The "Keyword Relevance" Myth
By Jim Pryke
Posted Dec. 30, 2004
You've probably heard
the standard advice about keywords.. "Find
lots of keywords that are relevant to whatever
you're selling, get lots of traffic, and you'll
make lots of sales". Sounds sensible, doesn't
it?
Unfortunately, it's rarely
that simple.
To make it clear why that
is, let's start with an extreme example. For a
site selling horses, the phrase "horse pictures"
is clearly relevant. In many ways, it looks like
an ideal phrase. It gets quite a lot of searches.
There is very little competition in organic listings.
You can get very prominent positions for this
phrase cheaply on most pay-per-click search engines.
But you are very unlikely to ever sell a horse
using the phrase "horse pictures."
Why doesn't the phrase "horse
pictures" generate sales? Because the people
who type this phrase into the search engines are
either the parents of children who want to look
at pictures of horses or the children themselves.
In almost every case they have no interest in
buying a horse. Worse yet, they have no place
to put a horse if they did purchase one. The most
persuasive sales copy in the world couldn't sell
these people horses.
The phrase "horse pictures"
connects you with the wrong person. Many other
phrases connect you with the right person, but
at a time when they are in the wrong mindset.
If you have the right person in the wrong mindset,
you will probably fail if you try to bully them
into buying. But you can often make sales by leading
them into the desired mindset.
How do you change someone's
mindset? It's often easier than it sounds. Just
figure out what the person wants and give them
exactly that. Then immediately follow up by offering
what you want them to buy.
Continuing with horses,
here is an example. Imagine that most of your
horses are sold to dressage enthusiasts. Let's
say that the big dressage event is called "Dressage
2005" (not a real event as far as I know,
I'm making it up for this example). Let's also
suppose, for the sake of example, that there were
a huge number of searches last year for the phrase
"dressage 2004 schedule", so you have
very strong reasons to expect a lot of searches
for "dressage 2005 schedule".
In order to convert a reasonable
percentage of the people who search for "dressage
2005 schedule" into buyers, you need to create
a landing page on your site that features the
schedule of events for "Dressage 2005"
very prominently. Make it as clear and detailed
as possible. Immediately below the schedule place
a headline that presents your horses for sale
as compellingly as possible, and include sales
copy and / or pictures to entice visitors to check
out your horses. Done properly, this solves your
visitor's problem, frees them to think about other
things, creates some small measure of goodwill,
and coaxes them to consider your horses for sale.
The easiest sales are made
to the right people when they already have the
right mindset. Phrases like "buy horses"
and "horse prices" can put cash in your
pockets, but if your market is competitive, it
will be hard to get good listings in organic searches
and expensive to buy them in pay-per-click listings.
If you master the subtle
art of adjusting the mindset of your visitors,
you can make money in almost any market.
Copyright 2004 Jim Pryke
Return
To Work At Home Articles
|
