Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [72]
Break Down the Large Numbers
Don’t get completely distracted by the large numbers. Realize that those large numbers consist of general searches and many more needs than are singularly expressed. By digging into the most popular terms and finding the terms that are refined and associated, you can expand your keyword targets exponentially, which will make your site much more visible online.
The most popular associated term in our Corvette example was parts, but knowing that the long tail will provide many more associated terms and needs, the best practice is to further investigate the phrase corvette parts. Doing this, we find much more data that makes up the phrase, which also opens up an understanding into the searcher’s intent and needs.
The next step is to build a similar spreadsheet matrix for the anchor term Corvette parts (see Figure 6-18).
Figure 6-18: Digging deeper into keyword phrases
Starting with the most popular term from the prior spreadsheet, Corvette parts, the further breakdown of associated terms begins to show another behavior exhibited by Corvette searchers. For one, the year of the Corvette owned by the searcher becomes a major prefix component of the search term. Second, the word accessories is the primary associated word (a suffix).
In delving into alternative phrasings, the research focused on parts as an anchor term, which provided consistent associations with the term accessories. The next step was to see whether the associations change when using the anchor term Corvette accessories instead of Corvette parts and accessories (see Figure 6-19).
The exploration of the accessories term shows and reinforces the parts and accessories phrase that appears throughout the search terms. Parts is used independently of accessories in many searches, but accessories is rarely used independently of its association with parts. Terms that bridge the anchor term should also be noted. For example, in Figure 6-18, the term free parts catalogue corvette contains both prefix terms and suffix terms, so they are listed on the same line along with the search count. This helps you see which terms contain both prefix and suffix associated terms. In the case of free parts catalogue corvette, it is also the only occurrence of the word free, and it is associated with the search for a catalog. This is very important in the content development strategy and optimization. The company using this keyword research will recognize the need to advertise the free catalog because it is in demand, and the company will attract future customers to the website as a result.
Figure 6-19: Exploring term associations
In the case of the phrase free part catalogue corvette, there is usually a red flag on that term for two reasons. The first reason is the spelling of the word catalogue, which implies a British searcher. Understanding variations of English words used throughout the world is vital to your strategy as well, especially if you are doing international business. Further research is recommended in cases like this to be sure you are able to reach additional audiences by including the variations of words that are native to specific regions.
However, the use of this word coupled with a four-word phrase just seems a little out of place. This is one of those words that I would double-check in another keyword-research tool to see whether it is consistent or simply a quirk in the data. Sometimes, automated search engine rankings tools will cause a quirk like this. Because some webmasters or companies are stuck on knowing their rankings for terms all of the time, they continually run searches on a very specific term. All of those queries can sometimes get picked up by a keyword tool and be reflected as a high-demand search term when, in reality, it is a company or group of companies creating an artificial popularity