Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [61]
This brings us to the purpose of calling things what they are: people search based on their need. Brand names are rarely the top search phrase; the general term describing what people need is the top searched phrase. It is a significantly common phenomenon. People type into the search box what they need and then refine their search from that initial query.
Searchers Rely on Simple Phrases
Another typical searcher behavior is the generalization and simplification of the search term. This is not necessarily the simplification of the term itself but the simplification of the concept. The searcher, even using multiple terms, is looking for a solution-based or needs-based answer. Content that is brand-based or overly descriptive may not include the same language the searcher uses, and the site will not be found. What may seem a logical marketing description could decrease your website’s visibility.
Color
When looking for any products based on color, marketers and retailers tend to rely on flowery, beautiful product descriptions that will create an image in the searcher’s mind. However, if your description does not match the early, simple search of the searcher, you may be removing your content from the search.
For example, in a search between red sofa and wine sofa (see Figure 6-2), there are more than twice as many results for wine sofa. By the way, the number of search results tends to change frequently, so it is only a guide, not a true measurement.
However, when looking at the keyword search data, the Google Keyword Tool shows that red sofa is the preferred search term of searchers by more than 3,500 percent (see Figure 6-3).
A similar difference is shown when comparing green sofa and olive sofa, because they have about the same number of results in Google, but green is searched for as a primary term five times more often than olive each month.
This is a distinct issue in retail optimization; advertisers and marketers tend to employ vivid language designed to provoke an emotional response. However, in doing so, the product becomes irrelevant to the search query.
In this specific case, thousands of retailers are competing for a phrase that doesn’t have enough search volume to appear in keyword-research tools. They are missing the market by not being aware of the primary phrase being used by the searcher.
Figure 6-2: SERPs for red sofa (2,440,000 results) vs. wine sofa (5,190,000 results)
Figure 6-3: Google Keyword Tool data for couch colors
Function
Another form of keyword misdirection is the corporate jargon or established descriptions within a company or an industry. Typically found in business-to-business marketing, these keywords are always at the mercy of established methodologies or internal reliance.
In the landscaping industry, for example, a few companies sell stump cutters. Despite customers and salespeople calling the equipment stump grinders, the literature, websites, and descriptions all employ the stump cutter phrase. A quick check in Google Keyword Tool and Keyword Discovery showed that stump grinder is the only phrase used by the searcher. Stump cutter doesn’t even show up in the list.
A survey of internal conversations, literature, and client-customer communication can help a company self-diagnose the disease of misdirected nomenclature. Avoid employing the internal jargon used within a company’s corporate culture or business-to-business exchanges. Internal conversations reinforce the use of adopted or adapted words or, even worse, acronyms. Take an honest look, listen to the names and words being used, and match them to the needs expressed by your customers and searchers.
“Enterprise Solutions”
One of the most over-used phrases in the online business culture is “enterprise solutions.” In my opinion, it is one of the most over-stated, under-descriptive phrases a website could utilize. With hundreds of millions of search results in each search engine, it is a phrase that does not provide a searcher with clear direction, and it necessitates