Keyword Analysis...
From Long Tail Keywords to Site Concept Keyword
By Ken Evoy
Start your keyword research with a "big picture" perspective...
Traffic to your site first starts arriving from searches for keywords that you did not even anticipate. As you add some links and content, you start getting found for TIER 3 pages, then TIER 2. The last keyword you will usually generate traffic for is your Site Concept Keyword since it is usually the broadest.
When you do start ranking well for your home page, it will ultimately be your single most important traffic-builder. Even then, though, your TIER 2 and 3 pages will add up to way more than your home page. For example, even if Nori's home page disappeared tomorrow, it would not drop her traffic by more than a few percentage points.
So what does this mean in terms of keyword research? Supply and Demand for your Site Concept keyword is not the be-all and end-all. You have to look across your entire set of keywords that will form your site.
Traffic grows from the bottom up and not from the top down. Build a great site with real content about hundreds of Specific Keywords related to your theme and you will automatically generate a ton of long tail traffic. (Nori's site is found for over 12,000 words.)
A "Bottom to Top" Example
Let's use the keyword "How Does Stress Affect Health" as an example. We'll work our way bottom up (i.e., long tail keywords, then TIER 3, then TIER 2, and then your Site Concept keyword).
Long Tail Keywords
"How Does Stress Affect Health" has no Demand but it is one of those long tail keywords that you'll win without even trying, when you create a TIER 3 page about "stress affects health" or even perhaps a TIER 2 about "stress and health." There are literally thousands of long tail keywords and in fact, they are searched on every now and then (half of Google's hundreds of millions of searches are "one-ofs").
All those onesies and twosies add up, of course, but you don't have to specifically create a page specifically about them. "Long tail traffic" just happens -- they have virtually zero competition and since your site is good and relevant you "win" almost automatically. (Click here for more long tail details.)
TIER 3 Keywords
Now let's take "How Does Stress Affect Health" and turn it into a Specific Keyword that does work for a Web page. The same principles apply when you are trying to broaden any Specific Keyword or Site Concept (i.e., reach greater Demand).
The basic concept is to broaden a keyword by removing a word from the keyword phrase. This article talks about how to use this technique to develop a Site Concept Keyword. You can also use it to turn a long tail keyword into a TIER 3 or even a TIER 2.
So, looking at "How Does Stress Affect Health"... DAY 2's Step 1 points out that you can do quick niche checks using Wordtracker's free tool (here's how) and/or using Google AdWords Keyword Tool (here's how).
Let's check "stress," the most relevant word in "How Does Stress Affect Health"...
Google External Keywords brings back the following keywords that also have "health" in them... "stress health" and "stress and health."
And at Wordtracker... "stress affect your overall health" and "stress health" and "stress affects health" and "effect of stress on health."
Make a TIER 3 page with the Specific Keyword "stress affects health." Sure, the actual material you write about will very likely be all about "How Does Stress Affect Health" (your original Specific Keyword). But the point is...
You do not have to optimize for that long tail keyword. You'll win for that particular search anyway. But "stress affects health" has real Demand, so that's the keyword you want Analyze It! to pass you on.
See my forum explanation about "The Thick End of the Long Tail."
You could also push this to TIER 2...
TIER 2 Keywords
How about "stress health," which is the most common term humans likely enter? You could get creative and "create" a disease called "Stress Health." Your page focuses on this disease, mentioning it in all the right places, while creating great content about how stress negatively impacts your health. This is a solid TIER 2 type of page (depending on where you plan to take your overall site) that links to a whole bunch of stress-related illnesses as TIER 3s, for example.
This is also a good example of not becoming number-bound and applying human judgment. Your knowledge of this niche, and your desire to create a solid site that makes the most sense, means that you should over-ride the numbers (easier to be confident in this, too, when you cross-check with Google and Wordtracker).
"Stress health" could not only be a fine TIER 2, but turning it into your own named disease and that starts to feel like a brand, something people would remember. And there does seem to be enough Demand here for...
TIER 1 Keyword (Your Site Concept Keyword)
"Stress health" might even make a decent narrow-niche Site Concept.
Site Concept Keywords will almost always be 1- or 2-word keywords. There will be exceptions, of course. For example, "bed and breakfast" has three words but that is likely too broad -- you will likely narrow this down by adding a word, perhaps geographic (ex., "texas bed and breakfast"). So 4-word Site Concepts are possible.
It all depends on the situation.
Key Point
Demand and the overall keyword research and analysis, and how much time you have for your site (less time? make your niche narrower), all go into deciding how narrow you want to go for your Site Concept keyword.
