Quick tips for getting part of those hard to get KW market?

Just optimise for the question

[Macguru]

We know some keywords are almost impossible to get, especially when geographic factors wont cut in. As an example, lets imagine that "gizmo" is hard to get, and "gizmo city" is not in line with marketing plans.

I just tried to optimise for "what is gizmo?" and got surprised with the amount of referrals. It beat all expectations. I never imagined people got so personnal with search engines... ;)

Any other tip to share?

[Chndru]

>I never imagined people got so personnal with search engines..

Google's "What is...", "define..." type of queries automatically pull the define operator's result at the top. It must be that many people type like that.

[eWhisper]

We usually take our major products, and then optimize a page for widget + how to, widget + info, widget + what is, and widget + why.

It's always amusing to read the keyword logs of what people searched for to find these pages.

[graywolf]

I converted a sale the other day from an SEO page I set up a LONG time ago and had forgotten about. Out of curiosity I followed him thru the logs he searched on G for "attribute1+attribute2+attribute3+widget"

After checking, we did come up number 1 for the search but I never intended to, nor did I ever think anyone would ever type that specific a search into any search engine.

[martinibuster]

A combination of AdWords and referral log mining is a great way to capture those phrases.

I'm currently working on a project to study how many people are asking questions, what kinds of questions, and common phrase components.

Ask Jeeve's people are beautiful for submitting literal queries.