It ain’t the meat, it’s the emotion by B. L. Ochman, 24 November 2006

Email

From: B. L. Ochman, What’s Next Online

To: Susan Webster, Virginia Veg

Susan,

Holy cannoli! Would you believe there are more than 14,800 Google results for "vegetarian dog food"? There are even 864 results for "kosher dog food." (At time of writing.)

I feed my 12-year-old labrador, Sam, salad every night plus steamed veggies, apples, and pears. The only veggies and fruits he hasn't liked are avocados, blueberries, and sunflower sprouts. (He very deftly picks those out of his salads.)

So when you asked me to help Virginia Veg market, a new range of vegetarian dog food, I knew there would be a huge market among the nation's 60 million dog owners – besides me – who think of their dogs as family members and want them around for a long time.

I do online strategy, write and search engine optimize websites, and create and execute marketing programs for my clients. After I interview the clients about their business, competition, and goals, I always start with Wordtracker. I get market intelligence from its results because I learn what people are searching for on the subject. That helps me write effective copy, page titles, and headlines.

Detective work

Here's a summary of what I learned by working through the steps in Wordtracker. Showing you what I found will explain how deeply Wordtracker can take you into research and point you in the right direction for marketing.

Your “ah ha!” moment came when you realized that there are over 20 million vegetarians (including me) in the US and over 60 million pet dogs. You reasoned that vegetarians wouldn't want to give their dogs meat. I think that would be true only if vegetarians had to touch the meat.

I learned that there had been no searches on non-meat dog food in the past 60 days, which tells me it’s not meat but health that dog owners are concerned about. Wordtracker results indicate that dog owners' big concern is health and holistic care.

That tells me that your main job will be educating these interested pet lovers about the value of vegetarianism for dogs and cats.

Interpreting Wordtracker data

Rather than "vegetarian dog food," the most frequently searched terms are:

• natural pet food
• holistic pet food
• premium pet food.

I find that there is also search activity in:

• organic dog food
• holistic pet care.

Half of all searches for pet food were for natural, healthy, or premium pet foods.

Wordtracker's keyword effectiveness (KEI) analysis showed that top phrases to include in content, page heading, and headlines of your site include:

• natural dog food
• natural pet foods
• holistic dog food
• healthy dog food

Finding the competition

When it comes to competing pages, “natural/healthy/holistic dog food” and “natural pet food” have the most competing pages in search engines.

I also learned that Nature's Choice Vegetarian Dog Food had many searches and thus will be your main competitor. No other brand names came up in the category.

Results from my keyword search on vegetarian dog food suggest some markets that may be interested in vegetarian dog food, including healthy eating, puppies, holistic health, animal rights, pet links, non-meat dog food, pet supplements, vegan pet products, and wheat-free foods (which suggests allergies). I can pursue tie-ins and partnerships with sites in these areas when I do the marketing plan.

Clearly, focus groups and more research are needed, but Wordtracker sure gives us a great start!

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

Keyword Research Guide in PDF

Contents

• Introduction
• Why Keywords Matter by Ken McGaffin
• What You Can Do With Wordtracker by Ken McGaffin
• Not This Saturday (offline keyword research) by Ken McGaffin
• Convert Traffic Using Wordtracker by Bryan Eisenberg
• It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Emotion by B.L. Ochman
• Gauge the Size of the Market by Stephen Mahaney
• In Paid Search, Keywords Are Key by Kevin Lee
• Find the Keywords and You’ll Find the Marketplace by Ken McGaffin
• The Wordtracker Breakthrough by John Alexander
• Adopt a Healthy Position by Neil Davidson
• Designing an Online Marketing Strategy by Robin Good
• Only People Buy by Nick Usborne
• Where To Use Your Keyword Phrases by Ken McGaffin