DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE KEYWORDS AREN’T DEAD!A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO KEYWORD RESEARCH

DAVID BLACK CUSTOMER SUCCESS DIRECTOR SEMRUSH, USA DAVID_BLACK@SEMRUSH.COM TWITTER: @THEGUYATSEMRUSH

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE - FEB. 25, 2014

GOOGLE HUMMINGBIRD

• MOST RECENT ITERATION OF THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM

• DESIGNED TO BETTER INTERPRET CONVERSATIONAL QUERIES

• ENHANCED MOBILE EXPERIENCE

IMPACT ON KEYWORD RESEARCH• SHOULD NO LONGER FOCUS ON RANKING FOR ONE, SINGULAR

KEYWORD - FOCUS ON AN ENTIRE CONCEPT

• ALTER YOUR APPROACH TO KEYWORD RESEARCH - THINK LIKE THE AUDIENCE AND LIKE THE SEARCH ENGINE

• MEASURE YOUR RESULTS DIFFERENTLY - TRACKING POSITIONS FOR ONE KEYWORD MAY NOT BE THE WAY TO GO

EXPECTATIONSGOOGLE LIKES TO RANK WEBSITES/CONTENT FOR THEMATIC

KEYWORD GROUPS - SCHOLASTIC.COM EXAMPLE

“REVERSE” KEYWORD RESEARCH• WITH SOFTWARE, LIKE SEMRUSH, WE CAN GET INTO THE MIND OF THE

SEARCH ENGINE TO SEE WHICH KEYWORDS IT ASSOCIATES WITH THE CONTENT

• NOW, YOU CAN WRITE FOR THE AUDIENCE AND FOR THE SEARCH ENGINE

• FIND THE KEYWORDS GOOGLE DOESN’T LIKE TO ASSOCIATE WITH THE CONTENT

• IF YOU CAN’T BEAT EM’ , JOIN EM’

IMPLEMENTING YOUR KEYWORDS PT. 1• PAGE TITLE TAGS - USE “MAIN” KEYWORD AS CLOSE TO THE BEGINNING

AS POSSIBLE TO REINFORCE RELEVANCY AND POSSIBLY INCREASE CTR

• H1 / HEADLINE - SAME IDEA AS ABOVE. PSYCHOLOGY KEEPS VISITOR FROM BOUNCING. BUT DOESN’T NECESSARILY HAVE TO MATCH THE TITLE

• BODY TEXT/CONTENT - OLD RULES APPLY. OVERUSE OF A KEYWORD MAY RESULT IN PENALTY. HAVE A THIRD PARTY GIVE YOU THEIR OPINION

• URL - AGAIN, REINFORCES RELEVANCY AND PEOPLE OFTEN PASTE RAW URLS WHICH, PLACES KEYWORDS IN THE ANCHOR TEXT

IMPLEMENTING YOUR KEYWORDS PT. 2• BACKLINKS - THESE KEYWORDS MAKE FOR GREAT, RELEVANT ANCHORS

AND VARIETY ALLOWS YOU TO EVENLY DISTRIBUTE THEM.

• MISC. - ALT TEXT FOR IMAGES, INTERNAL LINKS (MENUS), META DESCRIPTIONS

• OVERALL IDEA - DISTRIBUTE YOUR THEMATIC KEYWORD GROUPS EVENLY AND NATURALLY. HAVING A GROUP OF KEYWORDS, AS OPPOSED TO ONE, PROMOTES HEALTHY DISTRIBUTION

MEASURING YOUR RESULTS• YOU CAN TRACK YOUR RANKING FOR ONE KEYWORD. BUT, WHY?

• SEMRUSH POSITION TRACKING SOFTWARE ALLOWS YOU TO CREATE DOMAIN AND URL-LEVEL CAMPAIGNS.

• STRUCTURE YOUR CAMPAIGNS IN SUCH A WAY THAT LENDS ITSELF TO YOUR ULTIMATE GOALS.

• URL LEVEL CAMPAIGNS FOR CONTENT THAT MAY RANK FOR MULTIPLE GROUPS OF KEYWORD CONCEPTS

• DOMAIN LEVEL CAMPAIGNS FOR E-COMMERCE OR SERVICE ORIENTED WEBSITES

KEYWORDS AREN’T DEAD!!• IT’S THE APPROACH AND ATTITUDE - NOT THE KEYWORD ITSELF

• FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

• KEYWORD PLANNER SUGGESTS KEYWORD GROUPS

• ADWORDS ENCOURAGES YOU TO BID ON KEYWORD GROUPS FOOD

• SMART SEARCH ENGINES - GOOGLE LEARNS IN ORDER TO ACCURATELY PREDICT

• NO MATTER HOW SOPHISTICATED, IT WILL ALWAYS NEED KEYWORDS