Word Tracker Fundamentals

I can't even get started!

[ChrisXenon]

I'm trying to use word tracker to find the few magic search terms I should target for my doorway pages and for my Google AdWord ads.

I understand that that these should be highly focussed for two reasons:

1. I will improve conversion ratios from the Google ads, and move my PPC into profit.

2. I will develop highly focussed doorway pages. These will consequently be less competitive (and so easier to rank high) and also convert to sales far better.

Is this reasonable?

OK. So, I purchased time on Word Tracker. Let's say my site sells Widgets. And let's say I want to build a doorway page and a Google Ad for "Shiny Widgets" - a subset of the products I sell.

The thesaurus and lateral facilities are great, and after a tedious hour or so, I have no trouble in generating a huge initial list of search terms for Shiny Widget searches.

Now I narrow down by doing the competitor analyse and I realise I'm stuffed already.

The ranked list of search terms begins with "Widgets" - far too broad and extremely competitive - unattainable.

Next follows some terms like "Pink Widgets" which aren't relevant as I don't sell them.

The relevant terms all have very low KEIs.

So now what?

I spoke to Word Tracker support. I must say that they are replying promptly - virtually unheard of these days from an internet company - and they're trying hard to be helpful, which I really appreciate.

But the bottom line from them is that I should forget focussing on "Shiny Widgets" and go for less competitve searches for "Widgets". They say most people won't search for "Shiny Widgets" anyway.

I can see how this offers *a* way forward, but it completely dumps the focussed doorway concept, and it is also of no use in designing Google Ads.

So I'm a bit bewildered, and I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer. Specifically, answers to:

1. Is the focussed doorway concept really do-able?

2. How do I choose my Google adword ads key words, if not like this?

Thanks,
Chris

[rmjvol]

Wordtracker is a keyword research tool that many good SEO's use. It should not be mistaken for the only/best/perfect tool. But it's an important part of my keyword research.

The KEI value is occasionally interesting but not very useful to me. The problem is the "Competition" factor uses a definition that I don't agree with. I really don't care how many other websites have the keyword (in quotes or not). I care about how many of the pages that rank well on the phrase are optimized.

There can be 20 searches a day, 2,000,000 sites "competing" according to WT & it can still be an effective target if nobody from WebmasterWorld has latched onto it.

Use WT in conjuction with Overture, your logs, clues from competing sites and common sense. After you've started getting some traffic, your logs will really be your best friend.

rmjvol

[jgaffney]

I use a combination of the Overture Search Term Suggestion tool:

[inventory.overture.com...]

and Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions tool:

[adwords.google.com...]

I like to start with Overture because it tells you how many times your terms were searched for in the previous month. These stats are guidelines only, but are helpful for comparison purposes.

After pasting multiple sets of Overture results in a spreadsheet, sorting and de-duping, I plug the top terms into the Google tool. You get some new terms that way; higher level suggestions and suffixes you didn't think of.

I then provide to the client in a nice report - and brainstorm. Amazing what you miss without client input.

Had a job the other day for "golf" products. Not being a golfer, I missed several important niche terms - but the client didn't!