Long-tail keyword searches increase in 2009

November 27, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 9 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing 

I’ve been seeing a trend of longer keyword searches in my sites’ statistics this year.

While most of the keyword searches that find something I write still are mostly 3 to 4 words long, I’m seeing lots more this year that are five or more words long.

I have been noticing this trend for a few months and wondered if it was due to the increasing sophistication of the people who normally read what I write or if it was a sign of average Internet users learning how to use the search engines more effectively.

Today, I found confirmation of this trend in an article on MarketingCharts.com:

Longer Searches Increase 3% in October 2009

At the end of the brief article, they bring up the possibility that longer search phrases may now be required to find what the searcher is looking for amid all the web clutter.

I hadn’t thought of that possibility.

I don’t have any facts to back it up, but I think that more people are learning that they can find what they want by using longer search phrases and that’s something we should think about when we’re doing our keyword research and writing our blogs, websites, articles, and anything else.

What do you think?

Have you noticed this trend in your site’s statistics?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Finding the right keywords using an online keyword research tool

July 15, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 15 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Attracting Visitors, Sitesell and Site Build It 

For the last several months, I’ve been researching information to help me build a new website that will be found in the search engine results.

Choosing keywords is more of an art than a science, despite what some people say about it. It’s not enough to write pages on a site using topics related to the most searched keywords or the most used keywords.

If it were that simple, then we’d all buy a list of the top 1000 keywords and write pages around them.

If you’re new to keyword research, you may have used one of the online keyword research tools that provides a list of phrases that people have searched for lately. With some of them, you enter a word or phrase, and a few seconds later you get a list of related phrases that contain the words you entered along with other words.

For example, this morning I was doing some research on what people were really using when trying to find a place to eat. I’m promoting a local family-style restaurant, but could not find good keywords to attract visitors. So, I did some vertical research on words like eating, eat, food, restaurant, dining, and a few others. Over a couple of hours, I looked at a couple of thousand long tail keyword phrases that contained one or more of those words. None of them had the numbers I was looking for, however.

Later, I did a lateral search for keywords related to restaurants. This produced several hundred keywords that were found on the top-ranked pages about restaurants in Google, but which did not contain the word, “restaurant.”

After that, I researched the word, “dining,” but most of the good-ranking phrases were related to furniture, not restaurants.

So, that’s the challenge. I need to find what real people are searching for when they want to find a good place to eat. I’ll keep working on it.

Finding the right keywords

Earlier, I mentioned that lots of people look for the most searched keywords and use them when writing their pages.

That’s an important consideration, but it overlooks something equally, or possibly more, important — how many other people are doing the same thing. In other words, what’s your competition?

About a decade ago, Ken Evoy wrote an ebook called Make Your Site Sell!, where he talked a lot about being found by the search engines. He was the first author I found who talked about both supply and demand when it came to keyword research.

By writing about topics in the top searched keywords, we are doing part of it right. We’re writing about things that have a high demand — people searching for them on the search engines.

But, what about all the other people who are doing the same thing? How many other pages are there that are competing with you for those search engine results?

I don’t know about you, but I want to find just the right combination of words that have a high demand and a low supply. Then I’ll invest the time and effort to write about them.

If you have a choice of two phrases with approximately equal demand, but one has ten times the number of competitors as the other, which one would you choose to write about?

I’d choose the one with the least number of competitors — most of the time. Now and then, I write about something that I know I probably won’t rank highly for, just because I want to write about it.

I do basic keyword research, but don’t get bogged down in all the SEO (search engine optimization) discussions and postulating. I don’t have time or energy to waste trying to guess the exact keyword density Google wants. Page rank discussions leave me bored to tears.

What I want is a tool that helps me find the right keywords and then get on with my life.

This morning, I got a very pleasant surprise.

Sitesell introduced version 3 of their Brainstorm It! tool

Now, if you’ve been reading along lately, you know that I’m building a new site for promoting local brick-and-mortar businesses and the site is powered by Site Build It!, the main product offered by Sitesell.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been using the beta version of Brainstorm It! 3, but the actual current version was 2.2.

This morning, without thinking, before my first cup of coffee, I logged into Site Central and clicked the Brainstorming link.

I was pleasantly surprised to see version 3 load in my browser. As late as last evening, I had to go to the beta address to use version 3, but this morning, it’s the standard version.

I logged into the Sitesell members-only forums and found the announcement by Ken Evoy that the new version had been successfully deployed overnight.

Not only does version 3 produce better results, it’s much, much faster than version 2, even on the slow dial-up connection I have.

Everything is working as expected. All the hundreds of top-ranking keyword phrases I had in my Master Keyword List (MKL) were there. The changeover was painless and I didn’t have to do anything at all.

So, how much is the price of Site Build It! going up because of this new tool? Not one penny. We continue to get more and more functionality with SBI at the same price. You gotta love that.

Currently I have about 600 keywords in my MKL that have a relatively high demand and low supply. Over time, I’ll keep on researching, comparing, and pruning this list to make sure that I’ll spend my time well, writing about topics that Google may rank highly.

Although it isn’t perfect, and I have to use my own intelligence and intuition when comparing which long tail keyword phrases to use, the new version three of Brainstorm It! is already a very nice tool in my Internet marketing arsenal.

Of course, it comes at no extra charge with a Site Build It! subscription.

It almost makes keyword research fun.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Keyword research tools – Shopping.com Consumer Demand Index

December 13, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 11 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Marketing, Websites 

Do you want to promote popular products?

How can you find current lists of popular keyword searches for hot products already organized by category?

Is this an impossible dream?

Not at all.

See Shopping.com’s Consumer Demand Index for a list of all their categories. Click the category name to see a list of relatively current keywords and search phrases.

If you then click one of the search phrases, you’ll go to a page that lists the products related to that term on Shopping.com.

Yes, Shopping.com is a competitor if you are promoting popular products through your affiliate links, but look at it another way. They’ve done a lot of your keyword research for you, and they’re making it available, for free.

In addition, they group everything by category.

These pages should help you in your brainstorming and keyword research.

I wouldn’t depend on this as my only source for keywords, but it’s a nice tool if you promote the products they list or similar products.

On the other hand, if you’re shopping instead of marketing, is this a helpful page?

Who does it help most? Shoppers or marketers? Customers or competitors?

What do you think? Helpful or not?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Site Build It! Brainstorm It! V2 Launches

October 3, 2007 by John Dilbeck · Comments Off
Filed under: Sitesell and Site Build It, Webhosting, Websites 

Brainstorm It! is a powerful niche brainstorming and keyword analyzer module that is only one of the tools included in your Site Build It! annual subscription.

Here is some information from a recent announcement from Ken Evoy (Who is Ken Evoy?):

“Yes. Brainstorm It! *V2* is now live!

Both vertical and lateral brainstorming have been greatly improved. Important new concepts like VALUE Demand and Real Supply provide stronger guidance for content development. “Pink messaging” helps get niche selection “just right.”

And there are a whole bunch of other improvements. It all adds up to the best keyword brainstorming and research tool in the world…

We did a ton of research before launching V2. It’s fair to say that it’s the best keyword tool in the world. And it’s included in the $299 price of SBI!, which, of course, delivers many more tools than Brainstorm It!…”

Site Build It! is a powerful system of integrated tools that help you find a niche, identify key concepts and keywords for writing about your chosen niche, build your website and promote it to the world, and interact efficiently with your visitors and customers.

Brainstorm It! is one of the tools that is used extensively in the step by step process for building your online business when you first start using Site Build It!. Later when you have established your online business, you can continue to use Brainstorm It! to help you find subjects you can write about to extend the valuable content you offer on your site.

I’ve used the new version over the last few days and have found lots of new ideas for topics to write about on my SBI site.

The fact that you can pay much more than the cost of an annual Site Build It! subscription just for a keyword analysis and brainstorming tool that doesn’t work as well is just one more reason for using Site Build It! to build your online business.

I am a happy and very satisfied SBI customer and I welcome these improvements to the tools I use to continue to build my business.

Act on your dream!

JD

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