My favorite part of keyword research is when you find a keyword that comes straight from the “any port in the storm” school of thought. Whether it comes from an upcoming branding campaign or when you write something offhand in a blog post and it rings with a group of readers you weren’t even thinking about when you wrote the phrase.
My favorite offhand phrase to date that gets me unexpected traffic is, “Kierkegaard died a virgin.” (The great part is that he didn’t, actually, but that’s existential talk for another day).
Sometimes, the difference between success or failure in campaigns, especially in cases where competition is fierce, comes down to these phrases. These phrases become the details that need not be overlooked.
But how to find high-converting long-tail keywords?
Many people know the value of analytics. A PPC keyword analysis along with simple keyword and phrase searches in analytics often give people the aggregate keywords to help them on their way. But many people have a tendency not to consider the traffic along with the keyword.
For example, if keyword A came from predominately blog links but keyword B came from PPC campaigns, which keywords do you go with? If you have enough pages, you can optimize accordingly and test-test-test, but that’s where Closed Loop Analysis comes in.
Closed Loop Analysis – aka Closed Loop Marketing
The more I utilize closed loop analysis, the more I become addicted to the practice. No matter how much history you have, keywords, long tail and question phrase optimization, anaytics…what is profitable can change on something a simple as a blog post.
Or more typically, a successful branding campaign.
With closed loop analysis, you don’t simply analyze the traffic, but you break it down and analyze the conversions: What product(s) converted? What is the frequency of the conversion? How did they enter the site? Was it direct traffic, keyword search, referrer, CPC, email…What keywords did they use? If you can break down the fundamental data of those who’ve converted, then you can better optimize for that target market(s) with the hopes of attracting more like-minded individuals.
Products that provide Closed Loop Marketing data
I first learned about it when a co-worker first introduced me to Inbound Marketing. The cornerstone behind the movement is Hubspot in Cambridge, MA. They are a software company that offers subscriptions for metrics such as closed loop marketing.
If you are savvy enough, you can have your PPC, email, and media campaigns tagged and from with some custom tweeks, you can set up similar analysis in Google Analytics – remember to use a copy of the profile!
Don’t assume that just because you’ve gotten sales from a demographic that you’ve already tapped the market. Consider those who’ve already converted for you. You just might find you’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg.
Check out The Adventures of SEO Boy: Heroic Feats of Search Engine Optimization at http://www.seoboy.com/. Copyright © 2008-2009 Hanapin Marketing, LLC.
