Google has a very innovative tool called the Wonder Wheel that you should take a look at if you haven't already.
Google Wonder Wheel is basically a simple mindmap that connects one keyword to related keywords that people are searching for. Here's how to find it:
Step 1. Search for something in Google. Whatever. It doesn't matter. I searched for the word "pony" (just because it's the first word that came into my mind).
Step 2. On the search results page there's a blue line across the page that has the search results on the right hand side ("Results: 1 in 10 of 37,600,000 for pony") and on the left hand side is the word "web" and a plus sign that says "show options" right beside it. (See it? No? Keep looking).
Step 3. Click the plus sign. A right hand side menu will open with all kinds of insanely useful information that I always forget is there – like what the search results might be in the past week or the past year – and about halfway down the page is the word "standard view". See it? Just below that is "Related Searches", "Wonder Wheel", and "Timeline".
Wonder Wheel is a graphical depiction of related searches. Sort of a mindmap of spokes branching out of the main subject. Clicking on one of those subtopic spokes will create another wheel and spoke branching off of the main one. Try it! I clicked "pony shoes" and it branched out to a series of spokes about related searches of other kinds of shoes. Keep clicking to drill farther and farther into the topic.
(And in case you're curious, "related searches" is a list of searches that contain the word "pony" – "pony shoes", "my little pony", "Shetland pony", etc; and "timeline" is another great tool, although I thought it would show the date of key searches and instead it showed the date of content: In my pony example, there is a big spike in 1860 for some reason. Perhaps it was an important year for ponies.
How can you use Wonder Wheel? Why not start by Googling your keywords and seeing what else comes up. You might be surprised what potential related searches are being suggested and it could help you to identify some important markets (or some marketing blindspots) that you need to resolve.
This is an exciting tool with several big benefits and insights.
Brought to you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.
@ContemporaryVA on Twitter. Follow the team to stay updated on business resources we deliver that cover strategies and tips, social media and more!
Posted in Online Marketing.
Tagged with google search tools, google tools, google wonder wheel, keyword research, market research, online marketing tools.
By admin
– December 11, 2009
I was recently doing some search engine optimization for a client which included some articles with keywords included in them. I think keyword rich (NOT keyword stuffed) articles are a good marketing tool. Most of the articles went okay. Then I got to one article in which the keyphrase was a four word phrase that was grammatically incorrect. I don't want to say what it was exactly, but to give you a fictionalized example, it was something like "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma". In other words, it wasn't anything you would ever use in a sentence; it was just the result from a Google keyword search. I suggested to my client that they rethink this keyphrase as an article but they insisted because 500 people a month search for that phrase.
Welcome to the attack of the long-tailed monster. The long tail – a notion famously developed by Wired writer Chris Anderson – is the idea that the accumulated amount of a small group of things is greater than the "short head", the total of the initial spike. So, when you add up all of the books sold on Amazon, the one or two they sell of millions of copies of books far outweighs the millions of copies of a best-seller. Thus, the long tail doesn't look to be that profitable for them but it actually is. (If that doesn't make sense, try reading this Wikipedia entry for clarification; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail).
The long tail applies to search, as well, as illustrated by my attempt to write an article with keywords similar to "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma" in a sentence. In this article, over at SEOmoz, they report that the 10,000 most common search terms only account for the top 18.5% of all searches.
Let me put this into perspective for you: If you were to list the top 10,000 search terms, you'd be hard pressed to do so (but you could probably list the top 250 – 500 and then you'd dry up!) but if you could do it, you'd still not be able to only account for more than three quarters of the searches done online. This study was based on 10 millions searches done in the US. That means that 1,850,000 searches were conducted with the top 10,000 terms… and the remaining 8,150,000 searches were on different terms. That is crazy!
… It also means there's some dramatic opportunity for you to target the long tail in your business. So, even though "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma" makes absolutely no sense in a sentence, it could be enough (when combined with other similar keywords) to bring in the traffic you want to bring in!
How it works in article marketing, well, that's going to be the tricky part for marketers and writers and business owners, but that's going to be the future of web marketing.
Brought to you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.
@ContemporaryVA on Twitter. Follow the team to stay updated on business resources we deliver that cover strategies and tips, social media and more!
Posted in Online Marketing.
Tagged with article marketing, keyword research, long tail keywords, Search Engine Marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing.
By admin
– December 9, 2009
