keyword research and copywriting: what you need for online success in 2015 by christine churchill

#SMX #XXa @ChrisChurchill

Christine Churchill, KeyRelevance

Keyword Research and Copywriting What you need for online success in 2015

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#SMX #XXa @ChrisChurchill #11D

•  President & CEO of KeyRelevance, LLC for 15 years •  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 & Web Marketing Today •  Longtime Speaker & Instructor at Search Marketing Expo (SMX),

Search Engine Strategies, PubCon, and other conferences •  Masters degree and over 17 years online marketing experience

Speaker: Christine Churchill


•  Keyword Research – What is it? Why do it? •  How to do KW Research in 2015 •  Knowledge Graph •  Hummingbird Algorithm •  Keyword Tools •  How to use Keywords to Optimize Content •  Online Copywriting Tips

What We’ll Cover


Keyword Research 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 Keyword Research gives content

marketing a good start


•  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

Why Do Keyword Research?

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How to Do Keyword Research


Keyword Research is an Iterative Process

Brainstorming &

Discovery

Keyword Expansion

Keyword Evaluation


Keyword Brainstorming and

Discovery Phase

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Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources •  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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Learn the Lingo of the Customer

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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Speak the Language of Customer

Increase conversion by speaking the customer’s language

Correct bad keyword choices

Missing traffic Missing 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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The Long Tail Finding New Opportunities

•  Based on frequency graph

•  Chris Anderson wrote book about it Describes it as new economic model Unlimited selection – Amazon books, iTunes Idea 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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Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources

•  Online Blogs and Magazines •  Company and Product Reviews

•  Online Thesaurus

•  Search in Google with tilde ~ for synonyms

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Review Competitors

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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Use Site Search Data

Site Search Box •  Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are

actually using / wanting •  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

Downside is data is limited and site search is usually a fall back when users can’t find what they are looking for on your site.

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Developments That Changed Keyword Research

•  Google Knowledge Graph

•  Hummingbird Algorithm

•  Not Provided Keywords

•  Other Recent Algorithm Changes

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Knowledge Graph

“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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How the Knowledge Graph Changed Search

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

Google now has a database on entities and understands relationships between different entities

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Sources of the Graph

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 Wikidata, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. Freebase retired in 2015

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What is Hummingbird Algorithm?

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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Do We Still Need to Worry About Keywords?

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 on-page optimization is still beneficial

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Tips on Surviving After Hummingbird & the Knowledge Graph

•  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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The New Approach To Keyword Research • 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)

•  Google’s move toward Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) and recent Google Patents dealing with re-ranking of results suggest that using synonyms and co-occurrence terms has benefits

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Keyword Research Tools

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Benefits of Keyword Tools

•  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 •  Google Related Searches •  Bing Keyword Tool •  Bing Intelligence Tool •  Bing Webmaster Tools •  AnswerThePublic •  Amazon Suggests •  MetaGlossary

Keyword Research Tools Fee Based •  WordTracker •  Searchmetrics •  Hitwise •  WordStream •  SEMRush •  ComScore •  SpyFu •  Long Tail Pro

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Google Keyword Planner -  Oriented for Paid Search

-  Must be Logged Into AdWords to Use

-  Provides keyword ideas & monthly search volumes

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Google Trends Google Trends provides trends from web

searches, images, news, shopping and YouTube Shows seasonality of phrases Can compare popularity of phrases

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Google Search Console (aka Webmaster Tools) shows actual search queries

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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Google Display Planner

•  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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Adwords Search Term Report Great for keyword discovery, but have to be running PPC

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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Google Related Searches

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Bing Keyword Tool

- Shows actual queries numbers (not rounded) -  Has 6 months of data -  Drill down by Country

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WordTracker.com

•  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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Wordstream http://www.wordstream.com/keywords

/

Useful for developing your vocabulary of related terms for Hummingbird

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Google Instant

Shows suggestions as you type

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Google Instant – Shopping Search Different set of keywords on Shopping search from regular web search

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Soovle.com Gives suggestions from different perspectives

Provides suggestions from Google Wikipedia Answers YouTube Bing Yahoo Amazon Plus option for15 other sites

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Ubersuggest http://ubersuggest.org/

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YouTube Keyword Auto Suggestions Shows popular video search queries

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Amazon Suggests

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MetaGlossary

Provides a definition and related terms

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AnswerThePublic.com Fun keyword tool that gives you lists of questions and phrases Excellent for giving content ideas or thoughts to flesh out an article

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Tag Clouds helps identify related terms

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A couple of things to remember…

No one tool has all the answers Don’t just extract keywords from a tool and run with them…review them for relevancy You need several tools in your toolbox Combining the tools synergistically works well. Some tools are better for certain functions. For instance, Google Instant is used for discovering new keyword phrases and Google Trends is good for comparing or identifying cycles

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Keyword Expansion Phase

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Target Variations of Your Keywords

•  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) •  Location •  Action (apply, book, find, buy) •  Season (holiday, Christmas, Halloween) •  Abbreviations •  Brand / vendor / manufacturer

Modifiers are great at helping you expand your keyword list, but remember to keep “user intent” in mind when you combine the modifier to the core term!

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Keyword Permutations

• Mix and match terms to create new keyword phrases

• Many tools that do this for you • Can use concatenate function in Excel

or specific tool

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Using Excel to Expand KW List

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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

Keyword “Buckets”

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Evaluating Keywords

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KW Selection Considerations

•  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 Considerations

Relevancy means choosing the keywords that best describes what the site 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

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Popularity Considerations Popularity gives insight on traffic

potential Being popular Is overrated Popular phrases

Less relevant More competitive

Less Popular More Focused Less Traffic

Consider seasonality and cyclical popularity of phrases

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Consider User Intent Getting inside the searcher’s head

•  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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Evaluating by the Stage in Buying Process

•  Keywords indicate where consumer is in the Buying Process

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

Problem Recognition

Information Search

Evaluation of Alternatives

Purchase Decision

Adapted From: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler

Select Alternatives

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Searcher Behavior

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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Results Pages Give Insight into What Google Thinks the Searcher Wants

Type the proposed query into a Search Engine Look at the kinds of sites and files returned

-  PDFs, white papers, in-depth articles – likely informational query -  Ecommerce sites – transactional -  Brand site – navigational

-  Are Knowledge Graph Answer boxes returned? -  Are local results or shopping ads returned? Looking at the results can help you interpret what Google thinks the

user wants Do this on both desktop and mobile

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Evaluating KW By Competition Who Are Your Competitors?

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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Competitive Intelligence Tools

•  Hitwise •  ComScore Marketer •  Trellian’s Competitive Intelligence •  Keyword Difficulty Tool •  SpyFu •  SearchMetrics •  KeyCompete •  Compete •  SemRush •  KeywordSpy •  AdGooRoo •  Keyword Analyzer

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SEMRush

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Provides: •  Top Keywords •  Rankings •  PPC Terms •  PPC Bids •  Traffic Trends


Searchmetrics Can Identify Co-Occurrence Terms, Competitors Terms, etc

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SEOMOZ Keyword Difficulty

Relative yardstick of difficulty

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SPYFu

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Test KW Performance 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 Downside: Terms that work well in PPC are often

transactional. You may have to expand your list to include informational terms

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Content Optimization

Putting the Pieces Together

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Everything Is Better with Chocolate

Image: Graeme Weatherston / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Keywords

•  Web sites •  Paid search •  Articles •  White Papers •  FAQ pages •  Product Feeds •  News •  Blog Posts •  Press Releases •  Images •  Videos •  Podcasts •  Schema •  Social Media •  Content Marketing

Optimize all digital assets


Good Online Copywriting Is a Balancing Act

• You have to write to engage the 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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On-Page SEO Guidelines 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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On-Page SEO Guidelines (cont) 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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Where to Use Keywords On Site

•  Title Tags •  Meta Description •  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 Tags

<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 Description Tag <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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Feed the Knowledge Graph 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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Golden Rules for Writing Copy

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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Develop Shareable Content 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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Good User Experience Increases Share-ability

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

Don’t forget Google tracks user behavior

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Getting Your Great Content Found Online •  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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Home Page SEO

• Usually your strongest page • Target most competitive relevant

keyword phrase • Depending on strength of your site and

the competition, target 2-3 keyword phrases

• Don’t try to cover EVERY KEYWORD related to what your company does

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Internal Page SEO

•  Divide and conquer: Assign KW phrases to different pages on site

•  Focus, focus, focus: Make that page ALL ABOUT the keywords you’re targeting

•  Use related terms and synonyms on the page to

reinforce what the page is about •  Balance: resist temptation to stuff

Image: winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Points to Take Home

1.  Keyword research Isn’t dead – helps identify user intent 2.  Exact match keyword targeting is dead 3.  Use keyword phrases, synonyms and related terms on the page, in

schema code and in all digital assets 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.  Write to enhance the user experience - Compose quality content that

satisfies user intent and answers questions 7.  Make content easy to read & share

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Thank You! Christine Churchill www.keyrelevance.com [email protected]

@KeyRelevance @ChrisChurchill

Questions?


THANK YOU!

SEE YOU @SMX WEST SAN JOSE, CA

MARCH 1-3, 2016

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keyword research and copywriting: what you need for online success in 2015 by christine churchill

Internet