Negative Keywords

[300m]

I work on a few different domains and almost never have this particular issue, but for one domain, it seems to be a historic thing...

I was looking over my statistics in Google Analytics and noticed that one keyword drives the majority of traffic to the site. The site has a couple hundred pages and they all bring in their fair share of traffic, but nothing like this one keyword.

The thing about this keyword is that it is kind of a negative keyword for my niche. I know why I am #1 for the keyword in every search engine, but really try to think of a way to convert more on that keyword.

When I say a negative keyword, I do not mean its a bad thing. Its more so a keyword that has extreme relevance, but it is not exactly what the searcher was looking for.

So my question is, how can you convert on a keyword that has relevance to the site, but people are not entirely looking for what I have on the site and will never be able to find that exact (we will say product) for that keyword as it does not exist anymore.

Sounds like I am targeting something I shouldn't be? Not really, it's just a keyword that I rank for and have ranked for since before 2000 and I know that some sales come from that keyword, but not nearly to the capacity that I beleive it could.

Would it be better to have some kind of "hey searching for this?" somewhere on the home page (specifically in the golden triangle) and create a landing page specifically for them to go and learn that while the keyword is immensly niche popular, it really does not exist anymore, but here is something better?

Or would leaving it be "as is" and roll the dice that it will convert to a sale?

I am just trying to come up with ideas that could turn a keyword that generates a large amount of traffic to my site in to a better sales ratio for that keyword. I am just trying to look outside of the box.

Thank You :)

[mona]

Would it be better to have some kind of "hey searching for this?" somewhere on the home page (specifically in the golden triangle) and create a landing page specifically for them to go and learn that while the keyword is immensly niche popular, it really does not exist anymore, but here is something better?

Why not give it a shot? It should be easy to set up. And if you get that much traffic, it shouldn't take long to compare the results of the landing page vs no landing page. Good luck!

[300m]

Thanks, I think i will give it a whirl next week. One follow up question, knowing that for some reason the people that are passionate for that key word, would you take the glam wham bam approach on the page they would go to, or would you try and be a little more sympathetic to their phlight?

[mona]

Can you run AdWords on the page? If it ranks really well for the keyword, you'll probably get very targeted ads. Maybe you would make more $$ sending people exactly where they want to go instead of redirecting them to a page on your site that isn't quiet what they want?

[300m]

No adwords, the keyword does not exist anymore. Kind of thik of it as a popular extinct search phrase.

Organically for that keyword it is ranked #1 and has been for years. What i did this morning was include a google CSE in the top left side of the home page and I am hoping they will use the site search to refine what they are looking for.