Did you miss today's free 30 minute
Webinar?
You can still join me for 4 more days 1PM EST June 2- 5, 2009.
Cost: 100% Free
All you need to do is register
here and join me on-screen at 1PM EST every day this week
until June 5th.
Here is a short summary of the
demonstration I performed in Today's Free SEO Webinar for
beginners:
Are you looking for fresh
optimization strategies for your Web site?
Perhaps you ask yourself about what keywords you have not
considered before, that might be ideal for attracting new or different
audiences. Are you meditating on new keywords? The smartest
strategies begin with researching your industry marketplace to
see what the demand is. Are you doing new keyword research on
a regular basis to find new opportunities? If you are, then good for you....but the challenge
is this. So are your
competitors.
In fact anyone with any experience in search
engine marketing at all, is trying to research the best keywords
to bring them new streams of business.
So then does that leave any windows of opportunity for you to
attract traffic or do you think it makes the job a little more
difficult?
What if you become more logical and try hunting for
keywords that will "logically relate" to your
topic?
Will this give you an advantage over your competition? By
brainstorming about what keywords to use, you could possibly
discover a few new niche areas, but the one problem with
brainstorming is this. Most of us tend to use our
brain based on a very limited "real world"
experience. Just because you have been in business for 20
years, does not mean that you are knowing how people explore
and search the Internet. In fact, most people never learn to
explore data because they are so busy trying guess at keywords
based on what their knowledge is, rather than exploring what
the real world is doing.
HINT: The more you hunt for keywords, based on what your
brain wants to guess at....the more you will tend to come up
with exactly the same lame keywords that the rest of the world
is thinking of too.
Stop and think about it seriously.
Let's dwell on this for a bit because the truth is this. The
more you "think like everyone else thinks" (usually
drawing keywords that are already lodged into our brain based
on our experiences)....the more you will be thinking like the
rest of your competition. What this usually means is huge
numbers of competing pages all trying to rank for deadly dull,
obvious phrases. You can build your pages to compete with
highly competitive phrases and you can win. That's not the
point. The point is more about learning how to "think
differently" in order to allow yourself to see things
that 99% of the competition never will see.
Consider how people today are searching the net on MSN,
Google, Yahoo and the rest of the engines.
Most people are searching fairly intelligently and they know
what they are looking for. Our trouble is that unless you
learn to open up the data and research it, YOU don't have any
idea of what they are searching for.
Don't think for a minute that people who are thinking about
buying a home are searching with the term "MLS
Listings." They are mostly not using this type of Real
Estate jargon. That term would be fine for attracting
other Real Estate agents but what are home buyers doing? What
conditions exist in their life that cause them to behave the
way that they do?
They might be doing "Cost of Living
comparisons" by specific city. They might be researching
community crime rates or the local Churches or other community
statistics. They might be looking for community maps or other
directions. People are using search engines these day for more
intelligent searches and using much more interesting and
detailed searches than just a search for "real estate"
as a keyword phrase.
I could share a variety of strategies for optimizing a Real
Estate Web site or a Travel Web site or an Insurance Web site
or a Legal Web site or any specific industry really, but here
is what I want you to think about. I only want you to think
about one thing. This one question should open up floodgates
of ideas for you, especially if you are a past student of our
Workshops or our Online courses, or our local Search Engine
Academies.
TIP: This sounds
absolutely crazy to say, but STOP
thinking about "logical research" and begin
exploring data "illogically." Give yourself the liberty to stop
"hunting for keywords" and go
exploring the wealth of data in an illogical manner. Although
you need to understand which keyword phrases to target, try to
stop guessing at it and instead, learn how to quickly explore
the data with alternative points of view.
10 More keyword research tips to find "new windows of
opportunity" without "hunting for
keywords."
- Use Wordtracker
for exploring the conditions that exist in peoples lives
that cause them to use the Internet in the way that they
do. Ready for a paradigm shift?. Grab
the e-book Keyword Forensics
- Have you
ever thought about attracting in a new audience based on their
interests and needs FIRST instead of being always
focused on your objectives. Every Web page should have an
objective to be fulfilled but sometimes you can get
tremendous conversion if you put your objective to the
back. It does not have to come first. Stop and go back and consider
meeting the visitor's needs FIRST then offer them something that
compliments their circumstance or provides a solution to
their circumstance.
- How about
optimizing a page for a specific Web based tool? Not just
mortgage calculators, but literally any kind of tool, that
will help them with a decision, a solution or something
useful. If they are searching for a specific
"tool" why should they not be using yours?
- Think
about the conditions that exist in peoples lives that
cause them to "search" the way they do.
What about all of the people who have financial
challenges?
What about the people who live alone in this
world who are dying from loneliness?
Or how about the
folks who are suffering from a specific medical condition?
What about the people who are in the midst of mortgage
foreclosure?
Do you have solutions for certain situations?
Think about the conditions that you could help people
solve. Be found for them and create magnificent content
that reads well and meets their needs and don't forget
your call to action.
- Consider
researching "dialogue patterns." Did you
know that we often communicate differently when we speak
to each other, than when we are writing an article or
creating content. Some of the simplest, plain, every day
(even boring little phrases) and words we use when we
dialogue with each other, can open up amazing new
possibilities for traffic. Pay attention when your
customers are talking to you and consider exactly, the
words they use to speak to you. Try using some of those
words as single "root" words to explore search
behavior.
***It'll take you time to catch on to this tip because our
brains our automatically attracted to the words we
"think" sound important and we cannot see how
some little acronym or boring sounding expression could
ever help reveal anything. Don't miss the boat.
- Have you
ever thought about exploring hot subject matter? Think
more about the "topics" your customers are
interested in discussing or learning about in general.
People are interested in all types of causes and concerns
from religion and politics to statistical data and news.
People like to analyze things and discuss things that
relate to their industry. Don't limit yourself to thinking
that you can only optimize your Web pages to 3 or 4
keyword phrases because you "think" they are all
that exist.
- Remember
to exploring and research opportunities by researching
specific colors. Color is a big deal in some
industries.
- Consider
exploring topics related to specific seasons, which
may be appropriate for your Web audience.
- Try
researching common acronyms related to your industry
to open up more "unexplored data."
Make sure you are not mixing up acronyms between
industries though. Did you know there are over 100
different related meanings to the common acronym we refer
to as SEO? And many of these do not relate to the search
engine industry. Try using Acronym
Attic to check on the meanings for SEO.
- If you
have not heard this World
Talk Radio Interview on Keyword Forensics, you may
listen to the archive to hear me speaking
about researching behaviors for real estate and other
competitive industries.
In
Summary:
Remember that your researching behaviors and finding those
niche trends greatly eliminates stress on the new SEO and
allows you to compete for easy phrases that draw genuine
traffic, but without the enormous competition from the crowds
who are all targeting exactly the same phrase because they are
guessing at the words rather than exploring the evidence that
is readily available.
There are big differences in
little phrase clusters that are well worth exploring.
Give yourself the liberty to stop " hunting for keywords" and go
exploring the wealth of data in an illogical manner. Although
you need to understand which keyword phrases to target, we
need to stop guessing at keywords and instead, learn how to
quickly explore the search data with alternative points of
view that reveals those niche opportunities quickly.
About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search
Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with partner
Robin Nobles as well as online search engine marketing courses
through Online Web Training. John is author of an
e-book called Wordtracker
Magic and has
taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries.
John's articles can be read in publications like REALTOR
Magazine, Search
Engine Guide,WEBpro
News, SitePro News
and many others.
