Keyword targeting
-
Hi guys,
Are there any restrictions around targeting for keywords? For eg: a competitors name can we target for that keyword?
Would appreciate some advice around this
Thanks
-
Hi Justin, Ahhh the bias of the Google keyword tool. I once read an experiment where a guy built a site, based on a hunch, around a keyword that had zero search volume.
After ranking 1st for that keyword for a month, he checked his analytics only to find that his site had received a 1000+ visitors that had all arrived via his main keyword. (This was when analytics used to show your main keyword)
For cases like this, I'd just go with my gut instinct Justin, as that's sometimes the best keyword tool. Even your instinctive keyword tool search volume varies a lot, depending if you've had your morning coffee or not.
For any keywords with search volume under 1000, I don't pay too much attention to the keyword tool. I have a few home renovation sites targeted to specific areas. All keyword research on these keywords is usually zero searches per month. These are keywords such as 'Home Renovations (Suburb)'. After I rank first for those medium density suburbs with the keyword 'Home Renovations (Suburb)', I usually get about three calls a month for that service. Remember these are home renovation jobs at $20K+ a job, so they turn out to be pretty lucrative jobs leads I can give to my clients. And all from '0' searches per month!
Perhaps you'd have better luck asking the physic for next months search volume ... lol.
-
Hi Justin,
First of all that would be difficult if you want to rank for 'celebrity' name. Now coming to your question yes you can target "celebrity" name to rank for a keyword but If you you’re using competitor brand terms on your own pages – a risky proposition from a legal standpoint.
So try to avoid to use exact name on webpage content. Rest there are no restriction.
Thanks
-
Hi Alick300
Thanks for your feedback. Is there a restriction using a "celebrity" name to rank for a keyword...
I know you mentioned trademark and I don't think her name is a registered trademark?
Thanks
-
Lol hey Richard,
Thanks for your response
Great feedback and good to know the legality behind this kind of situation. I have been doing some extensive keyword searching for long tail keywords and noticed there is a low search volume in NZ for the keyword Psychic Readings, Online Psychics, or even online psychic readings and I'm wondering why the search volume is so low.
I know NZ is a small place, but I know there is a particular psychic medium in NZ that has a huge following, on fb her fan base is 100k most of those people are based in NZ so surely the search volume for google can't be that low?
I go over and search terms in Australia for that same keyword, only to find they have alot more search volume. My only guess is the population is alot more then NZ, but I find it hard to believe that only 10 people on average search for the keyword Online Psychic Readings in NZ each month with the competition being HIGH according to google keyword tool...
So this boggles my mind....
Your advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers
-
Hi Justin, It all depends on whether or not that business has that word, phrase or term trademarked. If they don't have their name or 'money term' trademark protected, then feel free to use it as you see fit.
Trademarked terms and business names are used to prevent you from gaining a financial advantage from their branding and marketing efforts, and to prevent brand confusion in the marketplace.
Even without a trademark, the biggest infringement you can make in this situation is to attempt to trick the potential customer into believing that they are dealing with the official brand or business. Provided you don't do that, you can use the terms or words as much as you want legally. Am I going to see you ranking for 'Apple Computers' tomorrow?
-
Hi,
No there is no such restriction in SEO. There is some restriction in paid advertising(Google Ad Words) only, you can't use competitors keyword/brand name in Ad copy but you can add those keywords in Ad Words Ad group.
In short you can target competitors keyword even in Google Ad Words Campaign.
I am quoting Google "Google will not investigate or restrict the use of trademark terms in keywords, even if a trademark complaint is received."
Thanks
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
-
Keyword research and relevancy
Hello, I am wondering if it is ok to use a keyword that is in 950 position in the keyword list with a relevancy of 1 or it if it better to only use keywords with relevancy of 5 or 6 which are at the top of list ? By the way there are some keyword that I found 3 weeks ago doing my keyword research that i don't find anymore in the list doing my keyword research, is it possible to that the list varies week after week ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
SEO Best eCommerce Practice - Same Product Different Keywords
I want to target different keywords for the same e-commerce product. What's the best SEO practice? I'm aware of the pitfalls to keyword stuffing. The product example is the GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera. The same action camera can be used in many different activities, e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue, law enforcement etc. These activities target completely different markets, so naturally the keywords are different. I have three strategies to tackle the issue. Please let me know which one you think is best. 1) Create different keyword landing pages with a call-to-action to the same conversion page Each landing page will be optimized for the targeted keywords e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue etc. Obviously this will be a big task because there will be numerous landing pages. Each page will show how the product can be used in these activities. For Surfing, the content would include surfing images with the GoPro Hero 5, instructions on how to mount the camera to a surfboard, waterproof tests, surfing testimonials and surfing owner reviews, etc. The call-to-action leads to a generic product conversion page displaying product information such as specs, weight, video formats, price, shipping, warranty etc. The same product page will be the call-to-action for all keyword landing pages. Positives Vast number of targeting long-tail keywords, numerous landing pages Good specific user experience who may be looking for "underwater action camera" (specific mounting instructions related to surfboards etc.) Less duplicate content as there is only one product page showing the same information Negatives Challenging to come up with each page for the vast amount of activities. Inbound Link Considerations
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisCK
Inbound links from publications can link directly to the product page or the keyword landing page Surf Magazine may link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
"GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5 2) Create different keyword landing pages with call-to-action to directly add product to cart Similar to the first option, but the call-to-action on the landing page is to Add Hero 5 to Cart. The user experience will be similar, the content creation challenges will be similar, but the techy product info e.g. specs, price, video format, etc. will be displayed on the same landing page. Positives Same benefit to long-tail keywords targeting Same benefit to a good, specific user experience Negatives Same challenges to create each long-tail keyword landing page Since there is no aggregate "product page", inbound links will be split between the landing pages Splitting of Page Authority to each landing conversion page Surf Magazine will link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
Cycling Magazine will link to:
"Cycling Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/cycling-camera 3) Create conversion-focused product page with casual blog about keywords This is currently what GoPro has chosen - GoPro Hero 5. The product page displays the many different types of activities on the same page. The page is focused on the user experience with images of the action camera being used in different cool activities, showing its versatility. Note, very little long-tail keyword targeting on this page, instead they could use a broad keyword "action camera". To target long-tails, maybe a blog can be used brand ambassadors displaying the product being used in the various activities. Positives User experience focused Higher conversion rate Less content creation work Inbound links go to the same product page, building Page Authority Negatives Poor ranking with short-tail keyword (GoPro is not even in Top 10 SERP for "action camera") Poor ranking with long-tail keywords, (GoPro doesn't rank for "diving camera, cycling camera, surf camera") For blogging the long-tail keywords, who really converts from landing on a blog of the actual seller?! I hope those three strategies were explained clear enough and have enough of a differentiator. Please let me know what you think!0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuations
Hi Guys I am currently working on a website where one of the keyword targets is fluctuating. The keyword is fluctuating between page 2 and page 5. What makes this strange is that we are not experiencing the issue with any other keyword targets. They are all ranking fine. It is only 1 keyword. The keyword target happens to be the main homepage keyword target - not sure if this makes a difference? The homepage targets 2 keyword e.g. Business Offices & Accessories. The homepage ranks perfectly fine for e.g. Business Accessories but is fluctuating for e.g. Business Offices! Very strange. What makes it even stranger - the keyword variations of the fluctuating keyword e.g. office for business - these variations are all fine and not fluctuating. Its only 1 keyword. If anyone has any ideas or feedback that would be great! Thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Swapping page keyword?
If we have swopped the keyword (leaflet printing) from this page http://www.fastprint.co.uk/leaflet-flyer-printing/ and moved it to http://www.fastprint.co.uk/ But the inner page is still ranking for the keyword is there a way to tell Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Checking keyword rankings
I have 2 questions: 1. To check keyword rankings with firefox, i am choosing: Tools>Options>Privacy>"clear all current history" Timerange to clear: Everything Check Boxes: Browsing and download history, form and search history, cookies, cache, active logins Is there anything else I need to be doing? 2. Search results in my Niche are heavily localized. Is there any way to check rankings in another area? Ex: By default, our rankings are for Northeast NJ. Is there any way to check Baltimore, for example?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Help me solve a keyword ranking mystery please
I posted this and had some help (thank you!) but found some new things, so I thought I'd just start a new thread so no info. is missed. Hi everyone, I'm new here 🙂 So far I've had wonderful success seo wise and none of the updates (Penguin nor Panda) affected any sites, until this one. For example, one site has 7 keywords I'm optimizing for. Out of those 7, all but 2 (and variations of the 2 - one word vs long-tail) completely tanked. These keywords were all on page 2/3. One of the two survivors never budged from page 2 (it's a brand keyword so I was very happy to finally get it to page 2) Now when I check rankings, the other terms show up in the 200-400 spots, but NOT for the URL I was optimizing for (category page) but instead for random products in the category. The only thing I've done differently with the 2 keywords that are still doing well, was focus - we did more link-building for those, but not an extreme amount. Never over-optimize. My question is, how did 2 survive and 5 are still floating up and down. Last night I saw one go up 122 spots, now today down 14. I'm really struggling with this. I just ran another diagnostic crawl here and the report found 0 errors and 0 warnings. I checked category content with a plagiarism checker and found some external duplicate content which I've already taken care of. No critical warnings/messages in WMT either. I'm stumped 😞 Thank you for any help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Freelancer130 -
Best Keyword Taxonomy Discussion
Sorry to bring this up again but I think the title was very misleading resulting in helpful members ignoring the question/thread completely. Also, I believe this should be in the discussion section, but please correct me if I'm wrong? Hi All, This is my first post and hopefully a question that could help others in similar positions as I haven't been able to find a concrete answer on this anywhere. Say we are trying to rank for the keyword "security testing tools". Product name is "Sectest" and its a security testing tool. *We currently have an "SEO" section that is purely good content and the idea with this is to be able to rank for "security testing tools" talking about what to expect and look for in such tools and relevant content - Linking to our product page at the end of it. structure is brand.com/security-testing/tools and that would have a link to brank.com/products/sectest Obviously product pages would get their meta tags and content re-written so we don't compete for the same keywords. Is this approach optimal? or would google want us to link directly to the product page instead of "information" about security testing tools? Nobody in our sector is taking this approach and we have already started it, but I am starting to wonder if I am getting into big trouble further down the line. Thanks and best regards, 2 Responses<a class="image-button add-response-button"> </a><a name="post-131828"></a> | JorgeGarciaAspirant | about 22 hours ago |JorgeGarcia Just to make it clearer. Our competitors seem to be using "security testing tools" directly in their product pages. We would like to use "security testing tools" for a page with content on it and an introduction to our product and then link to our product page. | <a name="post-131872"></a> | SEO5Journeymen | SEO5Director - Marketing at SEO 5 Consulting Hi Jorge, How are your competitors ranking for their approach by using security testing tools directly. If they are doing well then i would adopt the same strategy and try to beat them with quality backlinks and good on site optimization. SEO is not the only thing you have to worry about , you also should keep conversion rates in mind. By first taking the visitors to a security tools page and then your product page you are increasing your conversion funnel and this might impact your conversion rates. At the end of the day , it's all about sales/revenue/leads/ROI so you dont want to do anything to jeopardize your conversions. That one extra step that the visitor has to take might result in fewer conversions. <a class="image-button add-response-button"> </a> | <a name="post-131946"></a> | JorgeGarcia |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JorgeGarcia
JorgeGarcia Hi there, Although I do understand your reasoning, we have the resources and people quantity to focus on all things at once being a big a company. So at the present moment it wouldn't be a matter of prioritizing work - but rather - delivering the best future-proof strategy. I don't mind doing the same as our competitors, but sometimes stepping out of the sheep line is good. You do make a great and very valid point addressing that this is an extra step for the visitor and could lead to fewer conversions. This is holding me back a little bit. But, if properly implemented, wouldn't a content focused site rank way better than a product page would? I guess the real question is if prospects would really find value in the information about "security testing tools" or they would rather just get the product page instead. But just looking from Google eyes, what do you think of this approach? _After re-reading my post I realize I might sound as if all I want is you to agree with me and justify my approach, I don't really. I would really value any honest thoughts and reasoning 🙂 _ |0 -
Keyword research - how to find additional competitors and links
Hello, We need 100 strong linking root domains to rank at all in our industry (probably more). But all our competitors are using internal pages. I only found one competitor that is using their home page, and I found 12 good backlink possibilities through it. How do I go about finding other competitors? I know this is a general question, but what strategies do you guys use, and could you give examples?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0