Should we change branded keywords based on audience knowledge?
-
Good Morning Moz,
Wanted to pose a question to the community that our company has been wrestling with internally for a while now. I think your insights would be tremendously valuable.
Our company effectively has two business units, one that is online and one that is offline. Each appeals to a different customer base as well. In one business unit, the larger, more offline and better established of the two, we refer to ourselves as a "manufacturer of high end automobiles" (not true, but using as an example). We've carried this through to the other business unit which is very small, web-based, and growing, but have quickly realized that the majority of would-be customers do not search for "automobiles", they search for "cars." And the keyword volume is night and day. On the order of 5000 searches/mo for automobiles, and 1,000,000 searches/mo for cars (again, not true for these example keywords but this is the actual ratio against our real keywords).
So, do we optimize heavily against a lesser known and used keyword, or do we try to target "cars" which sees higher search volume even though it's significantly more competitive?
We have this problem with a few different branded keywords, actually, and our search performance reflects as much. If someone were to search for these lesser known keywords they would find us, and we rank well. But the volume isn't there.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks, Chris. That's a great point. We'll certainly keep that in mind as we approach our messaging and targeting.
-
Thank you, Robert. It's a good suggestion and one that I think would actually help us considerably in the long run. The keyword we currently target is not really used by many others, so to build around it could position us well for long term growth (assuming we executed our awareness drivers well). Really appreciate your time and thoughts.
-
Thanks David. It's interesting because we target the lower volume keyword exclusively and are typically number 5 on a typical SERP. We don't even appear in results for the higher volume keyword (a synonym at that) that we have little invested against.
-
Thank you, Gaston. It sounds like a good approach and makes sense. Really appreciate your time.
-
Gaston has already answered your question well so I won't go into that any further. What I will say though is don't forget to consider the user intent here - depending on what your product actually is, people using that niche word may be looking for something different.
To use your cars vs automobiles example in a research context, you might find for example that people searching for "history of cars" are searching for recent history, whereas users searching for "history of automobiles" may be looking for info dating right back to the very first automobile.
Perhaps a poor example of my point but hopefully this illustrates what I'm getting at. While the two may technically be the same, sometimes we use variations of a word with a different intent. Your keyword focus should always be around this intent rather than just the words themselves.
I hope that makes sense!
-
Hi Jamie,
I would agree with Gaston with a slight addition. Depending on the resources, time and team you have to dedicate to this project, what you could do is begin an awareness campaign for the small volume traffic keywords you are ranking well for. I believe your SEO efforts should be focused on high-volume keywords, with small amounts of work dedicated to terms you are already ranking well for.
However, what I would be aiming for would be to introduce a social media campaign or general marketing campaign with the goal of generating knowledge and awareness of the existence of your less well-known terms to increase the amount of times people are searching for it. Social media also provides you with the option of creating content which bridges the gap between your "cars" audience and "automobiles" audience. Using this example, "Top 10 Cars & Automobiles" gives you the option of ranking your article for both terms and utilizing LSI keywords (keywords that are relevant to the main keyword you are targeting) will give you the option of creating relevancy for both terms simultaneously.
In this case, using keywords such as "vehicle", "vehicles", "motor vehicles", etc. as your LSI keywords along with content targeting both "cars" and "automobiles" would do the trick.
Hope this helps to get the creative juices flowing.
All the best,
-
Keep in mind google does recognize synonyms of words. If your real issue is a pure synonym it may not matter which you choose as google cares more about topic then keywords these days. learn more about it here https://moz.com/blog/can-seos-stop-worrying-keywords-focus-topics-whiteboard-friday
can-seos-stop-worrying-keywords-focus-topics-whiteboard-friday
-
Hi Jamie
I think that you've answered the question yourself:
- With the branded and with less traffic you rank well.
- With the other, there is a big chance to get much more traffic that with the other keyword.
My advice, focus on both keywords, but put mor effort on increasing the SERPs on the high traffic keyword. for example: 70-30.
Remember that for the "small" keyword you already rank well.Hope it helps.
GR
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
-
We changed our domain, I used the move tool in Google Search Console and I am having our site redirected and go daddy, and now I spoke with someone who suggest we do a 301 redirect for all pages on our site and I’m not sure that’s the correct move.
We just changed our domain name after 15 years. when I bought the new domain name I called Go Daddy and they instructed me to contact my google G sweet admin account and change all of our emails over which I did and then I went into Shopify who is my host and changed my primary domain there and then I went back to Go Daddy and had my old website forwarded to my new site. since then there has been nothing but problems with Google. my product feed from my merchant center account has been suspended three or four times now, I tried to rename and move all of my Google accounts from my old domain to my new one, but I am not an SEO person... after making the changes I have started google chats with analytics department with the merchant center with Google as they all keep saying that it looks fine but I’m not convinced because the product feed keeps getting disapproved. So I posted an ad for help and the Guy I spoke with suggested I do a 301 redirect for every single page on my old site, But I’m concerned that might confuse things further? I’ve already started the move in Google Search console And in Shopify I added the old domain back into the domains section and am having it redirectEd that way too... I guess I’m just looking to know which way I should proceed, any and all advice is warmly welcome thank you in advance Maureen
Conversion Rate Optimization | | TooFast130 -
Keywords and funels6
Describe your question in detail. The more information you give, the better! It helps give Hello, I'm Raph by name. I need your help here. After getting Keywords across the different positions in your funnel, do you now rank each page or what exactly do you eventually do with these keywords to assist your sales? for a great answer.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Mgbeme0 -
We've a client that wants to repurpose some of the content on there site but not lose rankings. However its changing the content to an alternative to ....
The Current URL Example would be test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/product-1 . This side of the business is being sold however they have products elsewhere in the range that can be used as alternatives to the product range that will be moved, so they want to amend these pages with an " alternative " slant. Example idea would be to change to the following : test.co.uk/prodcut-catogory/alternative-to-product-1, trying not to change the URL to much, keeping the majority of the content the same but adding new copy stating the benefits of using the alternative product. So it becomes a comparison between the two. I appreciate I will have to amend the URLs, titles, meta, H1s, add new copy & preform a 301's. Option 2 Simply write a second page which is all brand new content talking about it being an alternative to the products and doing a 301 from the original page but not amending that. Be great to get peoples feedback on this approach and if there is anything else that I could do to minimise the drop in rankings once I complete the changes. Thank you D
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SDOwner0 -
When to determine that a change DIDN'T affect conversion rates
Hi everyone, Description of test: We're a lead gen site trying to add more value by providing users with real, live quotes after they submit a lead. However, we don't want showing the quotes to tank our lead conversion rates. So we're running a test where 50% of leads see quote results and 50% don't, and we compare the lead conversion rates for each. The best possible outcome is to show that showing the quotes DIDN'T negatively affect conversion rates. My issue: When do we conclude the test? In the end, we're hoping to see that the change didn't cause a statistically significant difference between the control and version B, which is the opposite of every other test I've ever run. So, at what point do we conclude that the changes in version B didn't have a significant effect on lead conversions? Currently the control is doing 5% better than the variation with a p-value of .379
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ted-zarceczny0 -
Can using the Google Keywords tool and/or SEOmoz cause problems for my company's IP address?
I just started with a company a few weeks back, working on-site doing SEO work. I've been using SEOmoz as well as Google Adwords' Keywords tool. I just got a message from one of our reps saying that people at the office (and this is a huge office) have reported tons of CAPTCHAs being thrown up frequently. I told them I had been running searches with Google Keywords tool and SEOmoz, but would that really cause that much of a problem? Is there anything I can do in order to fix this, some keyword finders that won't get me in trouble, etc.?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SmokewagonKen0 -
How can I track the traffic source/keyword of form submissions?
I'm using Google Analytics on www.nhfinehomes.com and would like to track the source of leads submitted via form submissions. Ideally, I could track if the lead originated from organic search (and what keyword phrase), PPC, referral links, etc. Is this possible with Google Analytics and if so, can anyone point to some documentation on how to do this or better yet someone who can help me set this up? This site is running ASP.NET and uses JQuery so there is not a 'traditional' thank you page that I can reference. I'm not a programmer and do not pretend to be one! Thanks in advance. Link
Conversion Rate Optimization | | LinkMoser0 -
Plural versus singular keyword terms...
Hi all, I am managing the SEO for my company. We operate in a small niche market in the UK, and so our online optimisation is proving fairly successful for our main key terms as there is not a vast amount of competition and our website is well established. However I am noticing a difference in ranking position (and quoted search volume - as per Google Adwords) depending on whether the optimised terms is in its singular or plural version. Now I can understand this where the difference in the plural or singular version may lead to a different search requirement by the user. E.g. as quoted by Rand elsewhere on this forum "Microsoft Office" and "Microsoft Offices" are quite different in what the user is looking for. However for our terms the users search requirements must be identical for the singular or plural. One example is "stainless steel shower tray" versus "stainless steel shower trays", we have optimised for both now, but still rank differently for each, by a couple of places. Why does Google treat these terms differently, when users entering the terms can only be looking for the same thing? Also, Google (in Adwords) seems to show different search volumes for the singular versus the plural. For most of the search terms, the singular seems to have more volume. Does anyone know how this is working in Adwords - i.e. is Google saying, for example, 150 searches per month for "stainless steel shower tray" and 100 separate searches for "stainless steel shower trays" (i.e. 250 in total), or 150 searches per month using a search terms that contains "stainless steel shower tray", of which 100 are "stainless steel shower trays" (i.e. 150 in total)? Thanks in advance, Gareth
Conversion Rate Optimization | | gdavies090319770 -
Can Changing Meta Descriptions Negatively Impact SERP's?
I have just had a page start ranking well in key SERP's and I would like to change the meta description and add a price as we are extremely competative in that line. Could changing the meta description now a page is ranking negatively impact the SERP placing? Does anyone have any experience with this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | robertrRSwalters0