Eight Keyword Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
One of the reasons search marketing is so effective is that it delivers information on products and services to people who are actively seeking them out. People enter search terms into a search engine and the engine provides sites and ads that are relevant to the terms. This arrangement is beneficial for the user because they are provided what they want and it's profitable for the company selling goods because their products are put in front of motivated buyers—so the potential for a sale is high.
The success of search marketing hinges on whether the keywords the searcher puts in the query box match the keywords the company has targeted in their online campaigns. If the company selling goods has properly identified the keywords a searcher might use to find products, then there is a good chance a conversion will occur.
The process of identifying keywords is wrought with pitfalls which can reduce the effectiveness of online campaigns. Here are eight common mistakes companies make in selecting keywords for their campaigns.
1. Targeting keywords that people never use
You don't have to look very far on the web to find companies targeting phrases that visitors seldom enter into a search engine.
There are several ways this error can manifest itself. The most common is when a company selects keywords from insider jargon that they use within the company, but with which the outside world is not unfamiliar.
Even the most enlightened of us can fall into this trap. We use terms in our day to day vocabulary and the words are so ingrained in our mind that we overlook the fact that the rest of the world isn't familiar with our internal corporate-speak. In many cases the company is suffering from a form of myopia: they are so close to the products that they don't see that the rest of the world might call it by another name.
Another situation where obscure keywords are targeted is more nefarious. Although most online marketing companies are honest and want only the best for clients, there are a few bad apple SEO firms that have purposely selected off-the-wall keyword phrases so they can guarantee rankings on those phrases. Obscure keywords are usually not very competitive so the SEO firm can easily win the term.
They tell a client, "we'll get you ranking on phrase X"—often the phrase sounds good on the surface. The trusting client approves the term not realizing that the phrase will never receive any traffic or bring conversions.
Alarm bells should be going off in your head if your SEO firm is claiming guarantees. Ask for popularity numbers of the phrases they are selecting, test the phrase in PPC to get real performance data, then decide if the phrase is worth pursuing in organic marketing.
2. Confusing keyword popularity with keyword appropriateness
Professional keyword tools like KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker are valuable tools for providing insight into the traffic potential of search phrases. This is useful information to have, but sometimes this one criterion gets blown out of proportion in importance. Other considerations like relevancy, user intent, and the competitiveness of a phrase are overlooked.
Something to keep in mind is that many popular phrases are also extremely competitive making highly popular phrases an expensive choice. PPC bid prices will be higher and winning a top organic spot will require more work because more competitors are targeting that phrase. An alternate approach, especially for a small business would be to pursue more focused, more relevant terms that are less popular, but be better choices because they convert better.
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