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August 05, 2009
10 keyword research tips to find "new windows of opportunity" without "hunting for keywords."
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
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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 other popular publications.
Posted by John at August 5, 2009 12:15 PM