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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@nick_eubanks

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

@nick_eubanks

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/

@nick_eubanks

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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@nick_eubanks

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

@nick_eubanks

• 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