Location, location, location.

The geography of the Internet is words. They define its peaks and valleys, the desirability of the neighbourhoods and therefore the real estate values. While some words or phrases are the Oxford Street of the Internet, others are more akin to a back street of a provincial town. We look at how a Search Marketing strategy applies in the same way as finding your perfect retail location, take it away Kirstie and Phil...

Why are some Search terms more valuable than others?

The value of a retail site is a function of how many people will walk past the front door and the backgrounds, incomes and aspirations of those people (often known as the demographics). Locations on the internet can be thought of as the words and phrases people use to search for goods and services, and the websites that are returned by Search Engines for those enquiries can be seen to inhabit those locations. The more people search for a word or phrase on Search Engines, the demographics of the people using those search terms and the potential of gaining a useful economic return from that search, the more that word or phrase is worth

So should every website immediately try to locate itself within prime retail real estate? or should they manage their initial expectations and open first in a less trafficked, more affordable neighbourhood? We look at a fictitious new specialist holiday company "The Happy Walks Holiday Company" to see which, if either, of these approaches will work better.

Aiming for high value Search Terms.

The Happy Walks Holiday Company are looking to use their website to attract more visitors. To do this they have decided to aim at particular keywords that their users may use, and so they looked first at the word 'walking'. This looked very productive as it gets 1,220,000 searches per month from the UK on Google, plus some for Bing, Yahoo and others, sounds great! So they get their web guys to start optimising all their pages for the phrase 'walking', while they contact a Search Marketing company to help them reach a worthwhile position for the phrase.

So why not chase the high return words? To return to the high street analogy, for the same reason everyone does not all have an outlet on Oxford Street, because such a move will not usually provide the best Return On Investment (ROI). To get your pitch on Oxford Street will cost you a LOT, so you need to know that you can use this position to generate enough business to warrant the outlay.

In addition the vast majority of people walking past your door will not be interested in what you sell, or will fail to notice your small frontage amidst the retail behemoths that surround you.

The danger of chasing Trophy Phrases.

The Happy Walks Holiday Company have just had a shock. They have spent several thousand pounds to try and get to the top of the phrase 'walking' and they are still no-where to be found, so they decide to investigate the issue further. It turns out that there are many web pages competing for the phrase, a search on Google for the word 'walking' showed 347,000,000 sites have the word walking in them. When the search results for 'walking' are broken down, it showed that they include searches for walking holidays, walking sticks, walking boots, the walking dead, dog walking, walking with dinosaurs, walking in the air and a host of other non-productive searches for The Happy Walks Holiday Company.

The search term 'walking' for The Happy Walking Company is what is known as a 'Trophy Phrase', nice to have and looks good when you are boasting down the golf course, but in fact has little economic value. So The Happy Walks Holiday Company starts looking for words that have less competition and are more focused on their products.

So how does this fit with our High Street analogy? Supposing you could find a smaller street, less busy but where the rents were much cheaper. Admittedly there are less people, but the street has a a number of businesses related to yours so attracts more people interested in what you sell. Well that is what good keyword positioning, and search engine marketing can do for your web site.

By analysing your market sector on the web the words and phrases used by your audience can be found. Your web pages can then be tweaked so that search engines will emphasise your pages over others for those phrases. Good link campaigns can be initiated to raise your rank in the search engines index for your chosen phrases. Finally paid advertising and marketing can also be targeted to work toward raising your search engine rank.

Good Keyword Positioning wins the day.

After some searching Happy Walks instead decides to focus on 'UK walking holidays'. Admittedly this gets much fewer searches, around 4400 per month, but it also suffers from far less competition, only around 21,900 sites use this phrase. Additionally, those people using this search term will be far more likely to take a break with The Happy Walks Holiday Company, and if The Happy Walks Holiday Company decides to use paid search as an advertising option it will be far cheaper and more effective.

After some changes to their existing pages, a discussion with and a reduction in fees to the Search Marketing company, and a bit of a wait, they start to position well for their new phrase, and what's more is that the visitors using the phrase to find them are far more likely to book a holiday (or convert as it's known), so the increase in conversions makes up for any drop in actual traffic.

Picking the right keywords is just the start.

Once visitor numbers for your site start to rise, a virtuous circle can develop. However these visitors must have a reason to come back, so it's not time to rest on your laurels yet (is it ever?). A steady stream of new content, or a service that will be used time and again will help to bring visitors back. The search engines want to focus on active, interesting sites and so will detect that content has changed and improve your ranking appropriately. In terms of our Oxford Street analogy, this gets you a better site on your niche street. After all,  as every retailer knows to keep your customers you've got to keep your stock looking fresh and change the window display.

So in our Retail Real Estate analogy, as your ranking improves so you can come to dominate your street, and if appropriate open branches in similar streets. At this stage you have gained enough reputation with the Search Engines that you can begin to use it to compete for other associated words and phrase, so you are not starting from scratch in these new markets. Don't worry if this all sounds a bit retail centric and you're not a retailer, that's just the analogy, these concepts hold true for any market.

What is the take home message?

1. Choose focused, specific keywords and don't get blinded by search figures and traffic.
2. Develop content, linking campaigns and paid marketing around those words.
3. Create interesting valued content to keep your visitors coming back for more.

Because on the Internet as in so many areas of life, it comes down to location, location, location. If you feel article is relevant to you or your business why not contact Appropriate Solutions for an informal discussion over how we can help position your website for the words that matter to your visitors.