Internet Babel

Quicker & better search engine functionality and more savvy users continue to drive the trend of using longer keyword search phrases. A growing proportion of search phrases contain 5, 6 or more words. 

What this means is that that people are increasingly searching with more specific service, goods or information related phrases rather than simpler generic terms. For the ’smaller’ site owner offering a product, service or comparison tool (who isn’t already operating in a very tightly defined ‘niche’) this presents an opportunity to focus on these less competetive key phrases.

It is highly probable that people who type in more specific keywords are more likely to know what they are after – i.e. chances are they are looking for a specific item/service and are more likely to be a prospective buyer/customer rather than someone who is just browsing on generic terms.

Trying to compete with the big players on generic terms is going to see you languishing in the back-end of search results. Let them fight it out over the big phrases, and let the casual browsers go to those sites. Focus some effort on more specific and longer key phrases – the people finding you will be a lot more likely to convert.

A few simple steps to implement this approach:

1) Decide on a candidate list of potential multiple-word search terms that people may use for your site, based on the product/service you sell and the target audience.

2) Use any historical stats you have (e.g. from Analytics, stats or any Affiliate tracking tools you may have access to) to see the kind of search terms that have brought the kind of traffic you want to your site in the past (i.e. conversions).

3) Use the SEOBook Keyword search tool or similar (Google, WordTracker etc) to see search volumes for the phrases you have identified (and potentially throw up more candidates) from past search data.

4) Trim down and customise your list to suit. Keywords/phrases with results in the hundreds/thousands are  likely to be pretty much covered already. Longer phrases at the lower end of the results are potential candidates for your ‘long key phrase’ experiment (as long as they are still relevant to your site and audience). Always bear in mind that even if a phrase yields just a handful of searches, hits on your site using those terms are likely to show a good conversion ratio, so low-volume phrases shouldn’t be ignored.

5) Finalise your list, based on the results from the steps above, and SEO tweak your site/landing page/content accordingly. Where appropriate, use brand & model names and features.

6) Monitor, assess, review and repeat as required….this is important as the exact pattern of longer search phrases will change more frequently than straight generic terms and will be influenced by trends, current events etc. Using highly focussed key phrases to draw traffic to your site requires regular monitoring and tweaking to ensure that you stay relevant to the popular search terms of the moment. Use your agility to stay ahead of the game.

 
You should still SEO for your generic terms and phrases of course – treat these longer phrase tactics as an additional weapon in your SEO/traffic arsenal. Any existing generic type traffic you get will still be there, and although the volume of extra traffic actually driven to your site by the longer terms may seem small these extra visitors are much more likely to be of a high-quality.

It’s true of course that being on Page 1 for something that no-one searches for is of little benefit in itself, but I’m not talking about getting traffic just for the sake of it - what we’re trying to do here is driving quality traffic to your site. Highly specific and targeted multi-word key phrases will allow you to get a higher ranking than in your generic terms AND attract the kind of visitors you want most.