Search Terms

Is it better to be optimised for popular or unpopular terms

[davey]

I'm a little confused from things I've read. I would have thought it was better to be optimised (and PPC) on terms that are the most popular, so you get the most hits. But I've read (and seen software that helps you) that it's better to be optimised (and PPC) for more obscure terms. But surely you wouldn't get sensible properly qualified traffic in this way?

[Craig_F]

people do go for the more popular terms, but often those popular terms are *very* competitive AND more general. So, it's very hard to do well and while there's more traffic if you do, do well it is usually *less* qualified than if you went after much more specific terms that are more related to your site.

[Hefner]

i think the smarter approach would be to go for keywords not "unpopular" but more "less popular". Use some software or overture's keyword suggestion tool to help you find out which keywords still get a nice amount of traffic, but are less competitive, and SEO those pages.

[Tony_Perry]

Craig_F is absolutely right. I would just like to add that it does make sense to mix the 2 up a bit. a bit of obscure and a bit of popular works really well.

[engine]

Searchers are getting smarter so choose your keywords/keyphrases carefully. Generic keywords are less likely to generate better qualified traffic, eg.

Lots of people searching for (generates 'tyre kickers'): "widgets"

People searching for better specifcs: "green widgets"

People who know what they want: "blue coated widgets"

I think you can see which would giveyou better ROI?

[Christian SEO]

We use what we call "General optimization". It involves doing scored keyword research on a wide range of keyword phrases that relate well to the site. From this we strip out all the junk and have a good list that contains the most popular and most generic keywords, to the very low score, but highly targeted phrases.

We then optimize the site and try to use as many as possible while creating titles and descriptions that are well written to "sell" the content.

What we have found is that if you analize the list you will see how you can create phrases that will include 2,3, or more phrases within the copy. It's like a kind of word puzzle.

Here is a real (but simple) example:

web site,126499
web site hosting,69480
free web site hosting,30779

If you can use the last phrase because it relates to your site, you do not have to use the first two as much, because they are contained within the last one.

This allows you to use many more phrases all through the site and match what people are searching for.

The important thing to remember is that it is easy to connect phrases to make sentences, but difficult to make good marketing copy out of them. The larger the list to work with, the easier it is.

Good luck,
Christian