50 Keywords – 50 First Page Results On Google by Rachelle Money, 12 February 2008
Vegetarianism continues to power a growing online business market. There are now estimated to be around 12 million vegetarians in the US, and 4 million in the United Kingdom where the total vegetarian food market has been put at £670m per year.
It’s moved from counter-culture to a mainstream way of living, which also means more people are searching for advice and nutritious vegetarian recipes on the web.
Rachelle Money talks to SavvyVegetarian.com, a content rich site that now appears on the first page of Google search results for over 50 keywords.
Key points
- It's important to create content for every group of visitors to your web site. On SavvyVegetarian.com there’s advice for mothers whose children have decided to be vegetarians, teenagers, pregnant women as well as advice on how to deal with weight gain, vegetarian social etiquette
- Keyword research not only helps you identify the groups visiting your site, it also provides the inspiration for creating the web content they're looking for.
- Keeping on top of current trends is a necessity. Daily keyword research means that you can often be the first to spot emerging trends.
SavvyVegetarian.com is one of the sites which have appeared to service online demand. It’s a content rich site that has drawn its inspiration from Wordtracker and now appears on the first page of Google search results for over 50 keywords.
For Judy Kingsbury her journey to becoming a healthy vegetarian was a rocky one. Born in the small town of Manitoba, 200 miles north of Winnipeg, she says the term vegetarian wasn’t even part of their vocabulary. In the late sixties Judy, who describes herself as cook, artist, writer and gardener, took her first tentative steps towards vegetarianism.
She tells Wordtracker what it was like. “I’ve been a vegetarian since my early twenties and it was really tough going. I had no support or resources and I didn’t know any other vegetarians. I really started to flounder.
"I didn‘t really have one reason for being vegetarian, I just felt better, and wanted to do something no one else was."
A lack of nutritional education, along with the fact that there were so few other people she could turn to, meant Judy had some dangerous pitfalls.
She threw herself into a macrobiotic diet of low fat and high-fiber foods and grew thin and dehydrated. She was malnourished and eventually sought help to restore her health and was shown a more nutritious way of living a vegetarian lifestyle.
Meat and potato town
Judy says she had to learn how to cook and prepare a balanced diet. “It was a huge learning curve,” she adds. "I was living in Minnesota, in a meat and potato kind of town. When I started to tell people I was vegetarian they all wanted me to help them because they knew of others who were vegetarian."
"I figured that as more people were starting to become vegetarian there was more demand for advice. I thought it would be a good idea to start up my own business as a coach. I soon learned that nobody wants to be told what to do, so the business failed."
Judy, who has now been a vegetarian for almost 40 years, says starting up an educational website dedicated to vegetarianism and vegan lifestyles seemed a natural decision. In 2003 www.savvyvegetarian.com was born - a website which Judy says has taken on its own personality and continues to grow in popularity.
The website itself offers a plethora of information and great tips on vegetarian living from advice and blog posts to recipes and articles.
Judy has spent years building up the site’s content in a bid not to exclude anyone who visits the site. There’s advice for mothers whose children have decided to be vegetarians, teenagers, pregnant women as well as advice on how to deal with weight gain, vegetarian social etiquette and her top ten tips on going veggie.
Keyword research triples sales
Judy now receives an average of 60,000 visits to her site every month. So how has she been able to generate this level of traffic?
"I can safely say that keywords are the basis for the growth of Savvy Vegetarian," she explains.
Judy uses Wordtracker to discover which related keywords are relevant for her site. Her first stop was recipes - a popular resource on her site.
Judy optimized her website and she is reaping the rewards.
"I started keyword research on tofu recipes and developed a tofu recipe section, with lots of tofu info, and so far about 20 tasty, tested, family friendly tofu recipes. I optimized page text and meta tags for that keyword phrase, and embedded links on other pages.
"When you realize how many people are looking for tofu recipes, see 1.8 million pages on Google, and then that I’m on the front page, you know you’re on the right track”, she said.
Thanks to this methodical approach SavvyVgetarian.com is above the fold on page one for about 50 search terms on Google.
Judy says vegetarian cooking and recipes were "off the radar for a long time" and few books were published or had only one tofu or lentil recipe.
Without keyword research she says it would have been very easy to go off on the wrong tangent.
"Once I started paying attention to keywords and optimizing my pages I could see the benefits almost instantly. I think looking at keywords and researching them is really the basis of starting up and running a website - any website," explains Judy.
By paying more attention to her keywords and optimizing her site Judy says traffic through SavvyVegetarian.com has tripled in the past year. She has taken keywords and peppered them throughout her blog spots and her articles on living healthily. She also has a resource page which links to related sites which may be of interest - such as environment, green living, organic food and holistic medicine.
Income from advertising
Careful arrangement of the site has helped her achieve 2,000 visits each day, and has also led to Savvy Vegetarian becoming a brand in its own right. Now Judy is receiving a steady income through advertising on the site.
"I think vegetarianism and healthy eating is taking on a natural upsurge in people’s consciousness, and it’s continuing to grow. It’s a growing industry and no one really has a grasp on it yet."
The success of SavvyVegetarian.com has been a fulfilling experience for Judy. As she suffered from poor health at the beginning of her journey, it has left her with an even greater desire to continue educating people on vegetarianism.
"The response I get from people is a big motivator because I really feel like I’m providing a great service.
"Things change all the time and you never know, the tofu bubble could burst."
Even someone as experienced as Judy is sometimes surprised by the emerging trends in vegetarian cooking.
"I’m continuing to develop the site, especially the advice section. I’m doing daily keyword searches which enable me to spot the trends. For instance I’ve recently noticed recipes for Quinoa are beginning to rise, so I need to start developing that area too."
About Rachelle Money
Rachelle Money is a freelance journalist based in Scotland, UK. She graduated from the Scottish School of Journalism in 2005 where she was awarded an internship with two national publications - The Sunday Herald newspaper and The Big Issue magazine. Rachelle has been working with Wordtracker since August 2007 and is a regular contributor to the newsletter.
52 comments
I loved your photo and your last name :-)
I enjoyed your article. It gave a lot of valuable information and a lot for me to think about in developing my new website.
Dear Rachelle,
Congratulations on your Seth Godin and Vegetarianism articles. I found them to be most useful. Keep up the great work - you really have a flair for writing good copy. Incidently, I am indeed partial to the Scots (my two grandchildren, Fiona and Finley McCulloch, take pride in their Scottish heritage).
We have been receiving free keywords regularly, and because of a new upcoming venture we soon plan to become subscribers.
As KowalickDirect.com we are revolutionizing advertising for all media. Our soon-to-be-released new product will semi-automatically write advertising copy. Already our first product (Taguchi-for-Advertising) is doubling bottom lines for clients (Thomas Wagner's Action Advertising Agency in Denmark - our European partner - is schooled in our approach, and practices throughout Europe). Feel free to contact him about his case studies.
Thanks once again from California (What were you doing in Los Angeles? If you visit again, please call us at 530 692 1944 and we can meet either in San Francisco or Lake Tahoe, as our offices are halfway in between).
Best Wishes,
James Kowalick President & Founder KowalickDirect
I observe + think that the book vegetarian, has it own Value. own outcome to set those who r not vegetarian free from any cause of delama in the near future or the up hold of a better future. Towards eatng habits, cause of action in & out of the HUMAN BODY. As well as the other auther's are subscribed towards the main points in the savvy document or savvy section.
I have already given my comment & the rest I leave in your hands, Thanks.
Great article, great story. It took me a lot of wasted time and money before I realised how important good keyword research was in finding a niche market to explore. I built my first site www.euro-millions-review.com using a package called SiteSell and the things I have learned in just 2 years is incredible. I am now receiving between 400 and 500 unique visitors everyday. These are stats that I could only dream of 2 years ago. For anyone who is just starting out in web world, I can not stress enough the importance of keyword research in building a successful online business.
Hi Rachelle,
Great article with a lot of information that I can put to good use. I have a health food site and from reading the article I see that I need to develop the recipe section a lot stronger.
Thanks for a great article Terry
I was wondering why http://www.savvyvegetarian.com doesn't come on any of the Google pages when I pit in "vegetarian" or "vegan" as a search term. Am I doing something wrong? Actually, I just double check "vegetarian" It comes up on page 6. That's weird.
I have been exploring the vegan lifestyle as a cancer patient. I am gradually working my way into it for myself and my children. Even if we don't go all the way vegan, we have dramatically reduced our consumption of meat. I have visited your site a couple of times, so was pleasantly surprised to read this in my email.
I also own/manage an online retailer called http://www.familybedding.com and have found the "niche" words bring the greatest traffic and google listings to my site, rather than something general like children's bedding. I tend to go for something like girls canopy bedding or tropical fish bedding rather than the generalized words. Thanks for your info. keep up the good work.
Ok perhaps this is not the most appropriate comment to be adding, but I think Rachelle Money is rather sexy. Helpful article too...
I started reading this article mainly because I wanted to find out more information on how she got 50 top serp keywords. But I found that the article was very useful also. Thanks for all the great information.
Kenneth Elliott
When I opened this article, I was expecting something totally different. I scanned the first couple of lines and got sucked in. Thanks for all of the great information.
Dennis Valentine Ameriship USA
Well Rachel, I think your on a promise with Henry .... and possibly James if you fancy another trip to California!
Enjoyed your article very much. I've only recently discovered Wordtracker and I can see that there is a lot to learn if I want to use it most effectively.
I suppose we all learn in different ways but I tend to get a lot from reading case studies. It's probably the human element that appeals to me but if I can relate to the story then I'm more likely to absorb the information on offer.
Thanks again,
Caroline
Rachelle,
This is a great lesson on keyword optimization, a fine article on one of my favorite topics - the vegetarian diet. You were right on the "Money," lady! This was a "read-it-from-top-to-bottom" story.
I do use Wordtracker through SiteSell for research for the content on www.anti-diabetes-diet-supplements.com, and without such focus on keywords and search trends it's easy to be an "unknown" on any search engine.
I do look forward to enjoying more of your articles. Thanks.
Bentley Thompson www.anti-diabetes-diet-supplements.com
Hi Rachelle, Great article and thank you for sharing this information.When Judy developed her site did she teach herself about keywords and how to use word tracker or was this done through an in house expert or a consultant? All the best Mike
Hi Rachelle
Nice articles, both of them.
I did a few Google searches and found Judy's site in the second spot for 'tofu recipes' for her front page and the 8th spot for 'vegetarian articles' for another page. At least that's where they showed here in Canada. I suppose they bounce around like my site does, one day it will be in the second spot on the first page, then the next day it will be on the 8th spot on the first page.
I'm having quite the time getting my site ranked for other keyword phrases though. Maybe I should splurge and pay for WordTracker. Hey that should be good for a raise for you eh Rachelle? ;-)
Mike
Useful article, I hope the tofu bubble doesn't burst considering there are so many tasty recipes like Tofu Sesame Cookies.
Search engine optimization is one of the key services of our organization called Resource Management Group. There can be no two opinions about the efficacy of keywords search and keywords use for ranking in search engines. There is, however, a risk element there if you search keywords on a daily basis and change them too frequently. New search terms may or may not click. So, if you are getting visitors on a particular search term and you change it to another, it may boost your ranking or it may pull down your ranking. It might be better to add new search terms than to replace them from your meta tags or content pages, in my opinion.
Hi Rachelle, I have been in the SEO industry for many years now and have constantly been trying to raise the awareness of good copy, good storytelling, and good content - not technical wizardry - as one of the most important factors in developing an ongoing, solid SEO strategy. For this reason, when I stumbled across your articles on this site, I really enjoyed reading them. In our current SEO world, dominated by the techies, your articles are a breath of fresh air.
I look forward to all of us content and copy centric evangelists getting our message out there and, hopefully in the not too distance future, our breath of fresh air will become a gale of fresh air.
Keep up the good work.
Frank
"If Content is King, Good Copywriters are the new Princes of SEO"
I agree with Henry - Rachel is very beautiful.
Hi Rachelle Great to see you're creating great stuff at Wordtracker - we look forward to reading more...
Hi Rachelle, Excellent article.
I am currently taking seo classes, and a member of wordtracker. I built my first site a while back nascartalk .org and got caught up in adding youtube videos. Instead of focusing on content, and learning how to optimize my keywords, and tag's, etc.. which i still have yet to do. I often tend to go and study some of the sites that are mentioned in your articles, and i think a person can learn alot just from doing that. My father always said take baby steps before you walk, and then you can run. I think i am just starting to get out of my baby steps by applying knowledge learned and not leaving it on the shelf. Anyways, I really enjoy reading all of your articles and tip's, keep up the good work Rachelle!!.
Thanks for a wonderful and inspiring article. It is so exciting to think that a subject for which you developed such passion without any local input has flowered into this lifestyle and business.
I think it is great and that you obviously deserve the sucess due as much to what you have done as to your inspiration to help yourself and your loved ones.
I am struggling to develope a retail online business nich in the outdoor sports electronics field. I have have limited sucess with my present venues and hope to develope more than a web site linked to my auction listings in the near future.
Your experience has given me hope and made me think that I might want to do some out of the box thinking about what I want to accomplish in the future.
www.outdoorsportselectronics.com
Thanks Ron
This is an excellent profile of Judy Kingsbury showing how persistents creates results. I like the way a niche idea is correlated internet marketing and her technique of getting on google's first pages.
Wow! Are you married?
In a sea of information, simple and to the point articles such as this shine brightly. At least for me. I'm in the process of developing my own website and will glean all that I can from "smart" people, who've traveled the path I'm on.
Keep it up! Mark-
Most enlightening and well written, thanks, Rachelle. Wish I could get my ranking that high.
humm SEO ...
Great read Rachelle, thanks a lot :)
I love it. This is just a regular home cooked site. No redirects no nofollows, no siloing, just straight up mom and pop website. And google eats it up.
Lovely Picture, Nice Article, Nice last name.
Thank you very much for your nice article, however sorry to sat that this website www.savvyvegetarian.com doesn't receive 60000 visitor in month,
Have a great time there
wow 60k in one month, amazing keep sharing your tips please, so we can all get that kind of traffic!
Great article. Just goes to show how persistence works. Good job on writing such informative and interesting content, Ms. Money.
I was a vegetarian for a number of years and really enjoyed the article. Great job writing the article!
A good blog but a little deeper into eaxactly how you research the keywords would be nice. I am a newbie to wordtracker and I am still exploring it. Better than keyw**d *lite already
A good blog but a little deeper into eaxactly how you research the keywords would be nice. I am a newbie to wordtracker and I am still exploring it. Better than keyw**d *lite already
Good stuff very educational. Articles are great!
Every thing I have read helped me in the process of building my website. I'm learning from all arical I have been reading. I still need help with building keywords, sellecting keywords,and paste on my websit.
Wow! 50 keywords on the 1st page... That will surely bring in solid organic traffic. Now if only I could get 50 words up there in my niche.
That would certainly raise revenue :)
BTW, nice article Rachelle. Keep up the good work!
Great article. My SEO team have been telling we need to do something like this. Good Intell is hard to find/
this is a great way to stay a head of compition. and other websites. thanks.
this is good for search engine optimization and getting good rankings. thanks.
This is well useful thank you I shall get on with adding more keywords to my site.
www.chewthecud.co.uk Pure vegetarina and vegan food!
Cheers, jim
Hi,
Thanks for this great articles. I also believe that a site would have good visitors that converts if it has relevant keywords with little competition.
Cheers,
Asep
Hi Rachelle Great to see you're creating great stuff at Wordtracker - we look forward to reading more...
Thanx! This is really a good article.Understanding visitor's search behavior is very important and if we provide content relevant to the visitor's behavior then traffic will definitely come.
Born in the small town of Manitoba, 200 miles north of Winnipeg, she says the term vegetarian wasn’t even part of their vocabulary. In the late sixties Judy, who describes herself as cook, artist, writer and gardener, took her first tentative steps towards vegetarianism.ha,ah..nice
I think it is great and that you obviously deserve the sucess due as much to what you have done as to your inspiration to help yourself and your loved ones.
I am struggling to develope a retail online business nich in the outdoor sports electronics field. I have have limited sucess with my present venues and hope to develope more than a web site linked to my auction listings in the near future.
Great article; I am going to google Rachelle Money now for more. I just started today looking into how Wordtracker could help me grow my unconditional freedom business, and to my surprise I found this article about Judy Kingsbury--our very first good friend and neighbour after I and my family moved from France to Fairfield, Iowa, USA in 1984. I remember how we were sometimes invited to Judy and Ed's for lunch--vegetarian of course. They both are great generous souls and I am so happy to see how successful Judy's website has become. I am going to be even more serious now about keyword research and will definitely consider Wordtracker. Dr Claude Windenberger http://www.AskDrClaude.com
YOU ARE A GOOD JOURNALIST COMTING THE GOOD WORK
having your 50 keyword first page in google is really an awesome accomplishment.