Long before the days of researching phrases with the helpful online resources of today, the art of keyword/phrase selection was often left just to guesswork.
However, guesswork by today’s highly competitive standards is just not good enough. So how is it possible to select a powerful traffic-pulling phrase in this fashion without researching it in real time? Better yet, is it possible to choose such a phrase and get positioned before it becomes popular?
Well of course it requires some research, but in a slightly different way. Every single day, we have a world of information that happens all around us. With all of the focus on the Internet these days, we need to also consider giving our attention to other medias as well. We have television programs, we have the news and the radio which all bring us current and upcoming events. With the news itself, there are often many ideas that can help the SEO to really think and plan ahead for some truly unique optimization strategies. I am talking about the potential of developing part of your client strategy around an upcoming newsworthy event. Of course it needs to be relevant and useful to the target audience. It also needs to genuinely “relate”.
If at first, it does not sound that exciting, let’s think about it and give you an example.
Here is a simple example.
If I were promoting a video store online right now, one of the things that I might be doing would, would be to optimize a page for the single search phrase “Johnny Eck.” Perhaps an information or a tribute page would work.
But wait….Who was Johnny Eck, you ask?
A way back in 1932, there was a movie by Todd Browning called “Freaks” starring a man named Johnny Eck. The film “Freaks” was about the fictionalized lives of physically and mentally challenged people who, in them days, were exploited in what were commonly called “freak shows”. Johnny Eck just so happen to be born into this world without the lower half of his body and was just one of the “main actors” exploited in this rather unusual film which marked the end of Todd Browning’s career as a Director.
Although you may have never heard of Johnny Eck, in over 60 years you can count on the fact that everyone will soon know who he is. The film “Freaks” (1932) already has a tremendous cult film following around the world.
So why optimize a page for a film which is over 70 years old?
What many people may not be aware of, is that a brand new movie based on the lives of Johnny Eckhardt is currently being produced. The new movie has a big budget, good script, and you can be certain that many, many people are going to plan to see this film on it’s release. There’s no way to predict for certain, but it’ll
probably be quite a blockbuster.
Simple Strategy: Optimize well and relate to the audience
As part of the strategy, you could prepare this optimized page offering to sell the old movie, which is now available on video. On the same page, I would talk about the film. I would write about my remembrances of seeing it for the very first time. As strange as the film is, it makes quite a statement about the how so called “normal looking” people can be very cruel. You could talk about the film, review it. Talk about how it made you feel. Really try to relate to the audience. In creating the content, you would write for voice, just like you were talking to an old friend. At the same time, offer some trivia or anecdotes about how the film was made. I would prepare the page and get it ranked firstly for the phrase “Johnny Eck” and perhaps secondly around the name of the old film.
The Traffic Payoff:
Usually when a new “big name” movie is released, there is always a tremendous flurry of activity on the Internet by movie goers who enjoy looking up information about it. When they start searching for info on the new film and your pages come up in the top ten, they’ll also be reminded about the old film and quite possibly want to purchase it. In this type of promotion, don’t take the page down after the movie comes out because you may get double waves of heavy traffic. Actually, if you’re lucky the whole routine is going to happen all over again when it’s released on video usually six to eight months later. Might there be a third wave when it finally makes it to DVD?
Fine Tune Your Thinking:
Think along these lines, now ask yourself if there may be value to optimizing a page around other big events that are definitely scheduled to happen. The use of a new movie release is only one idea, amongst hundreds of others. If you practice thinking this way, you can develop strategies for retail, professional clients or even business-to-business Web sites. Newsworthy events happen all the time.
– Do you think “the Olympics” might benefit a sporting goods store which offers an overview of the various participants.
– Do you think that a scheduled tour of a famous rock group might influence traffic to a music site offering a contest for free tickets?
– How might that upcoming children’s film influence traffic to a toy store?
These are only a few quick examples but learn to think laterally about news events. Take full advantage of the media in its entirety to bring maximum benefit to your clients. It’s just a matter of paying close attention to those big scheduled events and creatively examining how these might benefit a your strategy.
In the scenario I explained above, it would be ideal for a video store who is selling old classic films to (if they have any films available starring Johnny Eck) to take advantage of the public interest that might be generated by a new movie.
By the time the film is released, (assuming it is created at all) I expect there will be a flurry of interest about this actor’s life and any old films he may have appeared in.
John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops http://www.searchengineworkshops.com with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive “hands on” search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team.
john@searchengineworkshops.com
