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An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker KEI 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.
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 theright 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 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 ofcompetition
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 lesscompetition
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 thisalternate
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 and a trainer
of onsite search engine marketing workshops through
Search Engine Workshops.
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”
Now, let’s look at a “new” way to
use Wordtracker, John’s step-by-step approach:
To write this article, I came up with a real-life
example and I started at step #1, just like you
will do with your own site.
Let’s say that your client sells aromatherapy
supplies over the Internet. Your first step is to
try to determine the target audience. Who would
be buying aromatherapy supplies? One target audience
would be people with stress in their lives who want
to use aromatherapy as a way of relaxing. So, let’s
try that angle and see what we come up with. Go
to Comprehensive Search at Wordtracker and type
in “relaxation.” Click Proceed. Scroll
toward the bottom of the page and click on “Check
boxes off.”
Scroll back to the top, and look at the various
choices. Remember that the “Predict” column
is the predicted traffic you could expect to get
for each of those keyword choicesfrom all of the
major engines and directories in one day.
Begin marking keyword ideas, all the while thinking
of a strategy to pull in traffic for yourclient’s
site through the target audience.
Scroll back to the bottom of the page and click
on “Option 2: Competitive Search.” Choose
MSN and Google, since those two engines have the
potential of bringing in a lot of traffic to most
Web sites. Of course, you can choose any two engines
or directories thatyou’d like. Click Proceed.
What did we find? “Relaxation” and associated
words were not good choices, because the KEI in
comparison to the projected traffic was too low.
Targeting those keywords just wouldn’t have
been worth the effort for such a low amount of traffic.
Keep in mind that this is a real-life example, so
this is certainly something that could happen to
you whendoing this strategy yourself.
So, we went back to the drawing board and tried
“aromatherapy.” Again, not a goodexample.
Then, we tried “massage.” After all, aromatherapy
oils are used when giving massages, and people who
are interested in massages would be a perfect target
audience foraromatherapy supplies.
After studying the Wordtracker results for the MSN
and Google search engines for words that include
“massage,” we picked the third result,
“Techniques of Massage,” because it’s
an excellent and appropriate angle for our client.
The #1 result in MSN has a KEI of 3696, but it wouldn’t
work with our client’s site. You have to be
sure to choose keyword phrases that are appropriate
for your particular client’s site.
At MSN, “Techniques of Massage” has a
KEI of 255. Within a 24-hour period, if your site
was placed well in the MSN engine, you could expect
to get 90 visitors from MSN alone. What is your
competition? 1954.
“Techniques of Massage” in Google has
a KEI of 900, 165 potential visitors through Google
alone in a 24-hour period, and competition of only
555.
Remember that a “good” KEI is anything over
100, and an “excellent” KEI is anything
over 400.
Let’s be honest here. You could manage a top
10 for this keyword phrase with your eyesclosed
(and your computer turned off).
So, for our aromatherapy client, we could create a
page on the various techniques of massage, including
(of course) her oils and aromatherapy products. We
would spend time on the page and give it true value
to both the engines and the target audience. And,
we woul subtly add graphics and link text that points
to the client’s products in various areas of
the page.
John gave another example
He says, “If you're selling ‘digital cameras,’
don't optimize for ‘digital cameras.’ Did
you know that everyone is searching for ‘Digital
Cameras Review’? Build a page offering reviews
of digital cameras, which has a KEI that just blew
me away.”
Another effective strategy: Top Reports
Besides Comprehensive Search, John also likes to look
at the top reports for high performance keywords or
topics that are related to his client.
John explains, “I’ll review the Long Term
Reports, which are the top 1000 keywords over the
past 24 hours. Then, I cut and paste any topics
related to my client into Comprehensive Search to
get streams of currently ‘hot topics.’
I define a hot topic as a popular topic in high
demand, which may also have listsof related keywords
phrases also in high demand.”
What happens if you can't find a hot topic that
relates to your site in the top 1000? John answers,
“Many people do not know that Wordtracker offers
extensive top word reports beyond the database.
All you have to do is ask, and they'll sell you:
The Top 20,000 words $99
The Top 100,000 words $500
The Top 500,000 words $2000”
Additional suggestions
-
When John goes to Comprehensive Search, he doesn’t
put in a huge list of keyword phrases. He types
in one single word, then lets Comprehensive
Search do the rest. This allows him to come
up with ideas and angles that he would have
never considered before.
-
Like John, spend a lot of time thinking of your
target audience. Who are you trying to sell
the products or services to? There may be several
target audiences, as in the case of our aromatherapy
example. If so, go after keyword choices to
target each of those audiences.
-
Don’t be afraid to let your creativity
take hold. If your first few choices don’t
work, continue trying. Using Comprehensive Search,
it doesn’t take long to go back through
the system with a different keyword idea. Keep
going back until you find a possibility that
might work for your site or the site of a client.
-
Be sure to give the surfer what they’re
looking for when they choose your site from
the search results. If you promised them “techniques
of massage,” then be sure to give them
good, solid content in that area, including
related links. Weave your products and services
throughout the page as you can. But, don’t
ever try to trick a surfer.
-
If you get stuck and just can’t find a
keyword phrase with a high KEI and a low level
of competition that will work for you, take
a slightly different approach. Instead of trying
to bring in a large amount of traffic through
one single window, try creating several windows
and bring in a little traffic through each one.
Though more time consuming, this strategy can
be equally effective in the long run.
-
If you aren’t already a member
of Wordtracker, sign up for the free trial
and test the system out for yourself. Pricing
is very reasonable, depending on your needs.
For example, you can use the service for a week
for $19.94, and many other plans are available.
The bottom line is this: if you are serious
about your Web site, you’ve got to be serious
about keyword choice. If you’re serious
about keyword choice, Wordtracker is a “must
have” service for you.
 Robin
Nobles is the Director of Training for the Academy
of Web Specialists, where she has taught several
thousand students in her online search engine marketing
courses during the past several years. She is also
the content provider for GRSeo (Search Engine Optimizer)
software. Her latest books, Web
Site Analysis and Reporting and Streetwise
Maximize Web Site Traffic, can be ordered through
Amazon. For onsite training by Robin Nobles and
John Alexander, visit Search Engine Workshops.
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