Adding qualifiers to keywords?

[staingurus]

I know that it's worth adding qualifiers to high value keywords to create long-tail variations which will later have the potential to rank well for the main keyword as well...

My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume?

E.g. "tips for job interviews" has a high search volume, but scores 72 in the Keyword Difficulty tool - quite high. I would therefore be tempted to create a "10 tips for job interviews" articles or something similar, yet THIS particular phrase is searched for <10 times per month...

If there are not any easy-to-find qualifiers that also create a well-searched for keyword/phrase, is it still worth adding them?

[KaneJamison]

OK, to answer the primary question of "My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume?"

It's important to check on that keyword phrase, but in the case you presented, it's not going to be a huge factor in your decision process. Had the modifier shown 1000 searches per month, than it would naturally be more worthwhile.

It's very difficult to estimate long-trail traffic based on keyword data from Google's Keyword Tool. There are plenty of keywords that are listed as zero or negligible traffic, that send me plenty of visits.

You'll have to make the call for yourself as to where to draw the line in terms of what keywords to focus on for page-level, and what keywords to focus on solely within the content level.

In other words, some keywords will be valuable enough to dedicate a page to, meaning targeting that phrase in your title, h1, and in your content and images. Other keywords are just long-tail phrases that should be within the content but not have an entire dedicated page.

In the particular case that you presented, I believe that creating an article titled "10 tips for job interviews" would be an excellent way to rank for "tips for job interviews". Google is advanced enough to know that a piece of content titled "10 tips for job interviews" is equally valuable to a piece of content titled "tips for job interviews."

In my opinion, what you should really worry about is how you're going to get enough links to that piece of content for it to ever rank, not whether or not the person is searching with small modifiers like 10 tips, etc. I'd probably try and get 10 experts to each weigh in with one tip - this will be a much more valuable piece of content than something you write yourself. Otherwise it will just blend in with the crowd.

[staingurus]

Thanks for this, although it didn't fully answer my question, which was essentially: Is it worth doing? If no one is searching for these full key phrases, then why bother altering the main keyword?

[staingurus]

Thanks for this, although it didn't fully answer my question, which was essentially: Is it worth doing? If no one is searching for these full key phrases, then why bother altering the main keyword?

[highwayfive]

You can also think of using different professions as qualifiers such tips of IT interviews, SEO interviews, graduate interviews. It is also worth think about market trends. In the UK degree courses tend to end in May or June with an up swing in graduates looking for work at this time. You could make sure well in advance that you have content to match this niche that is ranking well. Work on at least a three month time lag. Also look at the job board career sections and see what they are doing and if there is anything you can do better.

Also use social media and social bookmarking once you have the content up to spread the word.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

[KaneJamison]

Title like "10 Tips For Job Interviews" are excellent for getting people interested and clicking on your SERP.

But, nobody really searches for them. They just expect "top 10 tips for job interviews" to be one of the results for "tips for job interviews."

If you're going to head this route, try "top tips for job interviews" without a specific number.

Also try non-numerical qualifiers like "good tips for job interviews", etc. The keyword tool is your friend here for brainstorming purposes.

Qualifiers that don't register much Google Adwords Keyword Tool are also good to use in content instead of creating their own page.