Interesting article. How do you measure effectiveness of your keyword niche? One way would be number of visits on that keyword niche. I'm wondering if there are any tools to look at where your particular keyword niche is in the search engine results.
really great concept, a ratio of visits to actual keywords, but i think more of a focus such as higher ratio leads to this or a low ratio means a lot of long tail keywords...
Mikhail
October 18, 2008 08:32
But since 2 of the keywords: "management styles" and "management style" account for roughly 50% of the traffic within the keyword niche it might be worthwhile to try to optimize the website for those two keywords. Especially taking into consideration that there are probably some competitors out there trying to obtain high rankings for those keywords. I guess that in most verticals there is a distribution not unlike that of "blockbusters vs. longtail". That a few keywords account for a disproportionate amount of the traffic but as soon as one moves beyond those "blockbuster keywords" one is left in the tail where each keyword is possibly matched by just one search. Therefore it might pay off to use both the tactics advised here which is kind of longtail in scope while at the same time investing a significant amount of effort in optimizing for the blockbusters.
Kathryn: Your analytics tool can measure each keyword niche’s visitors’ pages/visit, average time on site, bounce rate and whatever measures of response you configure it for. And of course the number of visitors, as you mention. You can also measure ranking by taking some sample keywords from your niche and tracking your sites rankings for them.
David: Use Wordtracker to find the length of the tail – the potential size of each keyword niche. Your site stats tell you how profitable that niche is for your site and how successful you currently are. The more successful you currently are (in a niche) the easier more success will be (in that same niche).
I think we could work out some fancy formulas to interpret the visits:keywords ratio but it would need to take account of the size of a niche’s long tail.
Whether at site or niche level, in general, a high visits:keywords ratio indicates an unexploited niche.
Mikhail: the page is optimized for those words ("management styles" and "management style"). And yes, do target both the ‘blockbuster’ words (nice description) and the long tail. Indeed, the whole point of this approach is that by targeting the blockbuster words and having good content you will target the tail without trying. This is how one page can target 10,000 keywords. One of my favorite results of this approach is that you can get nowhere for your main target keywords (the blockbusters) but still get thousands of results for the tail.
I can see this approach working. So far I've been focused on optimizing for single high-traffic terms because it's easier to know what your targeting that way.
Steven: When targeting groups of keywords (keyword niches) you can keep that 'easier to know what you're targeting' thing going by focusing on the niche's seed word. But whenever possible, add a lot of copy relevant to the keyowrd niche - start with a Wordtracker search to get some ideas.
Thanks Mark for the article I am very new to Internet Marketing and what I have learnt so far was to target specific keywords this has given me something else to think about
Excellent article. Numbers do count. I am a poet - we control words - so your article has given me the tools to delve into that poet's toolbox and optimise my Web sites.
It's interesting to see that the many tools that analyze a web page for SEO score need to know what the main keyword phrase is to properly execute the analysis. Focusing each single web page on a primary keyword does not make for an exciting SEO strategy. This article has really helped me to explain and literally show people the potential of a well organized SEO plan. Thanks!
It is difficult to explain to clients what SEO strategy with wich keyphrases is the best solution for them. This includes a lot of experience and a detailed analysis of competitors and the rest of the market. It will certainly not be possible to optimize all relevant keywords. The recipe for success here is to find the keywords that represent a good compromise between cost and profit for the optimization of marketing one's own side or the products to be sold.
Thank you a million times over again for taking the time to put this information out there for us small business that cannot yet afford to pay experts to do our SEO. You are great!
Mark
February 19, 2010 01:35
Good article to explain what is real SEO.
Most PPC campaign ignore what is important ..... Thanks!
I’m beginning to have a better understanding of SEO but without your help I’d still be back in the dark ages.
Thank you for taking the time to explain the necessary steps so well.
All comments
Interesting article. How do you measure effectiveness of your keyword niche? One way would be number of visits on that keyword niche. I'm wondering if there are any tools to look at where your particular keyword niche is in the search engine results.
really great concept, a ratio of visits to actual keywords, but i think more of a focus such as higher ratio leads to this or a low ratio means a lot of long tail keywords...
But since 2 of the keywords: "management styles" and "management style" account for roughly 50% of the traffic within the keyword niche it might be worthwhile to try to optimize the website for those two keywords. Especially taking into consideration that there are probably some competitors out there trying to obtain high rankings for those keywords. I guess that in most verticals there is a distribution not unlike that of "blockbusters vs. longtail". That a few keywords account for a disproportionate amount of the traffic but as soon as one moves beyond those "blockbuster keywords" one is left in the tail where each keyword is possibly matched by just one search. Therefore it might pay off to use both the tactics advised here which is kind of longtail in scope while at the same time investing a significant amount of effort in optimizing for the blockbusters.
Kathryn: Your analytics tool can measure each keyword niche’s visitors’ pages/visit, average time on site, bounce rate and whatever measures of response you configure it for. And of course the number of visitors, as you mention. You can also measure ranking by taking some sample keywords from your niche and tracking your sites rankings for them.
David: Use Wordtracker to find the length of the tail – the potential size of each keyword niche. Your site stats tell you how profitable that niche is for your site and how successful you currently are. The more successful you currently are (in a niche) the easier more success will be (in that same niche).
I think we could work out some fancy formulas to interpret the visits:keywords ratio but it would need to take account of the size of a niche’s long tail.
Whether at site or niche level, in general, a high visits:keywords ratio indicates an unexploited niche.
Mikhail: the page is optimized for those words ("management styles" and "management style"). And yes, do target both the ‘blockbuster’ words (nice description) and the long tail. Indeed, the whole point of this approach is that by targeting the blockbuster words and having good content you will target the tail without trying. This is how one page can target 10,000 keywords. One of my favorite results of this approach is that you can get nowhere for your main target keywords (the blockbusters) but still get thousands of results for the tail.
Kathryn: I should have pointed you to this article for help in assessing different keyword niches.
Thanks Mark - appreciate the responses and link to that article.
I can see this approach working. So far I've been focused on optimizing for single high-traffic terms because it's easier to know what your targeting that way.
Steven: When targeting groups of keywords (keyword niches) you can keep that 'easier to know what you're targeting' thing going by focusing on the niche's seed word. But whenever possible, add a lot of copy relevant to the keyowrd niche - start with a Wordtracker search to get some ideas.
Thanks Mark for the informative article and links...Niches, keywords, SEO, PPC; one feels like their heads spinning!!!!!
Thanks Mark for the article I am very new to Internet Marketing and what I have learnt so far was to target specific keywords this has given me something else to think about
Excellent article. Numbers do count. I am a poet - we control words - so your article has given me the tools to delve into that poet's toolbox and optimise my Web sites.
Thank-you, Mark. j
It's interesting to see that the many tools that analyze a web page for SEO score need to know what the main keyword phrase is to properly execute the analysis. Focusing each single web page on a primary keyword does not make for an exciting SEO strategy. This article has really helped me to explain and literally show people the potential of a well organized SEO plan. Thanks!
It is difficult to explain to clients what SEO strategy with wich keyphrases is the best solution for them. This includes a lot of experience and a detailed analysis of competitors and the rest of the market. It will certainly not be possible to optimize all relevant keywords. The recipe for success here is to find the keywords that represent a good compromise between cost and profit for the optimization of marketing one's own side or the products to be sold.
Mark,
I'm new to SEO keyword niches and your article definitely helps!
Thank you a million times over again for taking the time to put this information out there for us small business that cannot yet afford to pay experts to do our SEO. You are great!
Good article to explain what is real SEO. Most PPC campaign ignore what is important ..... Thanks!
We always 'ignored' long tail but these articles have opened my eyes for sure.
I’m beginning to have a better understanding of SEO but without your help I’d still be back in the dark ages. Thank you for taking the time to explain the necessary steps so well.