keyword research & seo copywriting by christine churchill

KEYWORD

RESEARCH &

SEO

COPYWRITING

#

Christine Churchill

Key Relevance

@ChrisChurchill

#SMX #11A

October 1, 2013

#

• President of KeyRelevance, LLC

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

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

• Author at Search Engine Land & Web Marketing Today

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

• Over 15 years online marketing experience

Speaker: Christine Churchill

Copyright 2013 KeyRelevance LLC

• Keyword Research – What is

it? Why do it?

• The “Not Provided” Issue

• How to do KW Research

• Keyword Tools

• How to use Keywords to

Optimize Content

• SEO 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


• 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?


Who Benefits from Keyword Research?

• Everyone in publishing

• Marketing staff and Search Marketers – both paid and organic

• PR – use keywords in press releases for wider readership

• Content writers

– 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 experience

Knowing the best words to target helps you plan

your content marketing strategy


The RIGHT Content is King

Copyright 2013 KeyRelevance LLC 7

8

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”


9

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


Example Head-Tail Keywords


Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Camera, digital camera, Sony

Nikon D7000 digital SLR camera

compare digital cameras

buy digital slr camera

The “Not Provided” Problem


Once Upon a Time…

….When visitors landed on your

site from search results

pages, Google would report all

the referring keywords in

Analytics

Site owners used the keyword

data to improve the user

experience on their site and to

provide visitors with pages for

which they were searching


Then Things Went Dark


Then Things Went Dark

On 18 Oct 2011, Google stopped providing

keyword data for logged in organic

visitors

Then on 23 Sept 2013, Google stopped

providing keyword data for ALL organic

visitors


The Not Provided Issue

• Biggest change in

SEO and Keyword

Research to date

• Means site owners

and marketers have

lost the connection

between the search

keywords and their

performance on

Google


Traditional Sources of Keyword Data

• Site analytics for converting keywords 85%

• Site analytics for frequent words 54%

• Internal site search 46%

• Competitors’ sites 36%

• Competitive intelligence tools 34%

• Exploring long search phrases 31%

• Social semantic mining 15%

• Keyword suggestion tools 15%


Source: MarketingSherpa Survey 2009

So What Works Now?


Option 1 – Use Bing Data

Look at Bing Keywords in

Analytics

– Bing market share 17.9% in

August 2013 compared to

Google’s 66.9% (comScore)

– Bing provides all keyword

information

– “Your data, always fully

provided”


Option 2 – Use PPC

• PPC keyword data

still provided, so use

performance data

from there

• Assume keywords

that work well in

PPC are good

words to target

organically


Option 3 - Use GWT KW Data

Advantages:

– Shows KW, impressions, and click data

– Impressions w/out clicks might indicate a Title/Meta

Description/Snippet issue

Disadvantages:

– Cannot break out data by other segments (KW leading

to conversions, for example) so data is not highly

actionable

– Mapping KW to landing page is tedious 1-at-a-time

process – not useful for large scale KW analysis

– Requires you to download reports regularly since GWT

data expires in 90 days


GWT Top Queries Data


GWT provides up to

90 days of query

data and up to 2000

termsSort 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

GWT Top Pages


Sort by clicks

to find which

pages

brought the

most traffic.

Can click on

Page URL to see

which terms the

page ranked for

Super Important Tip

• The GWT query data defaults to web data

• To use the corresponding SEO query data in

Google Analytics, you MUST FILTER for

Google Property Web!

– Otherwise you get image, mobile, video and web

search all mixed together


Option 4 – Analytics Landing Pages

• Review which landing pages are getting

traffic in analytics

• See where the page is ranking in the SERPS

• You can usually tell the keyword theme of the

page – you may not know specific keyword

phrases, but can get close by looking at the

optimization

• Labor intensive, doesn’t scale



Option 5 – 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

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.


Site Search


View Search Queries in Analytics

Option 6 – Use Keyword & Competitive

Intelligence Tools

• Many tools get their data from a variety of

sources – user panels, scraping, etc.

• Competitive Intelligence tools allow you to

enter a domain and the tool will tell you the

keywords bringing the domain traffic.



How to Do

Keyword

Research


Keyword Research is an Iterative Process

Brainstorming

&

Discovery

Keyword

Expansion

Keyword

Evaluation


Keyword Brainstorming and Discovery Phase


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


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.


Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources

• Online and Traditional Print

Magazines

• Company and Product Reviews

• Online Thesaurus

• Search in Google with tilde ~ for

synonyms


Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources (cont)

Competitors

– Review their web site

and collateral for keywords

– Look at words they

are buying in PPC

– What terms are they

– targeting in SEO

– Can give you

competitive insights and

ideas on overlooked terms

Keyword

Research

Tools


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

37Copyright 2013 KeyRelevance LLC

38

Keyword Research Tools

Free

• Google Keyword Planner Tool

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Google Trends

• Google Display Planner

• Bing Keyword Tool

• Bing Ads Intelligence Excel Plug-In

Fee Based

• WordTracker

• Trellian Keyword Discovery

• Hitwise

• WordStream

• SEMRush

• ComScore

• SpyFu


Google Keyword Tool


Google Contextual Targeting Tool


-Free tool

- Builds themed

keyword lists

- Great for

keyword

expansion and

lateral thinking

- Provides ideas

for organizing

and structuring

your keyword

lists

Google Traffic Estimator


YouTube Keyword Tool - Before


YouTube’s Keyword Tool Today


New Google Keyword Planner


- Combines old Google Keyword Tool and

Traffic Estimator Tool

- Oriented for Paid Search

- Must be Logged Into AdWords to Use

- Only shows Exact Match results for search

volumes

- No device filtering (no mobile vs desktop

filtering)

- Numbers shown are average search

volume numbers for ALL devices (old tool

defaulted to desktop) so numbers may look

higher than old tool’s exact match

Google Trends


Google Trends provides trends

from web searches, images, news,

shopping and YouTube

Google Hot Trends


Google Webmaster Tools shows top 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

Google Display Planner(replaced Contextual Targeting Tool, Placement Tool, and the Google Ad Planner)


Bing Keyword Tool


- Shows actual

queries numbers (not

rounded)

-Has 6 months of

data

-Drill down by

Country

Bing’s Ad Intelligence


• Plug-in with Excel

• Data source Live.com

and adCenter

• Provides related

keywords

• Extracts keywords from

a URL

• Gives insights on

seasonal “spiky”

keywords

• Shows geographic and

demographic info on

keywords


Keyword Discovery Suite of Tools Includes Keyword Density Tool

WordTracker.com

• Data pulled from meta

search engines

• Eliminates most

skewing issues caused by

robots

• Differentiates between

singular & plural

• Offer Free Tool for trial


Wordstream

http://www.wordstream.com/keywords


/

Google Instant


Shows

suggestions

as you type

Google Instant – Shopping Search


Different set of

keywords on

Shopping search

from regular web

search

Soovle.comGives suggestions from different perspectives


Provides

suggestions

from

Google

Wikipedia

Answers

YouTube

Bing

Yahoo

Amazon

Plus option

for15 other

sites

Ubersuggesthttp://ubersuggest.org/


Twitter SearchProvides real time search results and trending topics


YouTube Keyword Suggestions


Keyword

Expansion Phase


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!


Keyword Permutations

• 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

SEOBook Permutation Toolhttp://tools.seobook.com/keyword-list/generator.php

Comma-

separated

listsSave the

ones you

like here

Combinations

appear

here


64

Using Excel to Expand KW List


• Group related keywords into

lists of related terms

• Do a series of keyword

research projects on a site,

not one

• Develop a keyword matrix

Keyword “Buckets”


66

Evaluating Keywords


67

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.


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

Popularity Considerations

• Popularity gives insight on traffic potential

• Being popular Is overrated

• Popular phrases – Less relevant

– More competitive

– Examples: “cars” or “homes”

• Less Popular– More Focused

– Satisfies Need of Searcher

– Higher Conversion

– Less Traffic


Popularity Considerations (cont)

• Consider seasonality and cyclical popularity of phrases

• Identify trend lines• Many phrases lost or

increased popularity in recession


Seasonal trends of term “air conditioner”


Consider User IntentGetting 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


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

RecognitionInformation

SearchEvaluation

of

Alternatives

Purchase

Decision

Adapted From: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler

Select

Alternatives

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


Evaluating KW By CompetitionWho Are Your Competitors?

• Who is ranking for your keyword terms?

• Who has PPC ads?



Evaluating KW By Competition

To compete, you need Search Term Parity

You need to see how active the competitors are

within the same marketing environment

- What keywords are they targeting?

- How optimized are their sites?

- Are they doing PPC? How much are the

bids?

- What’s their linkage situation?


Competitive Intelligence Tools

• Hitwise

• ComScore Marketer

• Trellian’s Competitive Intelligence

• Keyword Difficulty Tool

• SpyFu

• SearchMetrics

• KeyCompete

• Compete

• SemRush

• KeywordSpy

• AdGooRoo

• Keyword Analyzer

Hitwise Search Terms Gap Analysis



comScore’s Marketer Tool

• Data source from more than 2 Million

user tool bars

• Tells terms for categories

• Provides demographic profiles for

terms

• Shows which sites visitors visit before

coming to your site and after

• Can look at competitors terms

• Tells top sites for search terms

SearchMetrics



Trellian’s Competitive Intelligence

Competitive Intelligence


Tells who is advertising on keyword

phrases and how well they are

doing.


SEMRush

82

Provides:

• Top Keywords

• Rankings

• PPC Terms

• PPC Bids

• Traffic Trends

SpyFu


SEOMOZ Keyword Difficulty


Relative

yardstick

of

difficulty


Performance Considerations

• Use PPC to test candidate KWs

• Gives quick

quantitative

feedback on the KW

performance while

controlling costs

Test Keyword Performance Early


Get Feedback Down to the Keyword Level

Note: If using PPC to test, make sure performance

problem isn’t bad ad or poorly converting landing page..

Content Optimization

Putting the Pieces Together



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

• Email

• Social Media

• Content Marketing

Optimize all

digital assets

Good SEO Copywriting Is a Balancing Act

• 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


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

Image: winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


91

On-Page SEO Guidelines (cont)

Think keyword phrase NOT

single keyword

Create a matrix chart to

assign different keywords

to different pages

- Divide and conquer

Use synonyms and related

words on page to

reinforce main phrase


Keyword Calendar


• Develop “keyword calendar” to identify popular phrases over the year

• Concept similar to editorial calendar

• Identify scheduled events, seasonal, & trends

• Develop lists of related popular queries

Why Use a Keyword Calendar?


• Proactive planning

• Pre-publish content

• Allows you to react faster

• Think strategically

• Coordination across media outlets

– Blog, PPC, articles, SEO, graphics, videos, etc

all working together

• Complements Editorial Calendar

How to create Keyword Calendar

• Excel is your friend

– Different months or

seasons

– Identify seasonal,

event, or trend phrases

– Develop separate

keyword lists for best

terms


More Reasons to Use

Keyword Calendar

• Significant traffic potential on seasonal and

event-related phrases

• Think ahead

– People search before the event or season

• Having content waiting in the wings makes

you more responsive

– Identifying popular relevant terms ahead of time

provides time to develop high quality content in

advance

• Consider making seasonal content evergreen



• On-Page Keyword Usage

• A Quick Primer

Where to use keywords

Title Tags

Meta Description

Meta Keywords

H Tags

Visible portion of page

Alt Attribute

Links and anchor text

File names

URL

Schema code


Title Tags

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

• Most important “on-page” tag

• Title contents appears in first line of listing on SERP

• Spend extra time to create compelling titles that grab

attention

• Include keywords early in title

• Keep titles short – under 120 characters, less is better

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

pages

• Title should be accurate and reflect content of page


Example SERP(Search Engine Results Page)


Example Code

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>ACHILLES TENDON INJURIES</TITLE>

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="ankle pain, Achilles' tear,

tendon rupture, Achilles' tendonitis, surgery, tendon repair ">

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Description of Achilles'

tendon anatomy and injury including tendonitis and rupture.

Treament options including surgery discussed. ">

</HEAD>


Meta Description Tag

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

message that reads well and contains targeted

keywords">

• Should provide a summary of the page

• Frequently used as snippet on results page

• Should contain keywords relevant to the page

• Should be unique to the page

• Don’t exceed 180 characters (less is better)


Images as Content

• Optimize images by using

descriptive keywords in

filename, alt text, caption,

and in words around the

graphic

• Alt text is used for

accessibility (page

readers).

• Don’t embed text in a

graphic


Other On-Page SEO Keyword Uses

Place keywords in:

• Meta keyword tag

• Heading tags (H1, H2, …)

• Bold, strong, emphasized tags

• Text in body

• Anchor text of links

• URL Filename

• Breadcrumb navigation

Remember: it’s a balancing act, don’t stuff


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


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

• Include keywords in title, metas,

headings, visible text, images, etc

• Create links to that page where the

anchor text includes a targeted

phrase

• Balance: resist temptation to stuff


Image: winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Golden Rules for Writing Copy

Talk about benefits, not

features

- You have to tell them

why they should care

Appeal to emotions and

senses….most buying

decisions are emotionally

based


Make Content Easy to Read

• “Chunk up” the content

– Use headers, subheadings & bullet lists to add

hierarchy

– White space is your friend

– Keep paragraphs short

• Avoid “noise” and distracting items on page

• Include visually attractive graphics

– Faces & bright colors attract the eyes

• Hook the reader in title and initial paragraphs

• Make it easy to share!


Points to Take Home

1. Keyword Research is first step in online marketing &

content development

2. Keyword Research needs management support

– Requires time, budget, tools & resources

3. Use tools to increase productivity & provide insights

4. Don’t use keyword popularity as sole evaluation criteria– Look at popularity as traffic potential and consider seasonality

– Review keyword competition

5. Use keywords in all digital assets

6. Remember the user experience when publishing

content on the web

7. Users love and reward good content

8. Make content easy to shareCopyright 2013 KeyRelevance LLC


Thank You!

Christine Churchill

www.keyrelevance.com

[email protected]

@KeyRelevance

@ChrisChurchill

http://twitter.com/appstotweet

http://www.slideshare.net/SearchMarketingExpo

#

see more presentations at:

#

Copyright 2013 KeyRelevance LLC110

keyword research & seo copywriting by christine churchill

Business

winnond freedigitalphotos

competitive

keyword research

user experience

web search

balancing

traffic potential

web site