Goal: Target 3-5 Profitable Keywords
At the end of the day there will be 3-5 keywords that will drive fresh traffic and real sales to a business. Forget the big list of 5,000 keywords that so many tools will create. All of the minor variations and long-tails don’t have enough traffic to give you anything worth taking action on individually. Get rid of the noise.
Key: Focus on what is going to drive your business to the next level and realize the way things work is the long tails will be captured if you follow our advise in the Hummingbird training.
Keywords Change
The 3-5 keywords that are profitable today might be different in a few months or if you are in a seasonal niche, next holiday season. There are always fluctuations. Sometimes the market itself shifts (like Halloween costumes). Sometimes Google’s autocomplete will change your main keyword to a long tail or a variation like “reviews”, “scam”, or the current year. We recommend doing quarterly analysis for your targeted keywords to see if anything has changed, or if anything new opens up that you aren’t aware of. But don’t do it more than quarterly. Focus on what is working and don’t get distracted. Some verify weekly and get distracted by temporary shifts in the market that don’t last.
Diving In
In the content section we wrote an example about “car audio” as the targeted market. To some untrained SEOs, this keyword may sound like the exact money-maker keyword at 90,000 searches per month with a high level of competition in AdWords. A veteran marketer will see this as what it really is: an entrance to the sales funnel.
“Car audio” is not a money keyword. It doesn’t solve a problem. There is no fear, immediate relief to a problem, or instant solution to what people are wanting. It is just people looking for general information at the beginning of a sales funnel to figure out what they want.
Maybe they want a new stereo, maybe they want a new sound system, maybe their current one is broken. Maybe they are looking for gift ideas. The fact is, you just don’t know what they are searching for – you just know the keyword. Unless you have a business that can cover absolutely everything in car audio, you don’t need to pick up the customer at this point in the sales funnel. Chances are you will lose them.
Search Deeper
Even in Google’s AdWords data you can dig around for the best [exact] searches (skip broad, you will never find anything valuable there.) A quick search will show you [pioneer car audio] gets 14,800 searches per month, high competition in AdWords.
The semi-untrained SEO will think “Aha! This is the money keyword!” Wrong. Again, what problem or fear does this solve? What solution can you provide? What if they are looking for the brand itself, and you outrank the brand? How does that help your business?
This keyword is moderately better, should be included, but should not be the main focus of a SERP ranking campaign. The subpages, however can.
So let’s go a bit deeper. Using a tool like ubersuggest.org, we can quickly find all auto-complete keywords. One model of pioneer in particular stood out, Pioneer fh-x700bt. It’s 4,400 searches per month. Fh-x700bt – 2,400 searches per month. Combined, these 6800 searches per month can create more revenue than “Pioneer Car Audio” at 14,800. Why? It is giving the customer exactly what they want. That is where the money is. You are catching them near the end of their buying decision.
Gauging Competition
How competitive is the field you are about to jump into? In this example of “Pioneer fh-x700bt” you will be facing some heavy-hitters, like Amazon. It is possible to beat Amazon, but it’s going to cost a fair amount. What about Crutchfield? After all, they are the specialists in the field. How can you consistently beat them?
This is where so many SEOs miscalculate outranking giants. Sometimes it is very easy, others it is nearly impossible. Let’s take a look at the top 10. How many have Pioneer fh-x700bt in…
Title: All.
URL: Most.
Anchor Text: All.
This should quickly tell you that it is a competitive phrase. The question is: can you beat them if you focus on it? Absolutely.
Here are the weaknesses:
Title: Only Crutchfield, Sonic Electronics, and eBay have the keyword first in the title.
URL: Nobody is doing their permalink with precision. Sites like Newegg have Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA15Y0KD0609.
Anchor Text: All of these giants are relying on brand juice to push them to the top. It’s effective but it also means you can run a link campaign to a parent page or the actual product page and rank it with a few strong contextual links.
Is it worth it? That’s a question only you can answer. That may be 6,800 searches for a single product you are selling. Do you have the margins to make it worth it?
If you built one site that really focused on Pioneer and only five different products, would it be worth it? Could you get ahead of the curve on the newest products for next year?
What if you built five sites that all targeted the same five products (keywords), and you had multiple rank and make sales every month? Would that be worth it?
Volume vs. Margins
Sometimes you will be able to find small keywords with practically no search volume showing, but are highly profitable. Going back to car audio, you may find a rare brand that Lamborghini or Ferrari owners are dying to have and are willing to spend big bucks for. Don’t rule out a keyword because it doesn’t have thousands of searches per month, but verify there is big money behind it.
Existing Sites
Maybe you already have a site that is making sales from search. Do some analysis to find where the real money-keywords are that are missing, or where you can focus a little harder to get even more sales. Instead of attacking a new keyword altogether, you may be able to boost the #7 ranking up to #3 with a minor push and double your sales. You won’t know unless you dive in.
Process
1. Check your log files/analytics for converting keyphrases (emphasis on the word “converting”). Conversion is key because you don’t care about any keyword that doesn’t convert. You always want to focus on what is bringing in revenue.
2. Search Google for your top converting keyword phrases. Copy the URLs to a spreadsheet for step 3. Also take down the pages ranked in the two spots below you. This should give you a solid list of pages.
3. Visit SEMRush or SpyFu. This is your key. You will search for the pages (not the domains). You aren’t interested in how well the site ranks for keywords, you only care about that particular page. This will show you all the keywords it does rank for and you can test to see if those convert for you. Chances are, doing this will add another 8-10 keywords in your testing rotation.
4. Use modifiers such as: best, buy, cheap, discount, wholesale, online, accessories, etc. to expand your keyword set (So instead of having just “blue widgets” you would have “discount blue widgets”, “blue widget accessories” etc.)
5. Use third-party research tools such as: SEMRush, Majestic, and SpyFu, and Ubersuggest.
One of the worst things you can do as a marketer is to assume you know what keyphrases will convert. Guess what? You don’t. Markets are often times completely different than what we would expect. Now, what if you knew ahead of time what the visitors would do when they came to your site? Would that change how you approached your organic SEO campaign? Then run a PPC campaign first and find out!
Once you have analyzed the results, look at the conversions. Look at your web stats. Did the visitors go through your site like you planned? If not, make some changes and try the campaign again. What you are looking for is with this traffic, did you get what you wanted? Were the visitors qualified as you had hoped? If the answer is “yes” then proceed. If the answer is “no” then it would be wise to rethink your targeted keywords and the layout of your landing page.
Tools
You don’t need fancy tools. They come out all the time, and we test them. They usually waste time. The reality is Google Keyword Tool is going away. Half of the tools rely on it for their data. If you know your niche and do it by hand, you will find more than any automated tool can show you.
Cross-Over
The one thing we love to do is look at sites who spend money on AdWords and who rank well organically. That is an indicator that they are making good money off of a keyword. Use SpyFu or SEMRush and filter out the data and then attack accordingly.