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The Wordtracker breakthrough by John Alexander, 24 November 2006

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From: John Alexander, Search Engine Workshops

To: Susan Webster, Virginia Veg

Susan,

Initial challenges

Wordtracker’s instruction guide explains that the higher a KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) value is, the better the “window of opportunity” for optimization. You need keyword phrases that relate to either “dog food” or to the “benefits of being a vegetarian.”

Upon exploring vegetarian-related keywords being searched for on the internet, it does not appear that there is much of an opportunity. Our objective is to find some way of attracting the right audience to your web pages within the major search results, but early results show no evidence of a demand for vegetarian dog food. You may feel a little disappointed but don’t worry – many site owners “call it a day” at too early a stage. Let’s persevere and see what we can find.

After the initial disappointment, I tried another strategy. I went to Wordtracker’s Top 1,000 report and spotted something very interesting. (The Top 1,000 report identifies the busiest search terms within the past 130 days.) At position 190 (at time of writing), I spotted the word “puppies” – which had a count of almost 20,000 from the database. Obviously it appears people are interested in puppies. Let’s explore this aspect further.

A perfect strategy emerges

Step 1. Take the keyword “puppies” from the Top 1,000 and do a Comprehensive Search for the term “puppies.”

Step 2. When the results come up, you can see a lot of search terms in the results. Now, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the link that says "Click here to perform a competition search."

The competition search identifies a perfect strategy to attract your target audience.

The keyword phrase that I found was “puppy names.” People must be using the internet as a tool to help them pick out a name for their brand-new puppy.

To attract these puppy owners to your business, add some resources on “puppy names” to your website. Further exploration finds more phrases with high KEI values in the 200-to-400 range, for example, "female puppy names" and "girl puppy names."

What better time to begin establishing a relationship with a pet owner than when they have a brand new puppy just joining the family? As you advance in conducting Wordtracker research, you’ll be able to research further topics that are not too competitive, such as "homemade dog diets," which has a KEI of 225.

Now that you’ve got some keywords and ideas for content, I’d advise getting some quotes from well-known veterinarians about the value and benefits of having a healthy diet plan for your new puppy.

You could think about writing an educational e-book which would teach people the specific benefits of having a balanced, vegetarian diet for their dog. How about finding a chain of veterinary clinics to advertise your free e-book for you? The e-book in turn would advertise your products and educate the public on how they could have a happier, longer life for their new puppy.

Much of this train of thought pivoted on the discovery through Wordtracker that people were searching for “puppy names.” Now that I’m comfortable with the initial research, we can explore some further strategies.

Further Wordtracker strategies for Virginia Veg

Use Wordtracker for initial research, then create a Pet Name database and allow dog owners to choose an appropriate name for their pet. Terms: “puppy names,” “girl dog names,” “female dog names,” “boy dog names.”

  • Create a resource page featuring “dog illnesses” so owners can look up common illnesses in specific breeds of dogs. Ultimately, the goal would be to write articles describing how a vegetarian diet might prolong a dog’s life or combat specific symptoms. This would need advice and input from a vet but you can use Wordtracker to research a few topics.
  • Create an ad campaign to run in large vegetarian e-zines to increase awareness of your pet food products among the vegetarian-conscious crowd.
  • Research effective keywords for use in optimization of media releases. Wordtracker could be used for researching popular phrases for writing newsworthy stories which in turn could go out for exposure in daily news feeds using the promotional services of a company like www.prweb.com. These could feature general health articles and topics of interest to vegetarians as well as interviews with prominent veterinary doctors. Press releases would gain exposure through Yahoo!, Google, and other major news feeds and would also be picked up by other publishers for publication. Wordtracker would be valuable for researching which keyphrases to optimize for.
  • Create some genre-specific sites that are dedicated to specific breeds of dogs. These might range from Jack Russell Terriers to German Shepherds. Many people “love” a specific type of dog and Wordtracker could be useful in identifying those niches and the search phrases most likely to appeal to each audience. In the meantime couldn’t those audiences benefit from knowing about your products too?
  • You could use www.CJ.com to research a list of related pet products and although these would not be your central focus, you could monetize all of the links on your Web site and earn monthly affiliate commissions from traffic on everything from dog T-shirts to retail products like coffee cups that you can have your pet’s picture printed on. Then you could use Wordtracker to find the hottest promotional phrases to market these product pages on the Web.

This is page nine of the HMTL version of Wordtracker's Free Keyword Research Guide.

Keyword Research Guide in PDF

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About John Alexander

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John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles. John is partner in online search engine marketing courses and Director of the Search Engine Academy with local training workshops located throughout North America.

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