No idea where to start with keywords
-
I have a friend who owns an IT business in Pennsylvania. I have been on the adwords tool begging for keywords that people are searching for and I am getting no search results at all. I have tried all types of combinations-
IT consultant Pennsylvania
IT consultant PA
network solutions pennsylvania
computer tech pennsylvania
...and many variations thereof. Does this mean that maybe just no one looks for this type of business on google? What would you guys do in this situation?
Thanks!
-
You got to be kidding me! a thing like this exists! I am new to SeoMoz, earlier I was actually measuring all those metrics to measure competition and opposition factors and what not in SERPs, it used to take me ages to do the things i just did in few clicks a minute back... many thanks!
-
In addition to using keyword tools, you can also look up your most successful competitors and look at their keywords.
-
Yes I was using the term loosely. Bad word choice for a forum such as this
-
In that case I would focus on the usual local tactics:
- Optimize your Google Places and Bing listings and use the xx-mile radius option for who you service.
- Get all the local citations you can. See here: https://www.google.com/search?q=local+citation+source
- I would probably have no more than a few location pages on the site. If it were Seattle, I might do an "Eastside: Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, ..." page, a "North Seattle: Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, Ravenna, Lake City, ..." page, and so on. I probably wouldn't dedicate a page to each city unless it's a business with physical locations in that city. Hard decision though. If you can generate good content for each page, you could make a decent case for having one per city. You'd better have good content though - testimonials from people in that city, information about the neighborhoods you currently work in, considerations specific to that city like zoning regulations for landscaping, etc.
- You mentioned spinning content. I'm not sure if you meant spin casually, or if you meant the act of spinning content by using word and sentence replacements such as article spinning. That's hard to do well, so it typically looks spammy or is obviously duplicate content, and probably not worth it for the site you're talking about.
-
So what would you suggest in a situation on my other question with my lawn care company? We service no less than 30 different cities. How would I optimize for that? Maybe by dedicating pages to specific cities? Problem there is that I can only spin content about lawn fertilization so many different ways.
-
So I think maybe I'm a little too focused on my local modifiers. As long as I mention on page that we're talking about Pennsylvania, and my main keyword is "small business it consultants", then I shouldn't have a problem ranking for a search term of "small business it consultants Pennsylvania"? As I stated above, I think my biggest worry is that my sole focus here is local traffic, so I don't want to compete with the whole country for a particular keyword. Can I target the same keyword set on more than one page? For instance, in my area we are comprised of about 10 different towns in which we all work. So could I just have one page for this town, one page for that town, both of which would target the same keywords?
-
So, if I interpret what you are saying correctly, then once a places and bing biz are set, google gathers the location based on this? I just don't want to get into a situation where by taking out my local modifiers, I am then competing with the whole world for a keyword, when I could just be competing with other locals. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. You obviously have a lot of it, and I value your opinions.
-
Thanks for your input on this. I am really grasping all things seo, with the exception of the keyword research portion. I think I would have no trouble if my friend was, say a dentist, figuring out keyword combos. This situation is just so difficult because in a technical, B2B company, what are those businesses really typing into google when they need a guy like him? I suppose a in a situation like this it's a little luck, a little research, and some guessing. Mix that with my somewhat lacking understanding of localized seo, and here I am lol. From what I gather, a lot of you guys are looking for high traffic, low competition keywords, which obviously makes sense. But for localized, I would think that often in certain areas, most ranking companies do not have great seo plans. In this case, I think I could simply go with the keywords with highest traffic, considering localized competition seems so much easier to compete with for many businesses (in my area anyway). Research is limited by country only, so even running the keyword difficulty tool IMO would lead to less than accurate levels of competition. Am I anywhere on the right track here? Sorry for the "elementary" questions, I'm just trying to have all my ducks in a row before I act on anything. I like to be as right as possible the first time
-
Hey Robert,
It's all good & a whole lot hotter down here
-
-
Sha rocks! Great suggestion on Best Kept Secret....it really is.
Hope all is well down under! -
For a title tag as an example, if you are using Legal IT Consulting | Great IT Company, you will have room to change it to Legal IT Consulting (locator) | Great IT Company and this will be workable. For your on page you can also put in locations (Don't put 400 cities in the footer please).
For Places or Bing use the locator as the address of the business. (There are places in Houston where I can use a suburb or other urban name or I can use Houston, I choose the most beneficial to the client). Be sure to GeoTag photos on Places, Bing, etc. This will help.Don't do for categories: IT Consultant - Philly, etc.
Best
-
No problem, we are all learning and there is a lot of good advice here.
-
Hi Ryan,
All great advice here (wearing out my thumb up guys!).
Just wanted to suggest that you try running the keyword terms it help and computer help. I just ran them in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (exact match) and it returned some related terms with decent search and low/medium competition that could work for you.
Also, any time you are struggling to come up with the right terms for a site, try just asking people you know what they would search for if they needed ".................". Sometimes the bleedingly obvious can be the last thing we think of and other times people come up with what I think are the weirdest terms that are frighteningly common!
Once you have chosen some terms that might be suitable, you can also use the Keyword Difficulty & SERP Analysis Tool to help identify the strengths & weaknesses of sites already ranking in the Top 10 for that term. If you have not used the tool before, Rand's post The Best Kept Secret in the SEOmoz Toolset gives a good explanation of how you can use it.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Google is really smart and they already know where you are for the most part. Usually I start by doing a search for my biggest fat head term (most commonly searched keywords for the niche) on Google. I take the top three relevant niche related sites in the SERP's and copy the URL to check what text they're using. One of my favorite tools to use is the Keyword anchor text tab in Open Site Explorer. After I check the competitors anchor text I will cross reference the keywords with the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to see how high the competition is. after I have this data it's usually easy to figure our the variations I need to help my pages rank for the correct keywords.
-
Well, no - as a general rule of thumb, including Pennsylvania IS important for localized SEO. For example, if there were tons of searches every month for "Pennsylvania IT consultants" than I would absolutely focus on it. However, since it doesn't appear to get much traffic, it's less important in the example you presented above. Because of that, I would focus on more general and niche-focused keywords, and make sure that Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Allentown, etc. appear throughout the site, particularly on Location pages and Who We Work With-type pages.
Also, I'd still use "Pennsylvania keyword a keyword b" in the title tags of the homepage if it's less than 70 characters, since it will likely improve the click through rate for people located in Pennsylvania.
-
Great input here, Robert. I am very new at this, and of course I have a friend that I run into trouble with. Thanks for your help!
-
Thanks! So, for localized SEO, I don't necessarily need the location modifier as part of my keyword phrase? (I'm a newbie) So I can use my standard broad keyword phrases, and then just make sure I have specific locations somewhere on the page?
-
+1 for the legal, dental, etc. suggestion. Everyone loves a specialist, and if they have a page on their site dedicated to Dental IT Consulting" then those clients will eat that up.
-
Kane offers good advice here. We do a lot with legal IT. I would suggest you take out the location identifier and go with small bus, medium bus., legal, dental, etc.
Also go with IT support, software support, hardware/software installation and support, etc. Add in the professions your friend targets, etc. If you want to go for localized do that using Bing Business Portal and Google Places. (Don't over utilize city names. Stick with good categories under what your friend does in IT.Best
-
The traffic counts for broad/phrase/exact traffic are showing up as negligible for me as well. I would try removing the physical location from the searches and taking a different approach, such as "small business it consultants." If your site mentions that you're in Pennsylvania and targeting a few major cities, then I would target non-geo phrases in this situation, since you'll likely have a good chance at getting the geographic traffic anyways.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Relevant but not-relevant keywords impact to SEO
Hello, I would like to know if the selection of individual keywords(that are not primary, secondary or tertiary) are important for SEO regardless of the relevancy to the page topic. I am wondering how much of a contribution a non-P1/P2/P3 can make in terms of SEO? For example it is a product page and I have built my content with P1,P2&P3 based only on the product and its properties itself. Do you think that a content gap for the page could be the production process of that product? So even if it is a product and its properties page, I can add 2 sentences about the production, so that I can drive more traffic by including these 2 informative sentences.? EXAMPLE:
Keyword Research | | Siir
So lets' say my topic is "hair types" (P1) and my subtopics are "Straight," "wavy," and "curly"(P2s) which I used as subtitles. But throughout the page, I am planning to add some relevant but not-directly-relevant keywords here and there since they have high metrics and volumes. For example a potential sentence I can add: "innovative hair products these days can offer amazing results for the desired hair types". It is not specifically about "hair types" but I am using the keyword "innovative hair products" (good metrics keyword) which may help for the traffic... Another potential not-so-direct sentence can be: "For all hair types, the hair damages are common: heat damage, chemical damage and mechanical damage". Would adding this extra sentence where I am not specifically talking about "hair types" (my topic) but "hair damages" and damage examples (off-topic high metric keywords) help me to drive traffic to my website? And how much of an impact would it be?0 -
Need advice w/ keywords & content to get started with SEO on my own website
I am a real estate agent, marketing properties to Germans moving to / buying an overseas home in my country. I inquired with a few different SEO agencies and I cannot afford their services, $3000+ a month and my market is not huge as you will see in the search data below. So I will have to go ahead and do SEO on my own and will obviously need some help. The space is not competitive which is awesome. That's how the volume and competition look for the most popular (& broadest) search term is "immobilien countryname" (property countryname), according to Ubersuggest - attachment 1 (translation for reference): property countryname 1300 property in countryname 480 buy property countryname 260 property countryname seaview 170 buy property countryname 110 Here is an example of the top 10 searches for houses by volume. (Attachment 2 is a screenshot of the competition) 1. haus in countryname kaufen 720 $0.14
Keyword Research | | dnlpwrsellr
(house in countryname buy)
2. countryname haus kaufen 590 $0.36
(countryname house buy)
3. einfamilienhaus countryname haus kaufen 210 $0.45
(single family countryname house buy)
4. häuser in countryname kaufen 170 $0.29
(houses in countryname buy)
5. haus countryname kaufen 170 $0.46
(house countryname buy)
6. günstige häuser in countryname 110 $0.10
(cheap houses in countryname)
7. häuser kaufen in countryname location1 110 $0.22
(houses buy in countryname location1)
8. haus kaufen countryname meerblick 90 $0.20
(house buy countryname sea-view)
9. haus in countryname location2 kaufen 70 $0.03
(house in countryname location2 buy)
10. countryname haus am meer kaufen 70 $0.05
(countryname house near the sea buy) the first 5 results are taken by big portals, just the top one has done any optimization at all as you can see the competition is pretty lame, just some of them are doing any SEO, pretty badly (including spammy links), still rank. The way it seems, there are 4 main categories to optimize for: Properties Houses Apartments 'Move to countryname' information Should I optimize my homepage for a 'property' term, 3 other pages for 'house', 'apartment, and 'info' terms? How do I pick keywords to optimize for, esp. considering that they are basically the same e.g.: house in countryname buy countryname house buy house countryname buy or property countryname countryname property property in countryname ...and should I pick just one? What sort of content could I include in a "buy a house in countryname" type of page and how do I write around such keywords? I am having an issue finding examples to follow as there is no competition to emulate and the other markets/countries are dominated by large portals which also seemingly get ranked based on size / authority. Beyond that there is virtually no interest in the country = no traffic, besides general bs such as the language, the weather and such where there are a bunch of huge websites on the first page - so I am not sure what content could I use to drive traffic. I will come up with something, but there are no obvious ones.. My domain name is 1 year old, I have no links yet. Moz reports Page Authority 5, Domain Authority 2 for my domain. I reckon that's enough for starters... Any input and ideas are more than welcome! Thank you. Qy2gat6.png tG93AJt.png0 -
What makes a keyword good?
Having taken a day-long course not long ago, I'm new to SEO and I'm struggling to decide which keywords to target. I work in a really niche area: we make booking engines that allow travel agencies to sell flights, hotels, cars and other travel services online. I know there are various tools on the web (and on Moz) which give you the average monthly searches and competition for each term but I still don't understand how to decide which ones to target. For example, the term 'travel systems' gets a high amount of search and the competition for it is high. However, Google brings back results about prams and buggies so I think I should avoid this one. Another is 'travel solutions' which gets a high amount of search and is low on competition. Google brings back results about travel agencies. This is more our area but our target audience is travel agencies so I'm not really sure I'd be attracting the right traffic? I'd be really grateful for any advice that you can give me.
Keyword Research | | noortomlinson0 -
Keyword research tool - for off site results
New to Moz, and after playing with keyword research, it seems very comprehensive for analysing keywords based on my site content, and showing me how many people are visiting based on those keywords. However what I'm really looking for is 'alternative' keywords that are 'not' on my site, but still relevant to my sector, and how many searchers are using those. basic example My site is optimised for 'soccer for kids' which Moz shows me getting 50 hits for. Google KW tool reports that every month there are over 2000 searches for 'football for kids' Because my site has no mention of 'Football', Moz doesn't show this as an alternative KW Admittedly my site is new in Moz, so do I just wait a bit longer? or do I continue to use Google KW tool? I'm sure I'm missing the obvious. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | petenorris0 -
Keyword: singular vs plural
Hi, I've been putting some efforts to rank well for "San Antonio Wedding Photographer". I am ranked ok for that but not so on "San Antonio Wedding Photographers". My website is http://www.soobumimphotography.com/ So now, I am trying to rank for "San Antonio Wedding Photographers" instead since Google auto fills wedding "photographers" in search term. Question - Should I change my site title and some post / page title etc? What's the best way to do this? Thank you Soobum
Keyword Research | | BistosAmerica0 -
Keyword with or without stress?
hi to everyone, I'm new here I'm doing some research for keywords related to sofa in brazil. Portuguese use lot of stress in writing words. there are many important keywords that should be written with the stress. For example: sofás but I'm measuring many more researches for the same word without stress (see attachment). This is the same for many other key phrases with 2 or 3 words. in 90% of the case, key phrases without stress has many more researches Now I have 3 questions: results are very similar for these two keys. are really two different keys or are they the same for google? what number to keep for total search? the higher? the sum between the two? what keywords I have to use in the pages? "sofás" is the correct one, but "sofas" has many more research? U1sYe.png
Keyword Research | | eriksatie0 -
How to Document Keyword Research?
How do you guys document keyword research? My best idea for this is an excel document that is separated into different areas for the topics of the website. Does anyone have any examples of documenting keyword research?
Keyword Research | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Tweet ranking affect 1 position keyword ?
Hi ! I just finish reading this post here and i want to know if it affect a page that already come to the first position ? If my actual keyword rank first and for example, i dont have any other keyword in my page title ect, how does it help the page ? Does it just gonna grab another frequent keyword who come back alot in the text or something ? ty
Keyword Research | | Promoteam0