comes in. KEI,
which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Index, refers to the number of times a
keyword has appeared in Wordtrackers data compared with the number of competing
Web pages, which points to which keywords would be most effective for your search
engine marketing campaign.
In other words, the higher the KEI, the more
popular your keyword phrases are, and the less competition they have. According
to Wordtracker, a "good" keyword to target is one that has a KEI of around 100,
but an "excellent" keyword to target has a KEI of over 400.
Okay, enough
of the background into Wordtracker. Most of you probably already know all of that.
In fact, your path through Wordtracker most likely looks very similar to mine.
The
"old" way to use Wordtracker
In the past, I have always started at Keyword
Universe, or maybe at Keyword Projects. From there, I work my way through the
system. Does it work? Yes, very effectively. Is it time consuming? Yep.
But,
lets look at an easier, and even more effective, way to use Wordtracker. And with
this alternate way, youre actually considering keyword phrases based on your target
audience.
Introducing John Alexander
To write this article, I interviewed
John Alexander, an authority of Wordtracker who has spent countless hours working
through each of the features and developing his own unique strategy.
As
means of introduction, John is a professional search engine optimizer with Beyond-SEO
(http://www.beyond-seo.com) and a trainer
of onsite search engine marketing workshops through Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).
Besides
using Wordtracker to find keywords, John actually uses the service to target an
audiences surfing behavior. Once he determines the surfing behavior, he can use
that knowledge to target those who are most likely to purchase his clients products
or services.
Unlike most of us, John doesnt get "stuck" in Keyword Universe
to where the system does all the thinking for him. Instead, he begins at Comprehensive
Search (found under the Multiple Search heading).
He explains, "Where youll
find most of your revelations or insights is in the Comprehensive Search feature
of Wordtracker. Try entering one part of a search phrase and letting Comprehensive
Search figure out the best full use of the phrase."
Lets look at an example
John
has a client who sells baby furniture and products online, so he needed to find
the target audience for baby furniture. Putting his creative mind at work, he
started thinking about who would want to buy baby beds and strollers. Not people
with newborns - after all, they already own all of the furniture they need. The
true audience for his client is soon to become parents, grandparents, etc.
His
next step was to use Comprehensive Search to try to determine what his target
audience is looking for. John typed in "baby," and he found some very interesting
results.
People searching for the word "baby" were searching for keyword
phrases like "baby names," "Baby Names," "Baby Boy Names," and so forth.
Bingo!
He had the angle he needed to get traffic to the site. Rather than concentrating
on the actual product he was trying to sell, he thought of a way to pull in traffic
through a different window. After all, what will his target audience be looking
for on the Internet? Ideas for names for their new babies!
John adds, "Keep
in mind that this angle is also based on the fact that babies are always on the
way, around the world, day after day, which creates an extremely unique market
for certain products. Understand the advantages of identifying peoples behavior,
and youll never look at keyword research quite the same."
After he has
captured the visitors at his site, he can easily slide in the fact that the site
is also selling baby products and furniture. Hes gotten them to the site, which
is step #1; they are his target audience, which is step #2; and with compelling
content, he can increase the sites conversion rate to go along with the increase
in traffic.
How did John proceed? He created a page that focused on the
meanings of baby names.
Keep in mind that the page he created has value
and unique content. He didnt just toss together a page, simply for the sake of
getting a top ranking. Instead, he worked hard to find links all over the Web
to sites that offer the meaning of baby names. His page offers tremendous value
to the search engine and users as a one-stop resource for finding links to the
meanings of baby names. Then, in strategically placed spots on the page, he subtly
added pictures of his clients products with links to related pages.
John
explains, "Dont ever trick your audience or they will simply never buy. Give them
exactly what they are looking for right up front. In this example, I created a
page that offers baby names and the meanings of baby names, and I subtly offered
a few product listings or links to my clients storefront. It is essential that
you always provide content related to their search first, and then offer links
to appropriate products within your clients site."
The bottom line?
How
did Johns strategy work out for his client? The baby names page alone pulls in
an additional 500 unique visitors of extremely targeted traffic each month.
John
adds, "I cannot give you the percentage in terms of the exact increase in sales,
but I can tell you that the client has been very pleased with the results."
Remember
that this is just one page that John added to the site.
He explains, "Had
I really wanted to pull out all the stops, I could have created several entry
pages around this one theme. For example, targeting keyword phrases such as: most
popular baby names, etc. You could also build the content right into the site
and extend it through all of the races:
* Spanish baby names
*
Italian baby names
* Jewish baby name
* French baby names"
(See
Part 2)
Robin
Nobles is the Director of Training of the Academy of Web Specialists (http://www.academywebspecialists.com),
where she has trained several thousand people in her online courses in search
engine marketing strategies (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).
She also teaches 3-day "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations
across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com. |
