Any ideas for capturing keywords that your client rejects because they aren't politically correct?
-
Here's the scenario: you need to capture a search phrase that is very widely used in common search, but the term is considered antiquated, overly vernacular, insensitive or outright offensive within the client's industry.
In this case, searchers overwhelmingly look for "nursing homes," but the term has too many negative connotations to the client's customers, so they won't use it on-page.
Some obvious thoughts are to build IBLs or write an op-ed/blog series about why the term is offensive. Any other ideas?
-
I remember talking with an SEO copywriter who gave an example of a loan company that wasn't allowed to use "bad credit" as part of their advertising, yet it still drew a lot of keywords. The copywriter would write text like "Have other companies told you that you have bad credit?"
I also like the idea about writing articles. You could do something about the history of the term, or myths associated with that term. Another idea might be any quotes from patients or families that could include "I didn't want to go to a nursing home when I got old, I'm so glad my family found Blue Hair Acres for me instead."
Remember you can try to work your phrase in across two sentences. "So and so has a degree in nursing. Home-like care is a goal" (cheesy, but it shows what I'm talking about).
-
I love EGOL's idea of sharing the search volumes to the client.
Jeremy, I can appreciate the sensitive nature of the conversation. The question here, what is in the client's best interests?
I know a bit about nursing homes myself. There are issues of abuse, neglect and an incredible range with respect to the quality of care offered. If your client offers a great service, wouldn't it be in the best interest of both your client and the world to let as many people know about the service as possible?
You can discuss advertising in magazines, television, referrals, etc. but when it comes down to it our role is SEO. We focus on using white hat techniques to maximize the ability of our clients to compete in search results. There is not any reasonable way I can think of to rank for a term like "nursing home" without using the term.
I would try to educate the client on how search engines work with respect to relevancy. It is the client's choice but if the word is not used on the site, then the site wont be found by users searching for the term and the primary audience will be missed entirely.
-
Just my opinion... I have been to a lot of nursing homes.... I go there a two or three times every week to visit. From what I have seen I don't think that the public is extremely touchy about this term.
But, your client has a specific business image that they are trying to maintain... and it seems that this word is on their agenda.
I would show them search volumes and see what they say.
-
Keep in mind that we're not talking about someone wanting "evaporative air conditioner" instead of "swamp cooler" here.
Consider a word like "retarded," which has a national campaign pushing people to stop using it, and is even considered hate speech by some. Swap out the word with "mentally challenged," and GKT shows less than half the local search volume!
It's a tough sell to convince a client who runs a care facility for the intellectually disabled to say, "Our services for retarded kids are the best in the state."
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be coarse or flippant with that example. That's a high-search term that some would find incredibly offensive.
Organizations that fight the use of certain words see it as more than just inelegant speech, they see real, tangible harm whenever the word is used. Reaction to that particular phrase is unique in that there are some who would vociferously argue against it, and other who would still see little to nothing wrong with it (as reflected in GKT).
-
It's all about educating the client.
The client may not like the term, but if that is what the rest of the world associates with the business your client offers, then you are stuck with it. If you wish to get creative I can think of a few options:
-
as you suggested, write articles on why the business model offered is not a "nursing home" but a "skilled nursing facility", "elder care group" or whatever name is preferred.
-
you could supplement your SEO with SEM by placing ads on "nursing home" which do not use that phrase.
-
you could use creative writing such as "...requires in home nursing...." and use image alt text, image names and other less visible means to get the correct associated for the term. This is certainly not the preferred approach but if you are dealing with a stubborn client your choices may be limited
-
you can walk away from the client. It's your role to offer appropriate SEO advice. If that advice is not followed, there is not much you can do. I would try to work with the client as much as possible, use some of the techniques listed above, etc. but in the end either the client's expectations need to change or no one will be happy with this arrangement.
-
-
I like your idea for an article about the term "nursing home". I'd write a couple of those articles and feature links to them on every page of the site.
If I was selling something and everybody everywhere was asking for it by an overwhelmingly popular name I think that I would adapt to it. Visitors to the site would know that they are in the right place. Using some fancyass name would have visitors wondering if you really offer the service that they need... or if they know you offer those services they might wonder if your prices are too high.
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
-
If my products aren't showing in rich snippets, is there still value in adding product schema?
I'm adding category pages for an online auction site and trying to determine if its worth marking up the products listed on the page. All of the individual product pages have product schema, but I have never seen them show up in rich snippets likely due to the absence of the price element and the unique nature of the items. Is there still value in adding the product schema even if the items won't show in rich snippets? Also, is it possible the product schema will help optimize for commerce related keywords such as [artist name] + for sale?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Haleyb350 -
How keywords and subfolders connect
I'm working on restructuring my site. We have main topic areas, and any given visitor will ONLY be interested in 1 of those topics. So to consolidate the information into a simpler format, I want to take all the various pieces of content and wrap them under a given topic. [There is a question in here, I promise.] So I want to create www.domain.com/topic/subtopic-1, /topic/subtopic-2, etc. [Yes, I will apply all necessary redirects for any new URL restructuring.] Now here's the question: If I want to rank for "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jelly" and "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jam," will I be able to structure the URLs as /peanut-butter/sandwiches-with-jelly/, or should I go /peanut-butter/peanut-butter-sandwiches-with-jelly? And please note, /peanut-butter/ will likely redirect to /peanut-butter/subtopic-1/ since it won't make sense to have /peanut-butter/ on its own. [PB&J is just an example.] What's the best way to go about this? Any recommendations? I really appreciate your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jheath0 -
Submitted a Disavow BUT can't send in a RECONSIDERATION, WHY?
Hi Community! 2 weeks ago, i sent in our first/HUGE disavow list to Google. Out of the 2700 domains we submitted, 1300 of them we successfully removed, but we have nothing to show Google. Reason is because on our reconsideration request page, we can't submit anything because we didn't receive a message from Google (please see screenshot). I know for a FACT we got hit by an ALGORITHM penalty back in March2013. So, I have this wonderful Gdoc to prove that we worked LONG AND HARD to add and remove links in the past year, but we can't seem to message Google and tell them our story on why we should be reconsidered. How do we tell Google our success of removals? It's been 2 weeks, how much longer until we see a change in traffic? Or do we have to wait for the next update of algorithms by google aka REFRESH to see a change? Let me know and thank you so much in advance! Shawn cYGKLVR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1241 -
- Truth ? ''link building isn't considered a suitable way of promotion as per recent search engine updates''
I need SEO. A SEO consultant said: ''link building isn't considered a suitable way of promotion as per recent search engine updates'' they mention: ''Therefore we would be undertaking a range of promotional exercises such as blog postings, social book marking, press release, etc that are more effective for ensuring best possible rankings for the website.'' Do you agree? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2051 -
How does the crawl find duplicate pages that don't exist on the site?
It looks like I have a lot of duplicate pages which are essentially the same url with some extra ? parameters added eg: http://www.merlin.org.uk/10-facts-about-malnutrition http://www.merlin.org.uk/10-facts-about-malnutrition?page=1 http://www.merlin.org.uk/10-facts-about-malnutrition?page=2 These extra 2 pages (and there's loads of pages this happens to) are a mystery to me. Not sure why they exist as there's only 1 page. Is this a massive issue? It's built on Drupal so I wonder if it auto generates these pages for some reason? Any help MUCH appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deniz0 -
OSE Confusion on 'External' Links
Hello All, I am still very new to this but am starting to get a grasp of things in the SEO world, but there are still a few things that I just don't get yet. For example, I've been trying to find out a great strategy for Link Building, what better way than looking at already existing SEO companies? So I did a quick search on a website (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.springer-marketing.co.uk) and tried to look at all of the External incoming links. So I did a filter of Followed+301, Only External and all subdomains. But about 20 of the links for this site are coming from itself. Now, i'm not an expert, but presumably you can't just give yourself strong links? Is this some kind of trick, how or why would somebody do this? Mind Blows Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul_Tovey0 -
It's a good idea to have a directory on your website?
Currently I have a directory on a sub domain but Google apparently sees it as part of my main domain so all outgoing links may be affecting my rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Valarlf0 -
I can't help but think something is wrong with my SEO
So we re-launched our site about a month ago, and ever since we've seen a dramatic drop in search results (probably due to some errors that were made) when changing servers and permalink structure. But, I can't help but think something else is at play here. When we write something, I can check 24 hours later, and if I copy the Title verbatim, but we don't always show up in SERPs. In fact, I looked at a post today, and the meta description showing is not the same, but when I check the source code, it's right. What shows up in Google: http://d.pr/i/jGJg What's actually in the source code: http://d.pr/i/p4s8 Why is this happening? Website is The Tech Block
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ttb0