SEO « Kristeen Bullwinkle

Mine your search logs for content ideas and direction

Your search logs provide great information for developing new content, clarifying and improving current content, and refining your pay per click campaigns. This is true for a blog or a website.

Where to find your search logs

Any analytics program will have a report on terms visitors used to find your site. In Google Analytics you’ll find the terms people used to find your site under Traffic Sources | Keywords. Some programs will also report on terms searched using your site search tool. If you’re using the Google site search engine on your site, uou’ll find those queries under Content | Site Search. Google Webmaster Tools will also give you a list of search queries. Bing Webmaster Center does not (although it provides information on backlinks, which is nice.)

Google Webmaster Tool provides this helpful summary of what it finds to be your top keywords. You’ll want to pay attention to it, too.

Google Webmaster Tools

If you’re in a large organization you might have to speak with someone in IT to get access to search reports for your site. If your subdomain or section of the larger site has its own search function, be sure to ask for searches on your section of the site and for any section related to yours. You want to know if people in a related section are actually wanting your content and just got lost. For example, if you’re a college within a university, you might want to see searches on the admissions or library sites.

Content ideas

If you write a blog, you need as many content ideas as possible and you’re bound to find a few in your logs. Look for the longer set of terms. These are often long tail searches that don’t produce a lot of search results. I found an odd one on my personal blog site: age 32 eyelashes growing gray. I’m not sure why my site turned up for those terms, but if I wrote on topics about health or aging I’d know I could write a post about premature graying (or perceived premature graying.)

Search queries are also often written as complete questions to which you can respond. An example: does cutting holes in a shipping container weaken them. You might want to watch for these type of question queries if you’re creating or editing an FAQ.

The next step is to look at how people using these search terms behaved. For the eyelash example above I see a 100% bounce rate. I know that the searcher didn’t find anything of interest on my site. I’m a little concerned that the searcher for amount 0f liquid morphine to overdose did stay on my site. I might want to go back and re-read my postings on outdated medical advice to be sure I don’t have anything posted that would assist with a suicide.

Look at search terms where you have low bounce rates, high pages per visit, and high time on site numbers. This can give you a sense of what content is sticky enough to engage your visitors. You might want to expand on the concepts that surround these search terms.

It will also give you an idea of terms bringing you visitors, but where you don’t have the quality of content to keep them on your site. In the example above, if I wanted to sell videos featuring children’s rhymes, I might want to consider writing new copy. But first I’d run that search myself, locate the page that comes up in results, and then check on the overall performance of that page. It could be that people searching for choosing rhymes just wanted the words to “One Potato Two.” In that case I might want to consider adding a new section to my site that features words or lyrics to common children’s poems and rhymes. Or adding something similar to my Facebook page or adding a space where people could vote for favorite rhymes they sang as a child.

Look for interesting topics showing up. You can use these insights to guide your social media discussions. If people are searching for something unexpected, ask your community for their thoughts. Are the searches you’re seeing for pink outdoor paint reflecting a trend among designers, for example?

Site search terms are a great place to locate synonyms you might want to use in your copy. They might even give you an idea of what type of people are not seeing the terms they expect. For example, someone might be searching for plantain lily when you always refer to that plant as a hosta.

Site fixes

You have a few choices to make when you see synonyms you’re not using in your content turn up in your logs.

If you have access to the search appliance, add that term and your preferred synonym to the thesaurus or create a keymatch term. Or ask your IT staff if they can make this update to your search tool for you. You want to be sure that someone searching for plantain lily sees search results as if they searched for hosta.
Review your navigation. If people are using your site search to find pages that should be easily accessible from your navigation, you know you need to do some user testing. If you’re in an industry which uses a lot of jargon and you might find these synonyms to be worth testing with your desired audiences to see if they are better recognized or understood. Using your audience’s language is always preferred.
Look at your page headings and titles in terms of terms that are showing up. Are you using these same terms or keywords? How about in your meta descriptions?

Search engine marketing

Google AdWords report option

If you are seeing terms in a search query report that have absolutely nothing to do with your product or service, add them to your keywords as negative keywords. That way you won’t be paying for clicks on hickory switch when you only sell hickory nuts.

Check your keyword reports to see which keywords are showing good conversions and consider expanding your content around those terms. Again, look at those long search phrases for the long tail keywords to exploit.

You might also spot a few keywords in your logs that you’ll want to add to the keywords you bid on in your advertising.

You might even find a clue to a small niche market under-served by you or your competitors.

Plus, looking through these logs can be entertaining. You might be surprised by the odd things people search for. Just remember that if you’re looking at your own site’s search logs, there will always be a few searches by people thinking they are searching the entire web universe. They didn’t really think you’d have world cup soccer scores on your farm equipment sales site. But the search for bunny fur hair dye remover might be legitimate.

Caring for ALL your content: Micro content

You’ve written your web page or blog post, using your keywords and providing great content, but have you written great micro content for that page yet?

What do I mean by micro content? I mean the small bits of copy that can make a huge difference in terms of SEO and getting a reader to click.

Headlines and page titles

Headlines are crucial. You want keywords in the headline for the search engines and for your readers. The clever headline that might capture your attention in a magazine already in your hands will not always work as a page title. If you have the job of posting magazine content online, you’ll want to review the headlines and perhaps write a new page title for the online version or use the “kicker” headline if the story has one. “Nuts to that!” might be a surprising and engaging headline for a story about walnut shells abrasives in a magazine for jewelers, but seeing the headline in search results won’t get a jeweler looking for polishing solutions to click on your link.

You don’t want to appear in search results with a listing like this—without a meaningful page title or description.

When you or a reader decides to share your page with others as a bookmark, a tweet or through Facebook, you want to a meaningful title to display.

I really respect TED.com’s page titles. Look at all the information it contains: presenter’s name, presentation title, media type, and then the source. I know exactly what to expect before I click and the keywords don’t shout.

Subheads

Subheads, like the one above, help to break up your text and make it more easily scanned and read. Subheads are another location for your keywords.

Calls to action

Many of your pages will include a call to action. You might be encouraging your readers to change their behavior, buy your product, send a donation, leave a comment, try a sample, or register for training. Your call to action might change depending on the page. Your calls might increase in complexity as a reader gets deeper into your site.

Image captions and alt text

Eyetracker studies have shown that readers’ eyes fixate on image captions. So make the caption meaningful and provide a reason to move on to the actual story copy. If you’re posting an article about crafting a felt rabbit, use a photo caption like “Creating a felt rabbit takes only three simple steps” or “Create an irresistible toy pet for your cat.”

The alt attribute for images serves a different purpose. It’s for people unable to view an image. The alt attribute should fully describe the photo so “Blue felt rabbit with exaggerated ears” would be an appropriate tag. Using keywords here is still a good idea. The description you use will help them show up properly in an image search.

Before you post your copy or provide it to someone else to post, please consider these smaller examples of important marketing copy.

How to get the hot links

A critical element to any SEO or online marketing strategy is obtaining links to your site. You want people to talk about you and to send their friends and viewers your way. Here are a few ways to entice those links. Think content, content, content and types of content. And consider all the ways you can let people know that the content is available.

Content worth sharing

No matter what type of content you’re creating it has to make the person or site linking to it look good. Otherwise why should they provide the link? It has to address your audience and their needs and interests. Ask yourself these questions as you write:

Is this relevant to my target audience? Is this something they care about? Does this answer a concern that keeps them awake at night?
Does this help build relationships?
Is this immediately useful?
Does this build upon the common interests of my readers?
Is this novel and unique? A “wow” factor really helps to get your content forwarded and talked about.
Is it funny?
Is it emotional? Can the reader feel your passion? Can you tell a good story?
Is it positive and optimistic?
Is this something I feel strongly about?

Articles, white papers, DIY guides, product specifications

Many people are online because they have a problem and are looking for an answer. Some will want a quick and dirty answer. Others will want a thorough and detailed answer. Often it will be appropriate for you to write in both styles for the same content. You may want to create one type of article for submission to another site as a guest blog entry, for example, and have a more detailed article on your own site. Then include a link for more information to your own site (but check on the rules of the publishing site first.)

Profiles

These are the easiest links to obtain because you are creating them. There are plenty of places for you to create profiles for you or the public faces of your company. Be sure LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social site profiles include links to your website. They can be links to your home page, or to the company blog, or to the profile you keep on your website. If someone in your company has a speaking engagement then be sure to have a profile of them on your site and give that link to the people working on the publicity for the event.

Press releases

The press release may or not be dying, but if you’re doing or announcing something worthy of a press release be sure you’re including relevant links for the press to use on their own sites. Include the URL for a relevant photo essay on your site, or for a page of additional resources, or for a video. If the press doesn’t pick up your story, try presenting it to your industry association.

Signature files

You probably have a standard signature file you use when sending email. But do you have one to use when you’re posting to forums or discussion groups? Do you rethink the link you provide before you send the email or post the comment? You might want to customize the link depending on the content of your message.

Your local listings

You may sell your product or service throughout the nation, but that doesn’t mean that the folks at home don’t deserve to see your listing in local directories. Obtain listings from wherever you have a physical address.

Most professional or industry associations have a listing for their members. Be sure to use it. For both search engines and potential buyers/clients, a link from an association implies your trustworthiness.

Alternate formats

If you post content to a site focused on media type, like a video to YouTube or a presentation to SlideShare, there’s usually an opportunity for you to include a link in the description or in the media itself.

All these links appearing in numerous places and which keep appearing over time inform search engines that your content is valued. It also means that your links are more likely to appear in different types of searches. People aren’t just searching on Google any longer. Sometimes your potential customers are searching on Twitter or a review site. You want your links to appear anywhere your intended audience might be.

One more piece of advice: Pay attention to your keywords when you are writing your own links or suggesting links for others. You want those keywords in your links. In other words, try for “hand-painted, customized sinks from Sinks-R-Us.com” rather than just “Sinks-R-Us.com.”

And keep at it. You’ll see results.

Why do I need SEO for my website? and when?

How will you be found?

We all want positive attention and we want it for our websites, too. We all turn to search engines for answers and direction these days. Search engine optimization (SEO) provides a competitive advantage in attracting visitors and customers. In addition, SEO produces clear and measurable returns in terms of number of visitors, their activity on the site and purchases made.

If you’re a small business just starting out or a large company with a strong brand, the need for ongoing SEO is still there. You want to show up in searches for your company name, for your product or service, for your locality, for specialty markets—however your potential or loyal customers might look for you.

When you start or rebrand a business or non-profit

Design

The SEO process can begin as soon as you know what your company will deliver and who you want for customers. Even before you have a web site, you should have some thoughts on this. Communicate them to the designer of your new or redesigned web site. And when you’re interviewing designers or programmers, ask them what they will do to make sure their design does not harm or hamper SEO. Even if you’re not sure if the answer you get is correct, you’ll know if you hear any hemming and hawing on the issue. If your designer wants to do everything in Flash and can’t tell you how he or she will make it SEO friendly, then move on to the next designer. Your programmer should be able to tell you how she or he will create pages that can be easily read and understood by both humans and search engines.

Having a plan for your SEO early will allow you to use that plan in your site’s architecture. For instance, if you’ll be selling an entire selection of door knobs, you should know what term you’ll be using for SEO. Will you be optimizing for “door levers,” “door knobs” or “lock sets”? Name your directory and files with the most appropriate term(s).

Content

Writers for your site’s content will want to know your SEO strategy. If you’re going to optimize for an industry term instead of a general term (like cardiomyopathy instead of heart disease), your content producers need to know. They need to know what terms to use in headlines and photo captions. Conversely, your subject experts need to keep your SEO adviser informed of current jargon and interest trends.

SEO insights often generate ideas for new site content. A good SEO adviser can also provide statistics that show how successful different pieces of content or different writers have been. Your SEO adviser can often help turn a poorly performing piece of content into one more frequently visited and read.

Community of sites

Obtaining well-worded inbound links to your site is crucial to good SEO. Identifying sites that could and should link to yours is something that can be researched even before your site is completed. Knowing your marketing strategy will help with this and with the timing of requesting those links. Identification of your major competitors and their strategies can also begin this early. While much of this research was conducted when you produced your first business plan, competitive research should be an on-going process that continually informs business decisions, including SEO.

When you’re considering a new CMS

A new CMS can and will cause a lot of stress in your office. Keep some of it to a minimum by making sure that page templates facilitate content optimization. In other words, you should be able to control title and heading tags, meta tags, and alt tags. Make sure you have options for including user generated content and social media, keeping in mind that new social media tools and sites will be coming in the future.

When sales and sales leads are being evaluated

Data from your site’s analytics program, from your SEO adviser, and from your sales team will all help target phrases to generate more visits and inquiries from the people most likely to convert into a sale. Providing a positive experience before and after purchase, creating and fostering conversations around your brand, and getting coverage on trusted websites can contribute to improved search engine rankings and sales.

SEO isn’t an isolated marketing tactic. It’s an ongoing process to be reviewed, updated, and evaluated regularly in collaboration with other business functions when possible.

Keywords for SEO and AdWords

You know that keywords are critical, but how do you select the best ones?

There are several tools out there which can help you, thankfully, because optimizing your site and managing your advertising and linking campaigns are ongoing processes.

Just who are you and what do you do?

Before you start looking at tools, begin with a simple description like this one: My company provides online learning products for the insurance industry. Keywords = my name (or another’s name that is, or should be, recognized in your market), company name, online learning (and synonyms like e-learning, Internet training, just-in-time education), insurance (and related market segments like agents, independent agents, adjusters, casualty, health, etc.) You don’t have to be exhaustive with your list at this point.

Next identify your major online competitors. They might not be the same organizations you compete with in the physical world.

Tools to expand or focus your keyword list

Your competitors. Often you can find use their own website’s source code to learn what keywords they see as important. Go to their home page and then use your browser’s tools to view the page source. You’ll often find something like this:
```
<meta name="keywords" content="Online Continuing Education Classes, Claims Adjuster Training, Insurance Claims Adjuster Online Training" />
```
Now you can add keywords like “continuing education” to your list.

Tools like Keyword Spy can give you even greater insight into your competition. Not only does this tool give you an idea of what keywords each of your competitors are paying for, they also let you see a selection of their text ads.
Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool provides great insight. Google knows what people search for and they share this information for free. Put in your competitor’s URL and see their keywords, what the competition for those keywords looks like in terms of paying for that keyword through AdWords, and what pages of theirs Google extracted those keywords from. This can give you ideas for website and blog content as well as keywords.
Keyword suggestion tools. You can go to a site like WordTracker or keep using Google. If you enter keywords without a website address in the Google tool, you’ll see related terms.
Your own search log. If you have a search function on your site, you have a priceless tool for finding keywords that you’re failing with. You may be failing in terms of keywords used in your navigation, or in terms of not making your keywords prominent enough in your copy, or in terms of an overlooked audience that uses a slightly different term than you are using.
Your PPC account. Whether you use AdWords or something else, you should be able to find a listing in their tool of more keywords they’d really like you to purchase.

Tips:

Watch for keyword suggestions that don’t relate to your product or service. If you decide to run an AdWords or other PPC campaign, those words will come in handy because you’ll want to exclude them from your broad keyword lists.

The best of these tools will allow you to export suggested keywords to a CSV or Excel file.

Keywords and trigger words

Keywords are useful for SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. They aren’t necessarily as helpful for choosing the subject line of an email, or selecting a new topic for discussion on a social media site. They will tell you that “online learning” is a much more popular search than “e-learning” but it tells you nothing about anyone’s emotional response to the term, nor about their understanding of the term.

I think of trigger words as words that make me take action. So “free” and “new” and “exclusive offer” are good trigger words for me. Trigger words are what you want to use when you want someone to click. They are what you use in your PPC text ad, in your calls to action on your website, and in your email subject lines. Your keyword list won’t tell you that “Ten ways to save money with Brand X” will get more people clicking than “Brand X is your best choice.”

Your keyword list can help you with navigation and other web copy, however. If you know that people are coming to your site using the keywords “online learning for insurance agents” then you know that you need a web page that highlights that string of words. If people search, find your site, click on it and don’t see the terms they searched for, they are going to bounce right out of your site and onto the next.

You want to use the most common terms from your keyword list as your navigation. If people don’t search for e-learning, then don’t use that term in your navigation. It might be an inexpensive keyword for your ad campaign, but it’s not a good choice for your navigation. People won’t even notice it. They might know what it means once you point it out to them, but they won’t be looking for it on their own. They want to see their own words, not yours.

Testing, testing, testing.

Whether you’re looking at ad copy or a navigational link, the best insights will come from testing options out with your audience. This can be through multivariate testing of an ad campaign’s landing page, or by prototyping or field testing a new navigational structure and asking real people to use it and tell you what they think. If you write an ad and get a high click through rate but a low conversion, you know you’ve just lost money. The same is really true if you write a link and no one clicks on it because they don’t know where it will take them (like “click here”) or because it takes them somewhere unexpected and they leave frustrated.

Experts can help you discover opportunities and provide great ideas to try, the CEO can enforce his or her own opinions, but it’s the marketplace and your audience that have the last word. If you listen, they will tell you what you need to know.

Kristeen Bullwinkle

Online marketing, content strategy and site optimization