An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker . . . that's actually easier too! (Part 1)

Author: Robin Nobles

An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker. . . that's actually easier too!

By Robin Nobles

If you're in the search engine industry, or if you're a Web designer or Webmaster, it's an almost sure thing that you've heard of, and probably used, Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com).

But, for those who may not know about Wordtracker, let's back up for a minute.

What exactly is Wordtracker, and why is it so important?

Most search engine optimizers would agree that one of the most important things you can do for your Web site is to target the right keywords. If you target the wrong keywords, you may get scores of traffic but no conversions to sales, or no traffic whatsoever. Either is disastrous for an online business.

Before Wordtracker, it was up to the search engine marketer, or the client, to choose the right keywords for the site. We also had GoTo's Search Term Suggestion Tool, which was one of our only sources for keyword help at that time.

Then Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) entered the picture. With Wordtracker, you can plug in some keywords, and the Web-based service will give you ideas for additional keywords that might work for your business. Not only that, but the service will also tell you how competitive those keywords are (how many other Web pages have been optimized with those keywords in mind) and how many people have actually searched for those keywords in the past 24 hours at each of the major engines.

Ideally, your goal is to choose a keyword phrase that doesn't have a huge amount of competition but that (hopefully) a large number of people are searching for. This is where the KEI comes in. KEI, which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Index, refers to the number of times a keyword has appeared in Wordtracker's data compared with the number of competing Web pages, which points to which keywords would be most effective for your search engine marketing campaign.

In other words, the higher the KEI, the more popular your keyword phrases are, and the less competition they have. According to Wordtracker, a ""good"" keyword to target is one that has a KEI of around 100, but an ""excellent"" keyword to target has a KEI of over 400.

Okay, enough of the background into Wordtracker. Most of you probably already know all of that. In fact, your path through Wordtracker most likely looks very similar to mine.

The ""old"" way to use Wordtracker

In the past, I have always started at Keyword Universe, or maybe at Keyword Projects. From there, I work my way through the system. Does it work? Yes, very effectively. Is it time consuming? Yep.

But, let's look at an easier, and even more effective, way to use Wordtracker. And with this alternate way, you're actually considering keyword phrases based on your target audience.

Introducing John Alexander

To write this article, I interviewed John Alexander, an authority of Wordtracker who has spent countless hours working through each of the features and developing his own unique strategy.

As means of introduction, John is a professional search engine optimizer with Beyond-SEO (http://www.beyond-seo.com) and a trainer of onsite search engine marketing workshops through Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

Besides using Wordtracker to find keywords, John actually uses the service to target an audience's surfing behavior. Once he determines the surfing behavior, he can use that knowledge to target those who are most likely to purchase his clients' products or services.

Unlike most of us, John doesn't get ""stuck"" in Keyword Universe to where the system does all the thinking for him. Instead, he begins at Comprehensive Search (found under the Multiple Search heading).

He explains, ""Where you'll find most of your 'revelations' or 'insights' is in the Comprehensive Search feature of Wordtracker. Try entering one part of a search phrase and letting Comprehensive Search figure out the best 'full use' of the phrase.""

Let's look at an example

John has a client who sells baby furniture and products online, so he needed to find the target audience for baby furniture. Putting his creative mind at work, he started thinking about who would want to buy baby beds and strollers. Not people with newborns - after all, they already own all of the furniture they need. The true audience for his client is soon to become parents, grandparents, etc.

His next step was to use Comprehensive Search to try to determine what his target audience is looking for. John typed in ""baby,"" and he found some very interesting results.

People searching for the word ""baby"" were searching for keyword phrases like ""baby names,"" ""Baby Names,"" ""Baby Boy Names,"" and so forth.

Bingo! He had the angle he needed to get traffic to the site. Rather than concentrating on the actual product he was trying to sell, he thought of a way to pull in traffic through a different window. After all, what will his target audience be looking for on the Internet? Ideas for names for their new babies!

John adds, ""Keep in mind that this angle is also based on the fact that babies are always on the way, around the world, day after day, which creates an extremely unique market for certain products. Understand the advantages of identifying people's behavior, and you'll never look at keyword research quite the same.""

After he has captured the visitors at his site, he can easily slide in the fact that the site is also selling baby products and furniture. He's gotten them to the site, which is step #1; they are his target audience, which is step #2; and with compelling content, he can increase the site's conversion rate to go along with the increase in traffic.

How did John proceed? He created a page that focused on the meanings of baby names.

Keep in mind that the page he created has value and unique content. He didn't just toss together a page, simply for the sake of getting a top ranking. Instead, he worked hard to find links all over the Web to sites that offer the meaning of baby names. His page offers tremendous value to the search engine and users as a one-stop resource for finding links to the meanings of baby names. Then, in strategically placed spots on the page, he subtly added pictures of his client's products with links to related pages.

John explains, ""Don't ever trick your audience or they will simply never buy. Give them exactly what they are looking for right up front. In this example, I created a page that offers baby names and the meanings of baby names, and I subtly offered a few product listings or links to my client's storefront. It is essential that you always provide content related to their search first, and then offer links to appropriate products within your client's site.""

The bottom line?

How did John's strategy work out for his client? The baby names page alone pulls in an additional 500 unique visitors of extremely targeted traffic each month.

John adds, ""I cannot give you the percentage in terms of the exact increase in sales, but I can tell you that the client has been very pleased with the results.""

Remember that this is just one page that John added to the site.

He explains, ""Had I really wanted to pull out all the stops, I could have created several entry pages around this one theme. For example, targeting keyword phrases such as: 'most popular baby names,' etc. You could also build the content right into the site and extend it through all of the races:

* Spanish baby names

* Italian baby names

* Jewish baby name

* French baby names""

(See Part 2)

About the author: Robin Nobles is the Director of Training of the Academy of Web Specialists (http://www.academywebspecialists.com), where she has trained several thousand people in her online courses in search engine marketing strategies (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). She also teaches 3-day ""hands on"" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com.