There's always debate: when conducting your keyword research, should your strategies focus on your big head terms, or those wide-ranging tail terms? We've invited one of our best mozMates, Will Critchlow of Distilled, to join us for a look at how to balance your keyword strategy.
A major factor in designing your strategy needs to be analytics data. As Will discusses, many people find that analytics show most of their conversions coming from branded keyphrases, but this doesn't adequately reflect the search path people are following before they make a latent conversion. In the video Rand and Will discuss how to take this into account and make sure you're targeting the best phrases for your business and your audience.
Will is currently stuck at the airport trying to get home to the snowed-in United Kingdom, so the post he references in the video isn't available yet. In the mean time, you can view his slide deck from the "Analytics Every SEO Should Know" presentation he gave at the SEOmoz London Seminar this winter. Slides 23 and 24 show a little bit about first-touch and multi-touch search analytics. Keep an eye here, or on the Distilled blog for his post about doing first-touch analysis in Google Analytics.
Will's post is up! Check it out: How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics
heres how to get GA to track first click rather than last
https://www.blogstorm.co.uk/how-to-override-google-analytics-last-click-wins-behaviour/
Thanks... I'm going to use that trick.
Thanks kinkade. One of my New Years resolutions is to master the Google Analytics beast and tips like this help a lot.
Be careful though, with that solution you only track first click, not last click. Really, you need both, and in a perfect world you see all touches.
OK time to pimp my own post -
https://www.seomoz.org/ugc/google-analytics-alternatives-measuring-beyond-last-click-wins
Can't wait to see Will's upcoming post on a new method to use within GA.
I just re-read your post John ( I *had* thumbed it up before)and I had totally missed your link to Patrick's post back then.
I reread it too and this time even more thoughtfully.
To better myself in the use of GA is surely one of my "must do it" this year (remembering what talked in a post here lately).
This is some AWESOME stuff. :) You guys should make a checklist with this type of thing.
I just added this link to Dr. Pete's recent post, but I think it's particularly relevant here:
Here's an awesome article to help you hunt down and capitalize on long tail keyword opportunities: https://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/6-steps-to-killing-long-tail-keywords-for-seos-content-writers/2009/09/21/
Great article, thanks for the suggestion!
Good stuff! And a great WBF to start the year.
Also: Not that it matters much, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but is seems you recorded the audio on two channels, but the channels were reversed. E.g. Rand is on the left and his audio comes through the right channel, and Will is on the right with his audio comes from the left.
It was just messing with my head whilest watching.
Anyway...
Happy New Year!
I dunno abwebdesign, sounds to me like someone is still nursing a New Years hangover ;)
I have headphones on while I'm listening to it and I hear the same thing. Will in my left ear and Rand in my right. :) freaaaaky.
I must've had my headphones on backward while I was editing, sorry about that.
Will and Rand,
It is easy to make keyword research for the long tail, start a ppc campaign for the purpose of research so you will not waste alot of efforts building content in order to get long tail traffic. Because I am engaged in advanced PPC marketing I am able to make good prediction of search volym be it head or longtail keywords. The money you spend on such keyword reseach is worth it.
Good point! So long as you have a few broad-match terms that can be the seed set, PPC impression and CTR data can help to find that "long tail" pretty nicely.
it always makes sense to target the long tail.. but even just to stop the panic calls from the client when their CEO googles their main 'big head' terms and kicks off when they arent No.1 you cant ignore the 'Big Head'. It aint right, it aint logical but it is reality.. got to keep the ROI metrics strong but you've also got to take into account the vanity terms if you want to keep the account!
So in my experience you always have to do both.
I somehow agree with you that the 'vanity factor' as to be taken in account, as the clients - especially few ones - have a gigantic Ego.
What I do try in those occasions is to address just very very few top Keywords and always in a way that many long tail keys can grew up fast and steady with them.
Vanity and bragging rights are a huge part of any industry. There are always some areas that we are going to have a hard time ranking #1 for. However, it always helps to take a look at intent.
If the sites that rank above you are informational, and your site is the first that they have an opportunity to be informed, and to by from, then you are essentially #1 in that category.
That may soften the CEO's attitude a bit. While your goal is always to be #1, a 1-1 KW to domain name match can be hard to beat, particularly if you are competing with an established brand for rankings.
I'm not one to try to give SEO excuses (always pushing for higher rankings), but these arguments may at least buy you some understanding, and soften the blows a bit.
*edit: Oh, and BTW, love it when you have the the Brits on. More Critchlow...(believe you already said there would be more, but just in case.)
Before my 'on topic' comment, just few notes as an "old A/V professional"...
And now my comment:
as usual a really interesting WBF and something I'm sure (as Rand says) that we are going to talk more about in the future.
Which strategy to use? I believe it's a matter "who you are". For instance, if you are a small shop selling exclusive miniatures, the best is to be number 1 in the ranks for as many long tail as possible... the sum of the traffic will build a critical volume of brand recognition. Just in that moment that shop will have to seriously try to start fighting for the head of the tail and use more brand marketing tactics.
Anyway, Brand is something that - IMO - must be cultivated since the beginning. That same miniature shop eCommerce should have a blog where miniatures fanatics and lovers can discuss between them and so build a community around the Brand (as SEOmoz did in the SEO field).
Finally, still talking about local business companies, we can act from the first moment pointing more to Brand Marketing and even try to compete for the head of the tail (but geo-targeted) if they are really reknown locally.
Post Script: I saw in the news the weather in the UK... terrible. It's terrible here too in Spain. Just imagine that in Valencia (sea level) is snowing.
Will/Rand
What if your conversions are through DFP (Dart for Publishers) and they are banner ads. How can I tell which keywords are the best then?? I cant right? What can I do then?
Great WBF because it dives into the nitty gritty of what professional SEO work is all about.
I wish there were more resources for learning the nuts and bolts of the deeper analytic techniques. (Like in the Pro Section, perhaps) I know Will has put a couple training presentations out there on subjects like becoming an Excel ninja, and these are always appreciated.
Most excellent post. Thanks again for some very useful ideas.
Will mentioned a blog post on 1st touch analysis in Google Analytics. Do we have an ETA on when this will be published? Thanks.
Really random point here but the panning is wrong on this video. What should be coming out of L is coming out of R and vice versa.
Other than that, really interesting video!
Jennita, is it only me, but the video doesen't load for me. It just shows first couple of seconds and then it gives me the "share" or "replay" options as if it would be the end.
And the video doesen't show up at the Google reader via RSS, is this because you don't want it to show or...?
Is there an alternative place to view this video?
Thanks
Awsome WBF! Some people underestimate the long tail ;)
I've added a link in the post to Will's post about How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics
Good points. Hope Will got back safely :)
Google has added a new variable to Google analytics that enables the users to override the last click conversion ( & utm_nooverride = 1), but unfortunately I can not find a way to see them both the last click and the first click so BECARFUL.
I found an article here but I have not checked it
https://www.blogstorm.co.uk/how-to-override-google-analytics-last-click-wins-behaviour/
Hope this helps... I have been developing a tracking system to see the effects of keywords that create indirect conversions. I am currently working on a series of tools that will enable the user to see the distribution of ROI through a weighted mathematical model. But for now if you would like to see the first to last click conversions please email me, as for anyone who will give me feedback I will give it to you for free for a set period.
Features: Average delay, Top performing keywords, Top performing converting keywords.
All I ask is you install the tag.
Happy analyzing!
Measure , Analyze and set KPIs
That variable (and Patrick's post) are useful but only apply when you are specifically driving traffic to URLs you specify. You can't add the variable you need to the URL for natural search traffic. My post is coming shortly on one way of doing this in GA.
Most excellent post. Thanks again for some very useful ideas.
Will mentioned a blog post on 1st touch analysis in Google Analytics. Do we have an ETA on when this will be published? Thanks.
I think the whole 80/20 rule is interesting. I did a bit of research some weeks back and created a keyword term length distribution post. I looked at a few sites we work on and found that 70% of organic keyword traffic went to phrases 4 terms or greater - for both sites, two different brands and industries. https://www.bestrank.com/blog/keyword-term-lengths-and-the-long-tail-of-search
Good WBF - like the new look too.
Great WBF to start 2010, happy new year to all.
I have a few websites now, and I do find working on long tail keywords a major bonus to both traffic & sales. For instance on my print website, after checking my Google Analytics, I was shocked to find what some people have actually typed into Google to find us, especially ones that have lead to sales, for instance;
“double sided 130gsm a4 leaflets”
This alone has generated a few sales within a month alone, so not only do I target “a4 leaflets”, all the long tail ones like above, all add up to give added strength to the traffic and conversions on my website.
I think that yours is the classic example of Long Tail optimization. Something that - for sure - especially eCommerces have to look at with special attencion and what a SEO consultant or agency as to explain with stats and numbers to their owners. If you do this, they usually agree then with all the rest (aka: better and unique product descriptions, better client targeting, personalized e-mail marketing, focused off line and online advertising...)
yeah I agree, some of the things people have typed in which have lead to sales, has been quite crazy, the one above was quite a basic example, ive had people type in things like
"double sided 130gsm a5 leaflets online cheap in uk"
Do you know what? I found out that many people, while searching for a particular especific product online, take the product box they maybe already have and copy the product name (always so descriptive as you have shown with your examples) and copy it in the Google search box, and so they can look out for better prices/offers online .
As you could see, the search process can be really something that can be surprising... and that's because it's all about the human factor.
I never really liked that 80/20 rule, especially to throw out numbers like "you should have 100x more traffic in the long tail" etc
Its such a simplification that it hides a lot of the real insight. In reality, most keywords move up and down the keyword continuum.
For a bookseller, a term like "engineering Books" could be anywhere along the body for any given customer.
Hi firegolem
Doesn't that depend on which direction you approach this from? Using your example, if you approach this from the individual customer's point of view, then for an engineer who buys books on his trade, "engineering books" might certainly sit in their own keyword 'head'.
However, for the bookseller (unless they are a specialist in engineering books, of course!), the term 'engineering books' would surely remain long-tail, constantly moving anywhere between the 'neck' and the tip of the tail. The bookseller's head would contain the meaty morsels such as their company name, 'books', 'secondhand books', 'new books' and the like.
Ergo, they'd need to decide where to put their SEO efforts, and what form those SEO efforts should take. Hence concepts like the 80/20 rule can help; these are a simplification of real-world activities, but can prove a useful guideline to follow and discuss with clients.
I like the concept outlined in this WBF of targeting marketing/virals/link building at our head terms, and using content creation to build the long tail. However, the weakness that I see as inherent in the head/long tail concept itself is that I think we should talk more in terms of head/neck/long tail! The neck supports the head and contains terms that are still significant, and these require a mix of marketing/link building and content creation approaches. Are you reading this Chris Anderson, how about a book on 'Building a Strong Neck for Business' - just a modest cut of the royalties requested :-)
I do agree with what you say, the 'neck' of keywords is a very important step in building on your long tail and using those to improve your head terms!
Hi eRocket
My point is exactly that the term does "move", but that because it moves, we should not treat it as static when optimising it
For me, the most powerful distinction I make is simple vs complex keywords (especially in ppc).
Simple is brand, head AND long tail i.e. Borders, online bookshop and Stephen Kings latest horror book.
Complex is neck i.e. engineering book
These types of keywords are complex because they embody a number of different strands of user intent. These strands should all be individually measured and tracked, not lumped together into a single ROI or optimisation startegy (which is easy to say, but hard to do)
HNY 2010 guys. Great WBF!
I confirm, Rand's voice comes from the right channel and Will's voice comes from the left :) Kinda disturbing at the beginning, but I finally got used to it after a few minutes.
And the new intro music is less aggresive. Much better :)
J.
Would be nice if there were better tools out there for discovering the long tail. Extrapolating keywords from your own data is kind of a catch 22...if you're not ranking for a keyword then you probably won't be getting any traffic for that keyword.
I look after SEO for an ecommerce website (gifts), and use Analytics to investigate long-tail traffic with the objective of growing our converting traffic within specific product niches. Here's the approach I take, it's quick and it's working...
1. Use Analytics to identify long-tail keywords that are already converting
2. Take those keywords into the Google Keyword Tool (GKT)
3. Export the GKT results into Excel, then quickly remove any obviously irrelevent terms
4. Check ranking for the revised keyword list (I use WebCEO)
5. Identify keywords that-
a) show promising search volumes in GKT and
b) are sitting anywhere between position 6 and 30 in Google SERPs (Note: I'm more of a marketer than a statistician and this is a nominal approach to identify the keywords I wish to prioritise - the goalposts are changed as necessary to shrink or build the keyword action list)
6. SEO the landing pages for those terms, then track outcomes.
As a quick and simple approach this has been bringing in some significant results. Hope this helps others too.
All very good advice and I love that it's encapsulated into a consise, detailed list!
Some quick housekeeping comments first:
Nice going Scott! The new video look is crisp and clean. And the new music is better than the old (IMHO of course.
Now to the post:
Will, you mentioned the new GA capabilities in being able to track more accurately. I would really love to see a blog post specific to that. Or even better, a webcast devoted to it.
Happy New Year guys. Liked the video, agree with earlier comment that the music is improved - previously it sounded like a broken radio tuning into a rave station :)
Personally I'd mix the voice-only audio parts down to mono to maximise audience - I have a mono speaker on my laptop and Rand sounds very quiet compared to Will.
Great start to WBF 2010. GA offers more than meets the eye.
geat WhiteBeard Friday Rand, loved the post, I don't have speakers at work and I rarely have time to look at SEOMoz while at home so I just got to hear both this and the one with the Distilled gentleman but I loved them both,from the give and ye shall recieve ideal to the fact that long tail is as valuable as it is, I loved them both! Thank you!
Thnx, vey good presentation.
I like the Vimeo player better.
Great info guys, thanks.