Keyword Lottery
The Keyword Lottery and How to Win
By Bob McElwain
Note: Bob McElwain ran his highly successful Sites Tips and Tricks website for many years. When he closed the site to pursue other activities, he granted permission to reprint his articles. Some are very outdated now, but there are so many gems of knowledge that we decided to publish the enitre series on Smart Web Center, just as they were originally published.
If you simply must have a page on your site ranked #1 on some search engine, build one with turnipberries as the keyword. You’ll get a #1 position. And you can proudly show your friends what you have achieved. But if you show it to enough friends, one is bound to ask, “So what?”
And there’s the rub. It’s easy to get a great ranking on an obscure keyword. But it’s of no value unless searchers actually enter it. Further, if they click to your site, they expect information about it. Turnipberries? Not much to say, is there?
What is needed are keywords or phrases searchers can be expected to enter. And they must be central to the site, else a searcher who visits will be gone in seconds.
Finding the best possible set of keywords is a reasonable goal. But it’s elusive. Here’s an example.
Too Many Options
One of my clients markets a program called Easy Mail. The short definition is that it is a total correspondence center. One function of the program is to print great looking envelopes. Here is a partial list of phases used to find the site.
print envelopes
printing envelopes web tv
print AND envelopes
envelop printing software
envelopes AND print AND address
envelope print free download windows
how do you print envelopes
how do i print on envelopes?
envelopes AND print AND address
ENVELOPE ADDRESS PRINTING addresses
making envelopes
Consider the words used most often: print, envelope, and address. Other important words for this product are: software, download, and mailing.
The above is only part of a longer list. From the whole of it, another twenty important words can be identified. Further, a similar list can be generated for printing labels, correspondence (editing), mail-merge (personalized mailing), emailing, faxing, and mail list management.
Suddenly there are over a hundred words on my list. And several hundred phrases. In a world of unlimited time and/or dollars, one could put together a sufficient number of entry pages that would rank pretty well for many words and phrases in the set.
(A Side Note: To me an entry page is one featuring a keyword or two in the title, meta statements, and page. However the page content is written strictly for my visitors, or it is not written at all.)
But both time and dollars are limited. It takes time to build an entry page or dollars to pay someone else to do so. Pick a keyword that will seldom be entered, and you have wasted your efforts.
To complicate matters, all we know for certain is that these words and phrases have been used. We can say phrases at the top of the list were most commonly entered, and thus are more likely candidates for future searches. But we can not be certain any will ever be used again. GoTo.Com can help in this.
<http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/searchInventory.mp>
[This link no longer works]
On the above page, enter a keyword or phrase you are thinking about. The number of times it was entered last month is reported. And suggestions of related phrases are offered. This tool was a big help in selecting the best phrases from the large set of possibilities for Easy Mail. For example, it was clear that Print Envelopes and Print Labels were common entries, but with small counts, which meant we could compete effectively.
Jumping To The Big Time
However, in working with my site, solutions were not as obvious. I began by entering “internet marketing.” 1322 hits in the prior month.
Wow! And GoTo is really a very small engine. Imagine what the count would be at AltaVista!
Okay, so what should I do? Try to beat all these people and obtain better positions than they already have? Nope. It’s not the game for me. To play, I would have to assume I can do significantly better than a whole bunch of bright, well qualified people. It would be a total misuse of time.
Go For The Second Favorites
After a bit, I found the following entries and counts for the prior month.
· 142 - site marketing
· 134 - site promotion
· 205 - search engine positioning
I like the odds better here.
Wrapping Up
The first objective is to find keyword phrases being entered that apply to your site. GoTo.Com will suggest the frequency of entry. If the counts are small, say less than a hundred per month, go for it. Use these keywords, build some entry pages, and get on with business. You may not score any #1 positions, but you will rank high enough with some pages on some engines to generate significant hits.
But if the entry counts are high, forget competing for these phrases. While a position in the top ten with “internet marketing” would be a winner for my site, I’ll pass. I’ll get fewer hits from the second favorites, but I have a shot at getting decent rankings. I will have to settle for that.
THE MAGIC KEYWORDS
What will your potential visitor enter into a search engine to find your site? If you can find these magic keywords, phrases real people will use, then optimize your pages for them, you will have taken a key step toward generating hits. If you use the wrong words, you will waste a good deal of effort and achieve next to nothing.
A friend of mine has been working with an ex-IRS agent who can be of significant help to those with tax problems. But he has decided to search for clients only in the area in which he lives, the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California. It is a snap to get a #1 position on most search engines with such phrases as Santa Clarita Tax Expert, Santa Clarita Tax Solutions, and so forth. And he did so. But he is not getting any hits.
The problem is in two parts. Many people who live in the Santa Clarita Valley do not know that they do. Even those who do tend to feel they live in Los Angeles. Secondly, many do not know how to spell Santa Clarita. So his first place position is meaningless, unless he turns to advertising in locally circulated newspapers, magazines, and newsletters. This can cost bucks, and he could have done this without the effort it took to build his site.
Discovering what potential visitors might enter to find your site is a challenging problem, one often overlooked in advice regards position on search engines. One way to begin is to list a few words you feel will work, go to your favorite search engine, enter them, and see what comes up. Any phrase that generates a lot of unconnected listings is not likely a good candidate.
When you find something that ranks your competitors high in the list, check out the sites. Once the page has fully loaded, take the option in your browser to view the page source code. Find the keyword meta statement near the top of the page, and check those listed. Add as appropriate to your list. Also check the page content to see which keywords are sprinkled throughout it. These may be the most important ones. In particular, see how the keyword you used to get this page is handled. You may find clues as to how best to use it on your page.
At this point you have found and expanded your list to include keywords others use. So is that it?
No! To stop at this point assumes you have found what potential visitors will enter when they want a product or service such as yours. But you do not *know* these are the phrases real people will use. You do not know you have the magic keywords.
I have a suggestion. It is not a guaranteed solution, but I have used it successfully. It goes like this.
I write a good description of the product or service I want to sell, maybe half a page. I describe what it is, what it does, and how one will benefit from it. I write much as I would when producing an ad. However, I do all possible to *avoid* the keywords I feel will be used.
Next I pester everyone I know, asking what they might enter to find this product. And I give it time; not everyone is as interested in my problem as I am.
When I have collected replies, I go back and pester these same people with a list ranked with the most common suggestions up top, including phrases I found that were not mentioned. I ask them to pick four or five they feel are best.
I have found some really neat keywords in this way, phrases I would never have discovered on my own. I hope you can make it work for you.
I sense this is an aspect of search engine positioning often overlooked. It is easy for me to pick a phrase related to your business and get you top position on at least some search engines. It is meaningless, though, unless people actually enter that phrase.
Keywords: