How do I figure out which keyword to optimize for?
-
What's up guys!
We run a site for tennis players and courts in the whole country - http://www.tennisround.com/. People use the site to find a tennis partner at their skill level and send each other invites to set up matches, it's also used to find local tennis courts.
The question is - Which keyword(s) should we optimize the site for and how?
Cheers,
Alex
-
I think your design looks great!
-
Thanks Stephen! What do you mean by "make your design higher quality and less spammy"? Is there anything that could be considered spam by the users or the engines?
-
Nice... I went to the site and it recognized my geographic location and showed nearby tennis courts.
I would optimize for "tennis courts in Philadelphia" and similar local geographic terms.
However, I think that there would be a lot of potential for advertising via site targeted adwords or targeting tennis players on Facebook.
-
"find a tennis partner" "tennis partner" "tennis court" "book tennis court" "tennis competition"
You are in the same position as many startups; there is not really any search volume for what you do as its so new and you need to build your audience from the ground up
You may rather wish to put your energy into social media and direct connections with tennis clubs (so make you twitter/facebook bigger with CTAs, and get rid of myspace ) Maybe Linkedin actually works well with this idea
I would suggest soft url hijacking of tennis club names. To that end, this url needs a hell of a lot more content http://www.tennisround.com/tennis-courts/tx/austin/lost-creek-country-club I would go out to the clubs or get them to send you images and video and any specials and competitions they may run
Also make your design higher quality and less spammy, then you will appear miles ahead of crap like this
http://www.letsplaytennis.com/
http://www.tennispartner.co.uk/
http://www.globaltennisnetwork.com/tennis-community/find-a-tennis-partner
From experience working with a startup, its easy enough to get traffic and signups, but getting actual engaged users is the real key to success. The 3 sites above may get organic traffic, but who comes back a second time?
S
-
Try to think about words and phrases that sum up what your site aims to achieve. Then look at doing the following:
-
find out what your top compeititors are trying to optimize for
-
using Google adwords to get keyword suggestions
Although I do tend to select keyword to optimize when I undertake a campaign, I'll usually let a lot of the keywords be dictated in a natural way (e.g by natural backlinks). Usually I''ll focus on building the link profile and domain authority so that ranking for a variety of keywords becomes easy.
-
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
-
Choosing the right keywords when the products are similar
What keywords should I choose if I have 3 similar products, only the value differs?
Keyword Research | | Voucherstore 0
It is recommended to use the same keyword, and change the value? Example: Product 1: $ 100 discount coupon
Keyword: $ 100 discount coupon Product 2: $ 75 discount coupon
Keyword:? Product 3: $ 50 discount coupon
Keyword:? Any advice? Thank you, Sergio K.0 -
Using a country in your keywords
My company has recently started offering services in South Africa - which is great - same language - lot of potential there. But I suspect our keyword research is suffering from "thinking like a foreigner". i.e. "buy cars South Africa" rather than "buy cars". Wouldn't google.co.za naturally assume: 1) Anyone using their service for "buy cars" is looking for "buy cars South Africa" (I know it's more complicated - Google will give different results the more it can figure out about your location) 2) That any co.za site optimised for "buy cars" is automatically 90% optimised for "buy cars South Africa" too - so isn't a productive long tail query (against something like “buy sports cars”) I appreciate that some companies will be TARGETING foreign browsers (i.e. holiday accommodation South Africa) so will need to explicitly optimise their on-site for the country for “foreign search engines”. But I'm asking about companies in South Africa targeting people from South Africa.
Keyword Research | | Ali310 -
How do I find traffic for local keywords?
We're having trouble finding reliable traffic numbers for long-tail local keywords (ex. - "computer repair green bay"). We tried using Google Insights but it doesn't display long-tail keyword information, only broad keyword keywords searched for in a certain locale. We also tried using Wordtracker, but that hasn't been too reliable either. Is there a single tool that provides real traffic for local long-tail keywords?
Keyword Research | | optimalwebinc0 -
How to pick keywords while making your site coherent?
My company is in the service industry, in particular we create databases for companies to use in house. Therefore, when I think of what we do, I think "database solutions". We have 3 different types of services/approaches we take which I created keywords for those. Through research I found that people don't look for database solutions, instead they look for the type of database i.e. "inventory database" or "database developer" or the technology used. I understand 'funneling' of a site from general to specific so I understand how to deal with the first type of keyword. But what about the second. Having my general database page optimized for 'database developer' would be awkward. Specially in the anchor text in my menu link. Any suggestions? Common strategies used for this type of scenario? Is it ok to still have the internal link be 'database solutions' but then optimize the page for 'database developer'? I'm a newbie struggling with keyword research/selection so any insight would be much appreciated!
Keyword Research | | emcacace0 -
To Meta Keyword or Not To Meta Keyword, That Is The Question
I can't seem to get a reliable answer on this one. It seems to be split down the middle as far as who agrees and who doesn't, of course some of that content is outdated. So, for today, should I be using the meta keywords tag or not? Thanks, Steven
Keyword Research | | sfmatthews0 -
Adding qualifiers to keywords?
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?
Keyword Research | | staingurus0 -
Why are my keywords not being crawled
In my google web tools. the keywords that are about my site are not being crawled. I have them in my Meta descriptions and keyword meta, but still arne't showing in significant keyword list for google.
Keyword Research | | TheGroom0 -
Keyword Difficulty
is probably a "how long is a piece of string" question but wondered how to use the keyword difficulty tool, particularly in relation to the % and the wording moderate, what are these actually saying? Perhaps some of you could give details of how you use this tool and apply the % and term to real world situations, Thanks in advance, Lee
Keyword Research | | LeeMiller0