For
those who have not heard of, Wordtracker
it is a Web based service that will help you discover which keywords and phrases
will
be most effective for attracting the right audience to your
Web site.
I have recently updated this article since some of our students
had mentioned recent changes with Wordtracker no longer
displaying the clickable link called "Comprehensive
Search." This is in reference to the behavioral research
and keyword forensics tutorial mentioned in my recent e-book, Wordtracker
Magic 2.0.
Now you can downlod
the e-book for free if you watch this short video on Keyword
Creativity
(you'll be told at the end of the video where you can get it
free.)
QUESTION:
John, I noticed that Wordtracker seems
to have removed the clickable links from the top of their page
in Keyword Researcher. These links were to choose between the
settings of doing a "Single Search" or "Exact
Search" or "Comprehensive Search" or a
"Misspelling Search." These links have disappeared so
I was wondering if it is still possible to do a comprehensive
search?
ANSWER:
Yes,
it is still very easy to do a comprehensive search for
behavioral forensics as described in Wordtracker Magic. The
options are all there, but now you must click on the Advanced
Setting Link and set the options as follows:
Choose:
With wildcards
Upper and lowercase separate
Include plurals
Filter should be set to: Remove dubious
Number of results: set to 1000 (instead of 100)
Then click the link at the top that says Hide Advanced Settings.
This
reproduces the original "comprehensive" right and left
hand word stemming.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
What
is one of the more common mistakes made by new
SEO
students who are just learning how to research keywords?
ANSWER:
One
common error that some people make (both new and
experienced) when researching keywords, is they tend to have a
lot of
preconceived
keyword phrases in their minds. While this may not seem
like
a bad idea, the fact is that people sometimes spend hours, days,
and
even weeks researching hundreds of keywords only to be disappointed
in
the end when many of the keywords they've chosen, turn out to
not
have any real pulling power to attract the right traffic. There
are
many keywords which are just too competitive or worse, some
words are
not even being searched for. For success you want a keyword
phrase that
is at least being used by your target audience and ideally,
it'll be
a phrase with low competition.
Wordtracker
has tremendous ability to deliver up extraordinary
niche keyword phrases which are in high use by a given target
audience and
sometimes even with zero competition. I'll be sharing much more
about
exactly
how you can tap into these ideal phrases and how you can do
it
nearly instantly without spending hours or weeks of research.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
What
do you mean by the term researching the target audience's "behavior?"
Is that not what Web analytics
software
like
Webtrends does?
ANSWER:
No,
Web analysis software generally tells you about the behavior of visitors within your Web site after they have found you. I am
talking
about
the importance of researching your ideal target audiences
behavior
long
before they ever find your Web site. Wordtracker has tremendous potential to reveal clues as to what your target audience
*really* wants
or
what they might be looking for.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
I
have searched Wordtracker's report of "most searched for
phrases"
but
I can only find one appropriate keyword phrase? I want more. How
do I get more
good phrases?
ANSWER:
Here
are just a few quick tips:
1.
Take the one phrase or keyword you found and enter it into
"Comprehensive
Research" and click Proceed. That should bring out a
variety of phrases that are related
to the same subject. (I'll be sharing much more on this in the
future)
2.
Apply a little more lateral thinking about who your target
audience is
and research a little more about how they may be searching.
Thinking "outside
the
box" mixed with Wordtracker's comprehensive search can be
powerful.
3.
If you can't find enough gold in the top 1000 "most
searched for" phrases
you
are not thinking laterally enough. It is there, we just need
practice
learning
how to tap into it. But for the sake of argument, if you could
not find ANY keywords within the top 1000, did you know that you can
actually
purchase a killer list of the top 20,000 keywords or the top
100,000 keywords.
-----------------------------
QUESTION:
I
have done well with my keyword research and Wordtracker has
helped me to
build
some great high performance strategies. However, I want to add
more
great
ideas for content (and sell even more product), but I feel like
I
have
really hit a dead end? I think I've already chosen the best
keywords.
ANSWER:
If
at any time you feel that you've hit a dead end, then it's time
to stop thinking about your product or service and start using
Wordtracker's powerful database to help reveal a new strategy which you could employ.
Your focus must be on your target audience's "behavior." Stop thinking
in terms of how bad you want to sell the product and start examining how people might be
searching for the product. Often you will discover that there can be
"multiple target audiences"
perfect for your product. You just have not realized it before.
I'll guarantee there are many, many, more powerful niche phrases in
Wordtracker's database of over 380,000,000 million queries within the last 60 days. To
many Webmasters, those powerful killer phrases remain hidden and elusive.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
Wordtracker has a feature to help me
identify the most common spelling errors. How many misspelled words should I include in my keyword
Meta
tag?
ANSWER:
The
best thing here, is not to go wild with misspelled words. The keyword Meta Tag has always been a great place to include 2 or 3
misspelled
words. As you may know, the keyword Meta tag is not even
that
influential anymore, but a couple of researched misspells will
not
hurt things.
TIP:
A much more powerful use for an important keyword that you
identify
as
commonly misspelled, is to try using it in your Google Adwords campaign, if you are running one.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
I
would like to know how Wordtracker is for accuracy and how it
compares to Keyword Discovery?
ANSWER:
Wordtracker uses results which are
extracted from the Meta search
engines
so they are actually very pure. In other words, these are
numbers
which are not skewed by the use of automated querying software.
You may want to read my comparison article where I comment on
both
Wordtracker
and Keyword Discoveries strengths head to head.
------------------------------
QUESTION:
Which
of the major search engines are best to focus on when doing
research.
I am assuming it is best to spend time studying Google.
ANSWER:
I guess it depends on which type of
research you are doing. Certainly one
of
the best search engines to explore for keyword research is MSN.
This is
not
only because a lot of folks are shopping on MSN but because MSN
can still be
influenced
fairly quickly. (Secondary results are coming from Inktomi and
for
longer 3 or 4 word phrases and you can get real quick exposure
by optimizing for results researched in MSN if you use paid
inclusion.
On
the other hand, if you are researching human behavior more than
just keywords, I would stay focused on Google simply because you can
discover great opportunities in Wordtracker
for "behaviorally related"
phrases. Let's face it, most
folks
(including your target audience) are searching on Google right now so
it's
still
one of the "most revealing" places to help you
understand what people
are
doing online.
---------------------------------------
John Alexander is the Director of
Training of Search Engine Workshops with his list of globally
located SEO instructors who for the Search
Engine Academy. Together,
they
teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive
"hands on" search
engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe.
John also teaches online
search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com.
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