In Response to Comments: Using Google Keyword Tool to Trend Lower Searched Terms

In my previous article I talked about how to use Google Trends to compare the search volume of different keywords. I had comments from a couple of people (thanks for posting guys ;) that made a very good point - Google Trends is only good for looking at highly searched keywords. If a term does not have a high enough search volume, it will not show up on the Google Trends chart.

The question was: How do you get this same type of information for lower searched terms?

My way of choice is to use the Google Adwords keyword tool which can be accessed through Adwords or externally (the external version requires you type in a code each time).

Let's look at the example from the previous post "satellite navigation". If you type this term into the tool and sort by "Exact Match" and then by "Average Search Volume" you will get something that looks like this:



Not real numbers, but you can quickly size up which terms are searched more ofen. Notice that based on the 1 term you input, it gives you lots of similiar terms that you might have not thought of (note that the screenshot cuts off most of the results).

You can also change the view to show you trending data month to month. This is nice if you want to know if certain products or services might sell better during certain times of the year:



Hope this helps answer the questions. There are plenty of tools out there that try to give you hard numbers and Iv'e mentioned some of them in previous posts (Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, etc...) but I have found that these tools tend to be just best guesses and are often pretty far off target.

Using Google Trends to Compare Keyword Search Volume

Let's say that you work for a company that sells satellite navigation products. Your first bet might be to optimize your site and buy pay per click (PPC) ads for the term "satellite navigation". Is this what the average web surfer types in when they want to buy a product such as yours though? Here is where using keyword suggestion tools and keyword search trend tools such as Google Trends comes in handy -- the results may surprise you.

First lets look at the trend data for "satellite navigation" by typing it in to Google suggest:



Looks like it has a good search volume -- meaning that lots of people are typing this word into the Google search engine everyday (the fact that data shows up on Google Trends at all indicates this). Also notice that the trend is going down though.

If we were to use some keyword suggestion tools such as the Google Adwords keyword tool or Keyword Discovery, we would find that there are related terms that people appear to be searching for more often than "satellite navigation". One of them is the term "satnav". This means exactly the same thing as "satellite navigation", it is just an abbreviation.

Let's now plot "satnav" against "satellite navigation" in Google Trends to see what the difference in serach volume is:



You can see that at some point in 2005 people began using the term "satnav" to refer to satellite navigation products and over time this term has surpassed "satellite navigation" in the amount of times it is searched.

But can we do any better? What about trying "sat nav" -- the only thing different being the space. Let's plot all 3 against each other and see what we come up with:



The difference is huge. And just think, you may have never thought to use these other terms on your own. If you were to dig a bit deeper you would find that "satnav" and "sat nav" are primarily used in the UK which is also very useful information to have.

Google Trends is great for experimenting with different keyoword combinations. Check it out for yourself at www.google.com/trends and let me know if you find anything interesting.

The State of Search Engine Marketing

A nice post with some useful stats

http://searchengineland.com/080317-055110.php

Metrics Based Copywriting

As marketers we constantly try to write compelling copy that motivates people to take some sort of action. The trick is to write in the voice of our target audience; speaking to them using language they respond to. Sometimes we use focus groups or A/B testing to help with this; getting out in the field and talking to prospects/customers also helps. In the end though, the words we choose often amount to best guesses.

There is a better way to get into the heads of our target market and it's surprisingly easy. Approach it as a search engine specialist would approach starting a new search engine optimization (SEO) campaign -- by using keyword research and trending tools.

Keyword research tools like Wordtracker, Google Trends, and the Google Keyword Tool provide a wealth of insight into the voice of our audience. Using search data and trends can give excellent clues to the words people use to describe things. Talking to your audience, using the same words they search for themselves, puts you at a major advantage over competition. For example, the other day I was crafting an email to promote a new webcast. Problem was, some people were calling it a webcast and others were calling it a webinar – which was it? What would more people respond to; a webcast offer or a webinar offer? I decided to use Google Trends to compare the search volume of both words. I figured the term that is searched more often will also be the term used more commonly in conversation. This term should also spark a higher interest if used in my email. So I quickly pulled up Google Trends and here is what I found.



This obviously made my decision easy. Split testing my email offers confirmed that using “webcast” got the better response.

Now, this is just search-driven copywriting in its simplest form. If you want to take this further, you can use the Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker almost like you would a Thesaurus. For example, maybe you are promoting a “golf strategies” guide. If you plopped this keyword into the Google Keyword Tool, it would offer you numerous suggestions for related terms people are searching for. In this example (shown below) maybe you would be better off promoting it as a “golf tips” guide since that term is searched more frequently.



Hopefully by now, you are starting to get the idea. This stuff really works – I have personally seen higher conversion rates on landing pages and emails by using this strategy. If you are interested in reading more about similar ideas, Aaron Wall has a very interesting article on keyword research that is definitely worth a read.

Walls Article

Apparent Google Slap for Buying, Not Just Selling Links

While I don't believe in buying links soley to boost rankings, there are many competitive keywords out there that are almost impossible to rank on the first page of results for without buying links - especially when your competition participates in the practice. If you get caught though, the results can be disasterous. Just check out what happened to GoCompare.com (a UK based insurance provider) when Google caught on.



Full Story

I don't agree with what GoCompare did to up their rank, but maybe that is just because I am not in the extremely competitive insurance space. The bigger question for me is why this one site was singled out and how Google made this determination. If having bought links pointing at your site can get you penalized then what is to stop a competitor from buying links to your site in order to hurt your rank -- maybe there is more to the story than I know. Check out the other coverage below and let me know what you think.

Other Coverage:

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/02/this-is-what-ha.html
http://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=369464&c=2
http://searchengineland.com/080214-084542.php

Linking Q&A

Here is a Q&A session from Search Marketing Expo. A couple of good nuggets here

Linking Q&A

Should you worry about the keywords Meta tag?

Worried about which keywords to put in your Meta tags? Google apparently doesn't pay attention to this tag at all. Read more

Notes From Search Marketing Expo 2008

Below is a link to notes taken from one of the keynote speeches at the Search Marketing Expo 2008 going on right now. There is some interesting stuff about the evolution of search and where it is heading. The part about blended search and personalized search is especially relevant to search marketers. It really is changing the whole ballgame.

Notes from Keynote

A Nice Illustration of How to Best Use Social Media Sites

Does Your Site/Blog Suck? Use StumbleUpon to Test and Find Out

If you haven't heard of StumbleUpon, you should really check it out. Here is a blurb that brifly explains what it is:

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 4,493,158 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

While StumbleUpon is a great supplement to using search engines, the real benefit comes in the ability to cheaply test sites or blogs to see whether or not they are any good. You can drive visitors with specific interests to your site for just $0.05per person. (Check out StumbleAds) When people stumble across your site they have the ability to give the site a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Within about a day or so you can look at the percentage of likes to dislikes to get an idea of what people think of your site. This is also a great way to just get some initial traffic to a new site or blog. I have used this method to bolster readership of our corporate blog. It's cheap and it works.

**One caveat is that the content of the blog or site should be useful or educational -- not just a site selling products. I have found that StumbleUpon works best with blogs or free viral content.

Google Users Older, Bigger Spenders Than Yahoo's

Hitwise performed an interesting demographic analysis last week, comparing the breakdown of Google and Yahoo search users. What it found was that Google users skew older than Yahoo search users, bucking some of the conventional wisdom in the market about the relative composition of their audiences. Google users are also more likely to be affluent and have spent more online.

Read the full article: http://searchengineland.com/080218-093339.php

SEO Strategy Tip: Start with SEM (Google Adwords)

Most website owners eventually come to the conclusion that to have any success getting traffic to their site, they need to do one of three things: optimize the pages of their website (SEO), start a pay-per-click campaign (SEM), or do both. In an effort to save money, most people will tell you to go the free route first – that is, work to optimize your website and hope that your pages get indexed high in the search engines. I’m here to tell you a couple of reasons you may want to consider shelling out some money on a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign first.

For those of you with limited budgets, you may be asking yourself – why spend money on a PPC engine like Google Adwords before taking advantage of every possible opportunity to get free listings? My best answer to this question is that doing so will save you weeks or possibly months of frustration. How? When you begin optimizing your website, you have no idea what will drive potential customers to your site, let alone what will prompt them to buy. Sure, you hopefully will do some keyword research ahead of time, but you still won’t know which keywords will ultimately bring you the targeted, motivated traffic you are looking for. Aside from that, you have no idea if Google or other search engines will even list your pages anywhere near the top (check out the chart below to see why being above the fold on page 1 is essential in a competitive b2b environment). In the end you may end up spending a lot of time and effort waiting to gain that first page result only to be disappointed because you show up on page 10. Alternately you may show up on page 1, but end up getting the wrong type of traffic resulting in few or no leads/sales.

Eye tracking study: Areas of the page searchers focus on


Now let’s consider that you do the same keyword research, but set up a Google Adwords account first and wait to optimize your site. With Adwords you can be up and running ads in minutes instead of waiting days or weeks to get indexed by Google in the organic (free) listings. You can also guarantee visibility within the eye tracking sweet spot from the chart above. Now you can begin testing. You can test which keywords are getting the most conversions, which ad copy resonates best with your target market, and which landing page copy convinces people to fill out their information. Once you begin gathering this data, you can begin transitioning the things that work to your website; you can now be confident that your optimization efforts will not be a waste of time. It’s like having the ultimate focus group; people from all over are telling you which keywords they are interested in when looking for products or services you sell. You will now know exactly which web copy to add to your pages to get the most conversions - it is no longer a guessing game. Authors and publishing companies test book titles with Adwords before going to print. Entrepreneurs use adwords to test product ideas before manufacturing the product. Adwords is the ultimate market research tool; if you look at it this way, it is well worth the money spent. Of course this all depends on whether you use Adwords to its full potential and testing capabilities.