Here's a tip... I have a client that thinks his business is light bulbs. He sells fat ones, skinny ones, compacts, 12 volt, fluorescent... pretty much all kinds. It took a lot of convincing to get him to see things from the customer perspective.
He used his statistics package to find out how people were finding his site, and optimized various pages for those keyword phrases. But as you'll remember from "Nothing but 'Net," your own stats package reveals how people found your site, but not what the majority of people are actually searching for. You might be targeting the wrong keywords.
A better idea would be to use the Search Term Suggestion Tool at Overture. At least now, you can begin to see what people are actually searching for... not what you "think" they're searching for.
The only problem with the Overture tool, is that it doesn't tell us how many competing web pages there are for the keyword phrase, or how many visitors we can expect from those keywords. That's were a tool like Nichetracker and WordTracker come in.
Using WrodTracker you get keywords ranked by search volumn and by competition, as well as related keyword suggestions.
Using Nichetracker, we break down the customer's keyword into a single root word like, "light" and quickly discover the target audience is actually looking for "recessed lighting" and "patio lighting," not light bulbs.
We overhauled my client's site from being optimized for various light bulbs, and changed the keyword focus to reflect user habits. Once we put up informational pages on the different types of mood lighting, orders for his light bulbs went up 287% in less than three short months. That's almost triple the sales in three months!
Remember, the focus of your site must be about them... the customer, not you, your objectives, or the keywords "you think" are important. Your web site must be optimized for two things... what your customer is searching for and what the customer wants.
If you focus on user behavior rather than popular keywords, you'll capture more of the right kind of traffic - buyers - to your site. A monthly Nichetracker subscription costs less than a couple of soda and pizza. What you'll get from it... is priceless. You'll learn exactly how to find high traffic keyword phrases, with little or no competition.
You'll also discover user behavior patterns, how different industries and products, have very unique search habits, so you'll know, exactly what keywords they use while searching. No guessing, pure science.
It's almost spooky. It's like being inside your prospect's head. You'll know how someone will search for something, before they actually sit down in front of the computer and start searching. Wouldn't you like to be armed with tips like this, before you create even a single web page?
by Michael Campbell
Author of....
Revenge of the Mininet... Advanced search engine linking strategies and diagrams for increased revenue.
Clickin' it Rich... The complete work from home business training system for new affiliates.
Nothing but 'Net... Simple internet marketing strategy that made $750,000 in less than a year.
50,000 in less than a year.
