When you're choosing keywords for your website, it’s always tempting to opt for the big ones that just describe what you do. If you sell insurance, you should optimise your site for the word 'insurance', right?
Well not exactly…
Google the word 'insurance' and you'll see 770 million results! You can optimise your site till the cows go blue and still get nowhere near the top.
Niches are the answer!
In any industry there are still pockets of keywords that haven't been exploited. It means going for less popular but more specific phrases - after all, it's better to rank at the top of 100 searches than way, way down for the really popular words.
For example, if you Google 'insurance broker life insurance Cardiff’ there are zero exact matches - and less than half a million approximate matches to do battle with. So the key is to find a few ultra-specific phrases like this.
The thing is (obviously) you can’t just make them up! They have to be phrases people are actually entering into the search engines…
The easiest way to find these niche keywords is to log onto Wordtracker. This shows you popular – but untapped - search phrases that tip the scales of supply and demand. In other words, that’s where you'll find the hungry crowd whose searches are not being answered.
You'll probably find the niches lie in longer search strings like in our example above. Usually the best phrases are made up of 4 or 5 keywords, but don't be put off by that - as long as the phrase isn’t seasonal it can bring you hoards of regular traffic.
Your keyword research will tell you exactly what your customers are looking for, so you should be prepared to amend your site content to satisfy public demand. Then it’s a question of choosing the keywords that can send you the most traffic and choosing which page to optimise for which keyword.
Now that’s the easy bit. The harder part is writing effective copy that includes the exact phrases you’ve chosen!
Here’s a quick example:
Let’s say your company offers hang-gliding holidays in North Wales. And you discover the untapped keywords "hang-gliding tuition in North Wales". Great! Now all you have to do is write some compelling web copy that’s optimised for that exact search phrase.
But if you’re not careful, you could easily end up with stuff like this:
Welcome to our site on hang-gliding tuition in North Wales! Where we offer you the best hang-gliding tuition in North Wales. When you’re thinking of hang-gliding tuition in North Wales, we’re your guys! Why…? Because we’re the experts for hang-gliding tuition in… etc
And that’s when your visitor will use anyone but you! Yes, they’ve found you, but you’ve battered them over the head with a fistful of keywords instead of addressing their questions. It’s a common enough problem whenever you’re including keywords – but a much bigger challenge if you’re trying to match a long-tail keyword like this one.
And of course our friend the insurance broker could easily make the same mistakes…
Don’t panic, though - there are a few ways around this:
1. Use the words separately throughout the copy – it all adds to the overall density.
2. Include the phrase in your headline and sub-heads…as well as your browser, image and meta tags.
3. Use Q&As – it’s a chance to repeat the phrase in the question and the answer!
4. If you can’t make the whole phrase grammatical, work it into a sentence that keeps the words in the same order – even if they’re separated by other words.
5. Keep the words together, but break up the phrase with punctuation to make it sound more natural.
In our hang-gliding example, you could break up "hang-gliding tuition North Wales" so it doesn’t strangle the message. Then you’re free to entice the reader with something more compelling like this:
Imagine it. Just you, the blue skies… and the silence. That’s the gift of hang-gliding. Tuition in North Wales takes you over the slopes of Snowdonia...
Or:
Why not take the leap with some hang-gliding tuition? In North Wales, you’ll take your first step into the blue yonder…
Could you spot the search phrases hidden in the punctuation? There’s no prize if you did, but when you embed a phrase like this it doesn’t scream "keyword abuse" at the reader!
So - these tricks (and a few others I’m not going to tell you about!) should help you to build up a reasonable keyword density. But remember, your density for niche phrases doesn’t have to go through the roof! In most cases your competitors will only be hitting 2-3% density, so you don’t need to drop the phrase into every other line.
When you compare that with the 5-10% density you’ll need to rank for single keywords, you can see why niches are the best way of getting your face on Google.
Still not convinced? Well, here’s one final thought: web traffic is made up of buyers and browsers, and the vast majority of visitors to your site will just be gathering information.
But here’s the good bit: as a rule of thumb, buyers use the more specific search phrases while browsers stick to more general terms.
In other words, optimising your copy for these highly specific niche keywords is not just a tool for higher rankings – it also gets you the people who actually want to spend money!
James Daniel is a copywriter and MD of EarthMonkey Media, a UK based creative agency specialising in online and offline marketing. For more of James’ tips & tricks, visit ukcopywriting.blogspot.com or sign up for a free monthly newsletter at www.earthmonkey.co.uk.
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