Keyword Research & Copywriting for Search Success

Bootcamp for Keyword Research & SEO Copywriting

Christine Churchill

KeyRelevance, LLC

SMX West 2015

searchmarketingexpo.com@ChrisChurchill 2

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• President & CEO of KeyRelevance, LLC

• Member of Founding Board of Directors of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)

• Member of the Founding Board of Directors of the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Organization (DFWSEM)

• Author at Search Engine Land

• Longtime Speaker & Instructor, Search Engine Strategies, PubCon, and Search Marketing Expo Conferences

• Masters degree and over 15 years online marketing experience


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Keywords = Dead

SEO = Dead

(but the rules have changed &

we have to be better MARKETERS!)


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Keyword Research – What is it? Why do it?

How to do KW Research

Knowledge Graph

Hummingbird Algorithm

Keyword Tools

How to use Keywords to Optimize Content

Online Copywriting Tips


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Fundamental step to all search

marketing

Keyword Research is the process of researching to identify the keyword terms customers use to find your products and services

Keyword Research helps you get inside the mind of customers


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• People use search engines to find you on the web

• Engines use text to categorize pages

• Research unveils terms people actually use

• KW Research improves performance of online

marketing


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• Marketing staff and Search Marketers – both paid and organic

• Content writers & everyone in publishing

- a way to keep content fresh and relevant

- Inspires topics readers are interested in

• Your targeted audience

- By using the phrases readers are using in search, your audience can find your

great content

• Your Company

- targeting the phrases people actually use brings motivated customers to your

site which improves conversions and user experienceKnowing the best words to target helps you plan a more effective content

marketing strategy


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How to Do

Keyword

Research


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Keyword Research is an Iterative Process

Brainstorming

&

Discovery

Keyword

Expansion

Keyword

Evaluation


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Keyword Brainstorming and Discovery Phase


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Brainstorming session – no judging words at this stage. Goal is

to cast your net widely and generate broad list.

Keyword lists from within company

Review company web site and print collateral

Press Releases

Often too much insider jargon

May or may not be customer’s lingo


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Customer interviews

Customer Surveys and Focus Groups

Talk to support or sales personnel who talk directly to customers

Review discussion forums, user generated content, blogs, social media

The best keywords come straight from the customer’s mouth


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Increase conversion by speaking the customer’s language

Correct bad keyword choicesMissing trafficMissing sales

Discover new keyword opportunities- Find overlooked or new keywords- Take advantage of longer tail phrases

“Duplicate a CD” vs “Burn a CD”


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Based on frequency graph

Chris Anderson’s book describes it as an economic modelUnlimited selection – Amazon books, iTunesIdea is that non-hits can make money based on sheer volume

Popular phrases on left – highly competitive and expensive. Less popular on right –lower volume

“20 to 25% of the queries that Google sees today have never been seen before.”

– Udi Manber, Google VP of Engineering


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Camera, digital camera, Sony

Nikon D7000 digital SLR camera

compare digital cameras

buy digital slr camera


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Online and Traditional Print Magazines

Company and Product Reviews

Online Thesaurus & Dictionary


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Competitors

Review their web site

and collateral for keywords

Look at words they are buying in PPC &

targeting in SEO

Get competitive insights and

ideas on overlooked terms


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• Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are

actually using

• Acts as a direct feed from the visitors brain

• Make sure you collect site search data – can tie it to

your analytics for easy viewing

• Could give you ideas for new products or services

to offer


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Google Knowledge Graph

Hummingbird Algorithm

Not Provided Keywords


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“The Knowledge Graph enables you to

search for things, people or places that

Google knows about—landmarks,

celebrities, cities, sports teams,

buildings, geographical features, movies,

celestial objects, works of art and

more—and instantly get information

that’s relevant to your query. “

Source:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/introducing-

knowledge-graph-things-not.html


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• Critical first step towards building the next

generation of search

• Taps into the collective intelligence of the

web and understands the world a bit more

like people do

• A step toward artificial intelligence


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Google’s Knowledge Graph

contains more than 500 million objects, as

well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and

relationships between these different objects

Sources include Freebase (moving to

Wikidata in 2015), Wikipedia and the CIA

World Factbook.


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According to Google the algorithm

(announced Sept 2013) delivers better

results that are "precise and fast" - like a

hummingbird.

It’s Google trying to figure out user intent

and improve conversational search.

Google wants to match the meaning, rather

than pages matching just a few words.


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• Hummingbird is an overhaul of Google’s

algorithm, but many of the old parts are still

used.

• Google’s semantic analysis considers the

language in your content

- so you still need to use keywords and

related phrases on the page to communicate to

users and Google what the page is about

- means some on-page optimization

still is needed


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• Create high quality longer content that

establishes your site as the place to go for

answers

• Develop ways to increase the authority of the

site

• Become a leader in your vertical

•Show leadership thru social media, links,

user metrics, online relationships

Google has made it harder for “fake” authority to win. Going forward you have to

earn your position.


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• Focus on the user intent behind the search term

- Try to develop content that delivers answers to

what the searcher wants

• Stop focusing on exact match phrases

- Look more to long tail and related phrases

- Build a vocabulary of terms that are related to

the phrase

• When doing KW research now, research core

phrases plus related, synonyms, and words that

frequently occur with your main terms (co-occurrence)


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Keyword

Research

Tools


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• Saves money and time

• Provides insight outside of your site

• Identifies keyword opportunities you

might miss

• Offers popularity numbers you

can’t get from your own analytics

• Moves you beyond keyword

assumptions

• Allows you to compare phrases


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Free

• Google Keyword Planner Tool

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Google Trends

• Google Display Planner

• Google Instant

• Bing Keyword Tool

• Bing Intelligence Tool

• Bing Webmaster Tools

Fee Based

• WordTracker

• Searchmetrics

• Hitwise

• WordStream

• SEMRush

• ComScore

• SpyFu


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- Oriented for Paid Search

- Must be Logged Into AdWords to Use

- Provides keyword ideas & monthly search volumes


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1. Select the Second Option When starting the KeywordPlanner Tool. Currently if you Choose the first option, theMobile and device numbersWill be aggregate.

2. Select mobile from pull down option3. Hover on month to see the breakout of mobile


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Google Trends provides trends

from web searches, images, news,

shopping and YouTube


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Sort by Clicks to see the

terms that actually brought

the most traffic to the site

If you click on the query, it

shows which pages

appear for the term

Using Filters can separate brand/non-

brand and core terms, plus sources

from web, image, mobile, & video

Shows up to 2000 top

queries for the last 90 days

Not affected by the Not

Provided – this is limited

but actual keyword data

Provides Impression,

Clicks, and CTR, but no

conversion data


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• Free Adwords tool

• Built for display advertising in paid search but can give insights on keywords

• Suggests related keywords

• Gives demographic information on keywords


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Query People Actually Typed

Shows you how customers are finding your ad. With the Search terms report, you can see the actual

searches people entered on Google Search and other Search Network sites that triggered your ad and led

to a click.

Identifies new search terms with high potential so you can add them to your keyword list. Allows you to

look for search terms that aren't as relevant to your business, so you can add them as negative keywords.


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That’s a lot of terms

Google doesn’t show!


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- Shows actual

queries numbers (not

rounded)

- Has 6 months of

data

- Drill down by

Country


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• Data pulled from meta

search engines

• Eliminates most

skewing issues caused by

robots

• Differentiates between

singular & plural

• Offer Free Tool for trial


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/

Useful for developing

your vocabulary of

related terms for

Hummingbird


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Different set of

keywords on Shopping

search from regular

web search


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Provides suggestions from

Google

Wikipedia

Answers

YouTube

Bing

Yahoo

Amazon

Plus option for15 other sites


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Keyword

Expansion Phase


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Comparison (best, compare, reviews)Price (cheap, discount)Product description (green, plus size, unique)Intended use (gift for mother, baptism gown)Product (gift basket, mortgage, flight)LocationAction (apply, book, find, buy)Season (holiday, Christmas, Halloween)AbbreviationsBrand / vendor / manufacturer


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Number of keyword permutation tools

- Tools that allow you to mix and match terms to create

new keyword phrases

- Enter keyword terms, and modifiers

- Combines variations of phrases

Can use concatenate function in Excel or specific tool


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Group related keywords into lists of related

terms

Remember to identify terms that frequently

occur with your main terms

Do a series of keyword research projects

on a site, not one

Develop a keyword matrix


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Evaluating Keywords


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• Relevancy to Site

• Keyword Popularity

• User Intent

• Competition

• Performance

Always test your keywords.

Keywords can sounds like a good idea, but

upon testing, they can fail miserably.


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Relevancy means choosing the keywords that best describes what the site or page offers

Traffic alone isn’t the goal, you want targeted traffic that is searching for what you sell

Best bet: Find words that resonate with your target audience

and are descriptive of your site or page


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• Popularity gives insight on traffic potential

• Being popular Is overrated

• Popular phrases

– Less relevant

– More competitive

• Less Popular

– More Focused

– Less Traffic


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• Consider seasonality and cyclical popularity of phrases

• Identify trend lines• Many phrases lost or

increased popularity in recession

Seasonal trends of term “air conditioner”


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Understand the “why” behind the motivation for the search and you can better target how to respond

Research vs Purchase

Stage in buying process

Audience Demographic

Buying vs Browsing

“car reviews”

“fast auto financing”

“80% of all searches on the Web are non-commercial” -Jim Lanzone of Ask.com


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Keywords indicate where consumer is in the Buying Process

Match your content to satisfy the user’s intent when using the keyword

Problem

RecognitionInformation

SearchEvaluation

of

Alternatives

Purchase

Decision

Adapted From: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler

Select

Alternatives


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Three types of searches:

• Navigational

- I just want to be at your web site.

• Informational

-Do hybrid cars require special maintenance?

•Transactional

-Interactive, purchase, subscribe, download

-I want financing to buy a hybrid car.

Adapted From: A Taxonomy of Web Search by Andrei Broder


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• Who is ranking for your main keyword

terms?

• Who has PPC ads?

• How well optimized are competitors

sites?

• Are they active on social media and

review sites?

• What is their link profile?


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Hitwise

ComScore Marketer

Trellian’s Competitive Intelligence

Keyword Difficulty Tool

SpyFu

SearchMetrics

KeyCompete

Compete

SEMRush

KeywordSpy

AdGooRoo

Keyword Analyzer


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Provides:

• Top Keywords

• Rankings

• PPC Terms

• PPC Bids

• Traffic Trends


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Relative

yardstick

of

difficulty


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Use PPC to test candidate KWs

- Do keywords bring the amount of

traffic you want?

- Does the traffic convert?

PPC gives quick quantitative feedback on

the KW performance while controlling

costs

If works well in PPC, expand kw use in

SEO, social and content marketing


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Content Optimization

Putting the Pieces Together


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• Web sites

• Paid search

• Articles

• White Papers

• FAQ pages

• Product Feeds

• News

• Blog Posts

• Press Releases

• Images

• Videos

• Podcasts

• Schema

• Social Media

• Content Marketing


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• You have to write to engage human reader

• You have to write so search engines understand

relevancy of content

• It is this talent for doing both that separates high

quality SEO content from spam


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Has to be NATURAL

Elegantly work keywords into visible

content on web pages

- Don’t stuff keywords

- Do the “Read Aloud” test to

gauge natural tone

SEO helps good content get found


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Think keyword phrase NOT

single keyword

Create a matrix chart to assign

different main phrases to

different pages

Use synonyms and related words

on page to reinforce main topic


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Title Tags

Meta Description

Meta Keywords

H Tags

Visible text on the page

Alt Attribute

Links and anchor text

File names

URL

Schema code

Bold, strong, emphasized tags

Breadcrumb Navigation


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<title>Interesting Relevant Keyword Rich Blurb</title>

Most important “on-page” tag

Title contents appears in first line of listing on SERP so spend extra

time to create compelling titles that grab attention

Include keyword phrase early in title

Should be unique…don’t use same title on multiple pages

Title should be accurate and reflect content of page


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<meta name="Description" content=“Compelling marketing message

that reads well and contains targeted keywords">

Should provide a summary of the page and should be unique to the

page

Frequently used as snippet on results page

Should contain keywords relevant to the page. Include synonyms and

related words – don’t just repeat core terms


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Explicit method

- Schema

- Tables

Implicit method

- On-page Text

Adds confidence in data for Google

Schema is helpful as a template to

build out quality content


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Talk about benefits, not features

-Tell them why they should care

Appeal to emotions and senses

- most buying decisions are

emotionally based

Solve problems and answer questions in

your content

Don’t forget to include a “Call to Action”


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• Start with relevant interesting content

• Include social media sharing and keywords in

editorial calendar planning

• Place sharing social share icons in susceptible

moments – Make it easy to share

• The Title can make or break your content so take

extra time to create a compelling headline

• Use a subheading to further entice reader


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Include visually stimulating graphics

- Good graphic draws reader in

- Faces & bright colors attract

the eyes

“Chunk up” the content layout to be

more scan friendly

- Use headers, subheadings &

bullet lists to add hierarchy

- White space is your friend

- Keep paragraphs short

Avoid “noise” and distracting items on

page


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• Mix in synonyms, long tail terms and

variations

• Replace duplicate content with original

writing and use canonicals

• Clean up the site - Remove low quality

pages, write longer deeper content

• Link to related useful content

• Be professional - run link checkers, spell

checkers and avoid foul words


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1. Keyword research Isn’t dead – helps id user intent

2. Exact match keyword targeting is dead

3. Use keyword phrases and related terms on the page and in

schema code

4. Use tools to increase productivity & provide insights

5. Test keywords for true worth. View popularity as traffic

potential and consider seasonality and trends

6. Use keywords in all digital assets

7. Write to enhance the user experience - Compose quality

content that satisfies user intent and answers questions

8. Make content easy to read & share


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Christine Churchill

KeyRelevance.com

[email protected]

972-429-1222