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Keywords for Beginners: How Important Is The Query?

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 28, 2007 in SEO Theory

Matt Sawyer quoted the SEO Theory blog on his Marketing Chat forum, linking to my Query Busting: What The New Kid Should Do post from the other day.

Matt listed the four points I addressed in the order I presented them:

1. How many sites “optimize” for the query
2. How many sites pay for advertising
3. How many backlinks the number 1 site has
4. How many people actually use the query

Moderator Tim Nash thought it was odd I listed the number of people using a query in the 4th position. In the context I provided, where you’re crashing an existing, well-optimized query, I would definitely place the query traffic last. If the job of breaking into the query is more than you can handle, the size of the audience doesn’t matter.

Just because 100,000 people a day search for “american idol” doesn’t mean you should start slapping AdSense or Yahoo! ads on your brand new American Idol blog. Most of those people will click on the first listing in the search results (the official American Idol site). The other sites out there get a small fraction of the “American Idol” query traffic.

But there are related queries where other people pick up traffic. And there are other ways people get traffic. Search engines are not all there is to building traffic for a Web site. New Web sites, especially, need to capitalize for non-search marketing to build their brand visibility and value.

And that is an aspect of Web marketing that many SEOs just don’t get. The fact no one uses a query today doesn’t mean that will always be the case. When you launch a new Web site, your best search engine optimization tactic will be to build brand visibility and value through non-search channels.

To build brand visibility you need to tell people about your brand.

To build brand value you need to show people why your brand represents a benefit to them they won’t find anywhere else. In sales that is called “making the value proposition”.

Every day you are on the phone, cold-calling people, trying to get that all important appointment with them so you can make your value proposition and convert them into a buying customer. But you have to have an elevator pitch for that cold call. You have to have a 30-second value proposition.

That 30-second value proposition intrigues prospects, leads them to ask more questions, and drives search engine queries. I tell people to search for me on the Internet and they do. They say, “How do I search for you?” I say, “Just search on my name. You’ll find me.”

That kind of confidence sets up the conversion. I’ve never had anyone come back and say, “Well, I couldn’t find you” or “Hey, that was easy — no one else is named ‘Michael Martinez’.” There are many other guys named “Michael Martinez” and a lot of them have Web sites or are mentioned on Web sites. At least one is a professional athlete. But you find my site first. That is my value proposition.

And I don’t even have to state it. I imply my value proposition. All I have to do is tell people to search for my name.

Those other Michael Martinez’s all share something in common with me: we made the query. We made the brand. We created the value people seek. There are soldiers, professors, a journalist, the athlete, other writers, and just everyday average guys named Michael Martinez who have built and are building a Web presence. The people who meet them, who hear about them, all express their curiosity to know more about them by searching for them on the Web.

But I hold the top position for the name space. I did that by accident, long before I knew the query value of my name. By the time I learned people were searching for “Michael Martinez” I had deeply invested my SEO efforts in other, more challenging brands. Through the years I have advertised those brands on the radio, in magazines, through Web advertisements, and otherwise promoted them.

All those promotional efforts have built traffic and brand value for my sites. But I could have done it for my name. I could do it for any brand, any Web site.

And so can you.

If your site really does compete in a heavily optimized vertical and you’re not ranking, don’t despair. Just create a value proposition for a new brand that you dominate. Keep the brand relevant to what you do, but as you promote yourself through all other channels teach people to use your brand to search for the value they want.

Don’t say, “Search for seo-theory.com”. Say, “search for the SEO theory blog”. I give no domain names. I hate spelling out domain names. I’d rather tell people, “Just search for X. You’ll find me.” (NOTE: I have done almost no optimization for the SEO Theory blog — no one is yet optimizing for the expression). If you search for “Xenite”, you’ll find me.

The query really isn’t important if you can persuade people to use the query that shows them where you rank first.

Now, let me throw in some words of caution. The query is not relevant to your strategy only if you intend to build value for a previously unknown brand. If some SEO company comes along and guarantees top ten rankings for 100 keywords, the general consensus in the community is that the SEO company is selling snake oil.

It’s easy to rank for expressions no one else optimizes for. And the reason no one else optimizes for those expressions is that no one is searching for them. You have to create the interest in the query if you’re going to optimize for a new query. Otherwise you get no return on your investment.

Most people are generally timid about brand building. Most people practicing search engine optimization today are query parasites: they look for active queries and optimize for those. Never mind the fact that Google alone claims 20-25% of each month’s queries have never been used on their search engine before.

If your business model demands you get the top ranking for “american idol” within a week, I suggest you go into another line of business. If your business model embraces the idea of growing your search engine traffic year-by-year, then you don’t need to obsess over which queries are popular today. The most popular queries will be the hardest ones to break in to.

Build your foundation on content that ranks well for a variety of less competitive expressions and then construct a strategy that helps people find you through queries you dominate. It’s easier than most people believe. It doesn’t require huge advertising budgets. It does require three things: Flexibility, patience, and confidence.

If you believe you offer people value, the confidence you express in that value can help you guide people. Put your best query forward.

That’s not a business plan. That’s not a marketing plan. It’s a strategy. That’s not a “put all your eggs into this basket” proposition. It’s a “do this and you’ll achieve brand visibility” approach to building your business.