KEYWORD RESEARCH FOR SEORESEARCH, ANALYSIS, AND EVALUATION WITH NICK EUBANKS
@nick_eubanks
TIP #1:DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS. DO RESEARCH.
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@nick_eubanks
RESEARCH MAKES MONEY
ASSUMPTIONS COST MONEY
VANITY VERSUS TRAFFIC
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Vanity: We want to rank #1 for “plumbing Philadelphia”
Traffic: We want to rank #1 for relevant high traffic keywords
VS.
LET THE DATA DECIDE
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NOW THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY…
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RESEARCH – WORD GATHERINGBrainstorming
• Problem• What problems does your product solve?
• Compliments• What phrases, adjectives, or nouns are
tangential to your product but may be used to describe it’s function or benefit?
• Product• Words directly describing your product• Adjectives that describe your product or
it’s benefits
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RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
Industry: Pet Waste Removal
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But What’s THE PROBLEM?
RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
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Industry: Pet Waste Removal
RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
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Industry: Pet Waste Removal
RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
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Just Because This is Awesome
RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
Use Ubersuggest For What’s it’s Good For
• Head term variations• Intent variations• Long-tail research
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Not So Sneaky Ways to Mine Competitor Data
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RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
Conversion Terms• PPC• URL Link Targets• Social Ad Titles
• Linked In• Facebook
Anywhere there is a direct cost!
Traffic Terms• Product Page Titles• Blog Post Page Titles• Guest Post Titles +
Anchor Text• Social Profile Anchor
Text• Linked In• Google+
Anywhere they can edit their anchor text!
Engagement Terms• Blog comments• Executive Bio’s• Public responses:
• Quora• Linked In• Inbound
Anywhere they can describe their business in their own words!
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LOOK AT HOW THEY ADVERTISE THEMSELVES.
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Analyze Customer Contact Channels:
• Support Tickets• Sales team or call center reps• Contact Form Submissions• Social Media WITHIN your vertical
• Linked In – Groups, questions, etc.
• Quora – product or services related to your business
• Yahoo! Answers• Twitter – conversations about
the benefits of your product OR questions *hint*
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RESEARCH – WORD GATHERING
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TIP #2: YOU ARE LOOKING FOR POSITIONING LANGUAGE.
GOOGLE KEYWORD TOOL.10 KEYWORDS AT-A-TIME.DOWNLOAD ALL SUGGESTIONS TO EXCEL.REPEAT…REPEAT..
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REPEAT
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DE-DUPE
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THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE GOING, BUT WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
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ANALYSIS – PERFORMANCE AUDIT
• Go into Google Analytics and pull down your top organic traffic driving keywords
• Dump into Excel
• Copy and paste into Google’s Keyword Tool
• Divide potential traffic by actual traffic
• Look for opportunities for rank and or content.
Reference: http://www.zazzlemedia.co.uk/blog/keyword-performance-audit/
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ANALYSIS – LOOK AT INTENT
Search intent is usually grouped into 4 top-level buckets:
1. Navigational QueriesExample: “skout media philly”
2. Information QueriesExample: “video production company works with milkboy”
3. Commercial InvestigationExample: “video production services in Philly”
4. Transactional Queries“video production Philadelphia pricing”
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Reference: http://getstat.com/blog/search-intent-conversion-optimization/
ANALYSIS – SEGMENT FOR INTENT
• Avoid low-intent keywords (informational) at least in your primary optimization investments
• Common behavior of informational queries:
• Contain words like “ways to,” “how to,” “what is,” etc.• Contain informational helpers like “list,” “playlist,” “top,” or
“best”• Searchers tend to view multiple results pages (SERP’s)
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EVALUATION – VOLUME VS. INTENT
Remember Vanity vs. Traffic?
Same goes for Traffic vs. Conversion
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TIP #3: IF A KEYWORD CREATED A SALE,
CHANCES ARE IT WILL CREATE ANOTHER
DON’T GET HUNG UP ON LOW SEARCH VOLUME IF IT’S CREATING REVENUE
EVALUATION – SEASONALITY & TRENDSYahoo! News Trending Now
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/
Bing Search Blog Archives
http://www.bing.com/blogs/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2012/11/26/year-end.aspx
Bing Keyword Research Tools
http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords
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SO YOU’VE GOT YOUR
KEYWORDS NOW WHAT?
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CONTENT!
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BAKING YOUR KEYWORDS INTO YOUR STRATEGY• Use keywords in your marketing
• Events• Whitepapers• Anything that has the potential to be used as a link anchor
• If you don’t have content built around your keywords, curate it.
• Crowd-source intelligently – ASK!
• What kind of content does your audience share?
• Topsy• Followerwonk
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OTO VS. SEO
ORGANIC TRAFFIC ≠ SEARCH TRAFFIC
(AT LEAST NOT ALWAYS)
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OTO VS. SEO
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QUESTIONS?
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RESOURCES FOR FURTHER COMPREHENSION
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• How To Do Keyword Research For SEO• SERP Analysis – Dissecting Your SEO Competitors• An Evergreen Forest Of Digital Marketing Resources
WANT ME TO DESIGN YOUR SEO STRATEGY, FOR FREE?
http://www.seonick.net/keyword-strategy-giveaway