seo – keywords do the darndest things

August 04th, 2009 | Category: Heidi's Entries,SEO,Search Engine Optimization
written by: Heidi Cool

When I get a new idea for a blog entry I'll often leave a note to myself as a new post saved in draft mode. This way I can collect my thoughts before publishing the final output. Alas, sometimes one does this in a hurry, for example when flying out the door to a meeting. And thus in my rush, I hit publish instead of save draft.

Rather than leaving you with a file not found error, I'll turn this into an experiment. The note I left to myself was:

"keywords must rank high, but also be used by real people to find your stuff. intro to longtail, etc."

My plan is to dig into the idea that you can rank well for a phrase that seems useful and have it not bring traffic. Or you can rank well on a longtail phrase that seems so bizarre you wouldn't expect it to bring any traffic at all. For example try Googling Bill is Braising Shrimp. I used this phrase in a recent blog entry. It's an odd combination of words, so I'm not surprised that I rank high on it. But it's also brought 43 visitors this month. That is not something I would have expected.

What about you? Have you found SEO success through phrases you might not expect? Do you have tips you'd like to share with people trying to hone in on keywords as they develop their content? Is there anything you would like me to discuss as I elaborate on the topic?

I look forward to hearing from you!

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9 Comments »
  1. Twitter Comment... Heidi Adams Cool - seo - keywords do the darndest things [link to post] - Posted using Chat Catcher ...

    Trackback by schools4me (schools4me) — August 4, 2009 @9:23 pm

  2. Of all the things that rumble around in website owners' brains, the one that tops the list must be the search for the holy grail of search terms: something unique to your site, that sums it up unambiguously and with verve and flair, that others cannot easily appropriate, that sees into the minds of the many who are looking for just what you offer, and which is so catchy that the national news features it as an item solely on the basis of its rhythmic appeal. For some reason 'long-haired guinea pigs' is a popular search term to our blog. :-)

    Comment by David — August 5, 2009 @4:41 am

  3. I also do the "save as draft" thing but I've never accidentally posted one. Although once a guy found me by googling "tim ferriss attention economy". That is not an odd combination of words at all, although I remember that at the time Tim Ferriss' work was not nearly as well represented in the results as it is now. "Long haired guinea pigs" is all good, but I'll stick with "it was on fire when I got here"....

    Comment by Jeff Hershberger — August 6, 2009 @12:50 pm

  4. David, that is one of the most beguiling comments I've seen in ages. It's amazing how much information you conveyed in one (albeit long) sentence!

    "Long haired guinea pigs" and "it was on fire when I got here" are both excellent examples. I get the guinea pigs; they can be popular pets, but who was looking for "it was on fire when I got here?" Some soft of pyro? A teen looking to explain an unfortunate accident to mom and dad?

    One of my oddest is "squishy head" but that's my own fault. I used it in the headline, Avoid squishy head syndrome: proper techniques for sizing and cropping images. The phrase makes sense in the context of the article, but I really wonder what other people were expecting when they searched on that term…some sort of medical problem? Squeaky toys for pets?

    Most of the phrases for this blog are pretty logical (voice and tone, embedding videos, html for Web, etc.) but I've had a few other quirky ones such as:

    • strangers in the night
    • owl
    • bmv title search
    • Nike
    • guard and pro
    • nautical yells

    After seeing 'nautical yells' I have an image of Tarzan climbing up the top of a mast to yell across the water.

    Comment by Heidi — August 6, 2009 @1:37 pm

  5. The main thing to be sure of is to ensure that you are indeed writing for your audiences' needs and not your own. Clean and honest content along with a very accessible and usable site will ensure everyone can at least read there. You could also refer friends and family to your site with business cards is spreading the word for traffic is what you need. In terms of SEO, just apply common sense. If you want to rank highly in anything, then you better start writing a lot of content about your subject of interest. Also study ways to write better for the web.

    Comment by Daquan Wright — August 6, 2009 @7:29 pm

  6. Daquan
    Excellent points, common sense goes a long way. People worry about various tricks and tips for SEO, but it's really all about content and serving the needs of visitors. And it's only one of many marketing strategies that should work together to promote a site. As you mention, very simple starting points such as sharing with friends and putting your link on your business cards are great ways to start publicizing the site.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — August 11, 2009 @4:26 pm

  7. Yea I wrote a poem and it's on my site, it was called You mean a lot to me. I got lot of traffic for "poems that means a lot" keyphrase and I haven't done any SEO for it! Thanks for answering me on linkedin I am looking at all the possible suggestions.

    Comment by Prashant — August 20, 2009 @9:16 am

  8. Prashant, That's one of the interesting things about SEO, content is still the most important thing, far more so than any of the other techniques we will implement. If you write for humans, you'll often include keywords and phrases in your text quite naturally. And if you provide content that people like they will read it and link to it. I'm glad to hear "poems that means a lot" is drawing traffic for you, even if you hadn't planned on it!

    Comment by Heidi Cool — August 21, 2009 @9:40 pm

  9. [...] and direct, we can also get good results from phrases that are more unique. Awhile back, in SEO - keywords do the darndest things I asked if you were getting traffic from unusual words or phrases you didn't expect. My friend [...]

    Pingback by » SEO and reality: ranking first for ’subaqueous auto racing’ is only impressive if people actually search on that phrase | Web Development Blog: Heidi Adams Cool — September 10, 2009 @11:37 am

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