TrustyGuides.com uses Wordtracker as a market research department by Neil Davidson, 31 August 2007

In 2004, Christopher Cummings had a big idea for a new website. Then he realized that success depended on much more than a big idea. And it was something very new to him, the intelligent use of keyword research data.

The idea behind creating TrustyGuides was to offer an alternative information source on all sorts of subjects on the internet, such as careers, personal finance, parenting and education. But Christopher Cummings says that there was more to this alternative than just great content.

"I wanted to differentiate our content through ease of use and effectiveness as well. Our guides had to be easy to navigate and clearly structured, unlike much of our competition. There weren't going to be any of the other usual annoyances either, like pop-ups, flash animations and all the other things that can ruin a user’s internet experience. The thinking was spot-on, but the missing part of the jigsaw was keyword research data."

TrustyGuides has come a long way since then. It's now a successful business that is immersed in keyword research data. Four key learnings on search engine optimization (SEO) contributed to the business’s success:

1. A great idea on the internet can die if it's not supported by a robust SEO strategy, but with one it can thrive.
2. For new websites, the use of less popular keyphrases is more effective than using popular keywords, as the latter are already owned by the more established competition.
3. The keyword data supplied by Wordtracker can take the place of a conventional market research department, adding value to creative thinking, as well as adding objectivity to final decisions.
4. The world of SEO is constantly changing, never static. This requires constant re-checking and refining of content against the latest keyword research results.

TrustyGuides enters the world of keyword research data.

Christopher Cummings remembers that it was at a meeting with the owner of a content management software company that he discovered this part of the jigsaw.

"He told me how important the right keywords would be for any content-focused website. He said that at least 70% of web-users start their internet session by using a search engine. I was astonished by the figure. Even if the figure was really closer to 50% it still had big implications for my business. He didn't need to make his next point, that any website has to rank highly in search engine results, or nobody will come to it. I was already thinking it."

Christopher happily admits to being a complete novice in the world of SEO at that time. That was something that would soon change.

"I bought a range of SEO books and read up on everything there was to know on the subject. It reinforced what I had been told, that the choice of keywords could decide the success or failure of TrustyGuides. I invested in one of the keyword research data products mentioned again and again in the texts, Wordtracker."

Wordtracker becomes TrustyGuides' marketing research department.

TrustyGuides was launched in 2005, but at that time Christopher Cummings still could never have predicted how important Wordtracker would become to his business.

"Within the space of a year, it went from being something that I knew almost nothing about to being at the heart of every decision we made in the business. It became our market research department. We now have a clear development process for developing content, and Wordtracker is always part of that process."

In its simplest form, TrustyGuides develops content through four steps:

1. The team starts the content creation process by brainstorming potential topics, based on what they know about their audience, what's contemporary and what they have learned from Wordtracker previously.
2. They review the list and agree what ideas they think are worth developing, based on what they know about their typical readers.
3. They then investigate what topics will also bring in advertising revenue as well as interest readers, and use that to inform their selections.
4. Wordtracker helps them make the final decision on which topics are to be developed, based on which topics perform well on searches.
5. Using Wordtracker, they begin the work on finding keyphrases within the chosen subject areas, to make sure that they get a high search-engine ranking.

Keyphrases are more important than keywords.

As the team tried out different SEO strategies they learned what worked and what didn't. Now, keyphrases are now more important than keywords for Trusty Guides, as Christopher Cummings explains.

"For me, this was the most important learning since we started working this way. It's something that other new websites need to consider. Your competition may have been around for years, and, if they're any good, they are search engine optimized and have thousands of inbound links. How are you going to win against that sort of competition, with their 100% focus on a keyword that you want to own? For TrustyGuides, success has been based on owning the keyword phrases that have high scores but that no one else has taken complete ownership of yet. It's far more effective to be number three in a search for a reasonably popular keyphrase than to be number 3,000 in a search for the most popular keyword."

When it comes to TrustyGuides advice on parenting, the area of potty training is a good example. When the team looked at the search term "potty training', they decided it wasn't a term worth fighting for ownership of, since so many established websites owned it already. But when they looked at the area of potty training they discovered many other interesting variations on the term. One was "potty training chart', and though they decided that the competition for that was too tough, they saw an opportunity with 'printable potty training chart'. TrustyGuides decided to focus on this term, and it has been a success for them.

This approach has become a successful formula and one that adds a new dimension to the to the content development process. But, as Christopher Cummings says, Wordtracker can perform an important role at many development stages.

"Keyword research data can be a springboard to creative thinking, as it tells you what your audience is thinking, but it also adds objectivity to any decisions made, just as any market research would, because its based on the behavior of your target audience. You can't get any more solid research than data based on actual behavior, so you know that you can trust it 100%."

Finding the right content is a constant quest for Trusty Guides.

TrustyGuides has learned to avoid the mistakes others make, creating and optimizing content and then forgetting about it. Keyword research data results are constantly changing, because users' search behavior is also constantly changing. It means that no piece of content is guaranteed success, or may not need changing, even when it has been successful at first. It's something that Christopher Cummings feels strongly about.

"Finding that a keyword or keyphrase is popular is only the first step. But even once the keywords are chosen, a page is search engine optimized and the site is live, the job is only half done. We need to check that what we have done works, and tweak or even re-work pages that don't perform as well as we wanted them to."

It's this constant vigilance that has made TrustyGuides the success that it is. It is also, Christopher Cummings believes, a key part of their hoped-for success in the future.

"Of course, we will continue to rely on Wordtracker for developing new subject areas and new pages, but we will also get better and better at measuring the success of content and changing underperforming pages. Wordtracker will also play an essential role in helping us to do that."

Check out the following link for a free seven day trial of Wordtracker.