Rich keywords at MSN - No Traffic

[ganeshjacharya]

Dear Friends,

I've succeed getting many good keywords at MSN search, but still I am not getting any kind of traffic from the relevant keyword....

Well I do not understand that, why even when my site's getting listed for keywords like

Searched on - 5th Jan 06
========================
Search Engine Marketing Firms - 2
Search Engine Marketing Softwares - 1
Search Engine Marketing Books - 10

People do not actually search these words? Or People do not visit MSN much?

Kindly let me know the right procedure to select the right keyword at MSN!

The overture suggestions dosent seem to work well here.

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

[dannysullivan]

You should have done some research in advance to determine if the terms you are targeting are high traffic ones. Since you're asking, it doesn't sound like you've done that.

Yahoo has a long standing tool that helps:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/

You mention that not working. I ran your terms, and here's how often they were reported to be searched on in November 2005:

9133 search engine marketing firm
459 search engine marketing software
49 search engine marketing book

So the last two, not so popular. That's not necessarily an issue, however. It's not about always getting lots of traffic as much as getting qualified traffic.

Also, your second term was "search engine marketing softwares," with an s. Most people won't search for that, since the word software is both a singular and a plural form. In other words, people are searching for "search engine marketing software." And the stats above, those 459 searches, they'll including both anyone looking for software and softwares -- but most searches will be for software, no S.

A similar thing is true for "search engine marketing firms." People might search for that or just "search engine marketing firm." Which is more popular, I can't say -- but I'd guess "search engine marketing firm" is actually the form with more traffic.

Both issues are important, because you rank tops for "softwares" and "firms" but not "software" and "firm." If those latter forms are the ones actually being used, then no wonder you're not getting more traffic.

To understand how popular these terms are relatively, here's the top five searches related to "search engine marketing"

1178819 search engine marketing
9554 search engine marketing company
9133 search engine marketing firm
5805 search engine marketing services
2717 internet marketing search engine

So, you're doing well for the third most popular term -- ASSUMING people are searching for "search engine marketing firms." I wouldn't make that assumption. Instead, I think you're probably ranking for queries that are much less popular.

That takes me over to WordTracker . Unlike the Yahoo tool, it can break out the difference. I get this:

search engine marketing firm 1442
search engine marketing firms 6
search engine marketing software 14
search engine marketing softwares 0

So safe to say, these terms you think are popular aren't really.

Aside from all this, it might be that your content -- the title and descriptions -- simple aren't encouraging clickthrough. I mean, you're in the top 10 for "search engine marketing books." But you come below people like SitePoint, AllBusiness with a nice description saying "Earlier this month I posted a list of useful books on search engine optimization and marketing. As I mentioned in that post, books can get outdated, so here's a list of SEO/SEM forums that might be," a nice Amazon listing. What's your pitch about having books?

Search Engine Marketing, Optimization Firms Open Directory Project
Top Search Engine Marketing and Optimization Performers In Your Country!!! SEM and SEO Firms in ... Search Engine Marketing Blogs (1) , Search Engine Marketing Books (1) , Search Engine Marketing Courses (10) ...

Not that compelling. By the way, it's worse if I actually click through. I end up on your home page, then I have to find the right link and when I do reach your page about search engine marketing books, all it is are some Google ads and one actual listing that I'm guessing is an affiliate link to an ebook.

You really want to rank well for "search engine marketing books" and attract visitors? Build some decent content.

Pandia, for example, has a nice search engine marketing books . There's actually more books that could be added, however.

[ganeshjacharya]

Dear Danny Sullivan;

It was a previlige reading your reply. Thanks for the indepth details provided. I am sure other readers too would have learnt a lot from that.

You are right the description is not that convincing. Also, yes the selection of tense is wrong. If some one can quote the necessary steps when selecting keyword phrases and also writing good descripton's it will be great.

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

[chilleds]

With all due respect, Ganesh, you're not going into SEO, are you?

***chilleds thinks....are you having a laugh?***

[ganeshjacharya]

What do you mean by I am not going SEO?

Kindly elaborate.

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

[ganeshjacharya]

Dear Danny Sullivan,

I've again got my website ranking for Search Engine Marketing Firms in google.com. You were again right about the same. I still do not have any kind of traffic. But, yes word tracker is saying its got about 6 hits a month. Its already 2 week since it got ranked at google.com.

Do you want to say that If I improve the description and the title, I should start getting hits? How much does a nice stylist line of text help? I've noticed nice Web Icons.. put up on titles of certain website..... the one's those are seen in the webding font. You think I should now try those to improve my visitors? But don't you think I would loose my position if I try changing anything?

Thanks in advance!
Ganesh J. Acharya

Originally Posted by dannysullivan

You should have done some research in advance to determine if the terms you are targeting are high traffic ones. Since you're asking, it doesn't sound like you've done that.

Yahoo has a long standing tool that helps:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/

You mention that not working. I ran your terms, and here's how often they were reported to be searched on in November 2005:

9133 search engine marketing firm
459 search engine marketing software
49 search engine marketing book

So the last two, not so popular. That's not necessarily an issue, however. It's not about always getting lots of traffic as much as getting qualified traffic.

Also, your second term was "search engine marketing softwares," with an s. Most people won't search for that, since the word software is both a singular and a plural form. In other words, people are searching for "search engine marketing software." And the stats above, those 459 searches, they'll including both anyone looking for software and softwares -- but most searches will be for software, no S.

A similar thing is true for "search engine marketing firms." People might search for that or just "search engine marketing firm." Which is more popular, I can't say -- but I'd guess "search engine marketing firm" is actually the form with more traffic.

Both issues are important, because you rank tops for "softwares" and "firms" but not "software" and "firm." If those latter forms are the ones actually being used, then no wonder you're not getting more traffic.

To understand how popular these terms are relatively, here's the top five searches related to "search engine marketing"

1178819 search engine marketing
9554 search engine marketing company
9133 search engine marketing firm
5805 search engine marketing services
2717 internet marketing search engine

So, you're doing well for the third most popular term -- ASSUMING people are searching for "search engine marketing firms." I wouldn't make that assumption. Instead, I think you're probably ranking for queries that are much less popular.

That takes me over to WordTracker . Unlike the Yahoo tool, it can break out the difference. I get this:

search engine marketing firm 1442
search engine marketing firms 6
search engine marketing software 14
search engine marketing softwares 0

So safe to say, these terms you think are popular aren't really.

Aside from all this, it might be that your content -- the title and descriptions -- simple aren't encouraging clickthrough. I mean, you're in the top 10 for "search engine marketing books." But you come below people like SitePoint, AllBusiness with a nice description saying "Earlier this month I posted a list of useful books on search engine optimization and marketing. As I mentioned in that post, books can get outdated, so here's a list of SEO/SEM forums that might be," a nice Amazon listing. What's your pitch about having books?

Search Engine Marketing, Optimization Firms Open Directory Project
Top Search Engine Marketing and Optimization Performers In Your Country!!! SEM and SEO Firms in ... Search Engine Marketing Blogs (1) , Search Engine Marketing Books (1) , Search Engine Marketing Courses (10) ...

Not that compelling. By the way, it's worse if I actually click through. I end up on your home page, then I have to find the right link and when I do reach your page about search engine marketing books, all it is are some Google ads and one actual listing that I'm guessing is an affiliate link to an ebook.

You really want to rank well for "search engine marketing books" and attract visitors? Build some decent content.

Pandia, for example, has a nice search engine marketing books . There's actually more books that could be added, however.

[ganeshjacharya]

Dear Friends!!!

my website's also ranking at page 2 google.com for Search Engine Optimization Firms

How come i'm still not getting good amount of visitors.. ???????????

Some one please let me know.. Is there anything seriously wrong with what I've done....

domain: seashellwebs.com

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

[ewc21]

I am hypothesizing here but my suspicion is that:

You have good ranking on Google on certain keywords that are competitive but on the other hand that page title and description snippet is simply not attractive enough to searchers.

A catch-22 though, is that if you try to do some fine tuning, your ranking may slip. But I'd rather do it instead of enjoying good ranking but don't meet the traffic goals.

[ganeshjacharya]

I think I better touch that now... the description's not that good.. it could turn out for me giving better results too..... who knows.... but how can i be pretty sure that those words are actually being queried.... and I am loosing precious visitors. Google never displays those numbers.. Even with the adwords login google seems to show low traffic..

Suggest me a good way...

search engine marketing firm, gets - 8268, hits a month (at overture, that's abt 275 a day at Yahoo's network) and my website's there at the 3rd page.

Well I'm sure at least +20 visitors could be seening the SERP results upto the 3rd page every day (mine's ranking at google so the number has to be far more), trying to find something relevant, and could be my site's getting missied out b'se of the not so good details. Its too tricky to actually get a good description that also SEO friendly..

Also, it could also mean that the people who are trying to visit these are SEM guys.. trying to find where they are probably listed. I normally do not click website that's not mine unless there's something really special.

I suddenly had a thought............. what could be the percentage of SEM guys when we see in the number 8268 among the searches done... should that not be atleast 60% SEM guys finding out where they are ranking for the query.. I do often visit SERP pages to find out where's my site actually listed and often click website those seem to do well. Do search engine vade these counts out. Should search engines not exculde these visitors as they are not the potential one....

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

A possible reason you are not getting the kind of traffic you expect with a relevant keyword, is there may be too many other websites going after the same keyword phrases you are.
I use nichebot.com to get my keywords from wordtracker and overture, plus the competition percentage (how many other sites have the same keywords). When I see a low competition percentage, I know there are not as many other sites going after the same keywords, making it more likely I will get more traffic. It seems to work for MSN and Yahoo, but not Google (why, I have no idea).

cheers
dphilley

Originally Posted by ganeshjacharya

Dear Friends,

I've succeed getting many good keywords at MSN search, but still I am not getting any kind of traffic from the relevant keyword....

Well I do not understand that, why even when my site's getting listed for keywords like

Searched on - 5th Jan 06
========================
Search Engine Marketing Firms - 2
Search Engine Marketing Softwares - 1
Search Engine Marketing Books - 10

People do not actually search these words? Or People do not visit MSN much?

Kindly let me know the right procedure to select the right keyword at MSN!

The overture suggestions dosent seem to work well here.

Thanks!
Ganesh J. Acharya

[ganeshjacharya]

Dear Danny Sullivan,

Your advice proved magic to me. I did change the description after feeling a lot geeky about taking a big risk of loosing my position, but still I believed in your experience and went adhead with changing details.

Well everything went wrong for the 1st month. My webpage's ranking dropped below 150 and it was like having committed a suicide.... Then slowly I regained my position in all the search engines and the most important of all, I have started getting valid visitors... for my targetted keywords.... So, all this clearly tells that a good description is very important, and just adding a SEO friendly text alone does not do any good.

So, its very important to write a good description too, I've changed the home page description from

"Open Directory exclusive containing Search Engine Marketing, Optimization and Submission services all over the world. Find the top optimizers at your part of the world"

to

"Top Search Engine Marketing Firms and Search Engine Optimization Firms in the world at our handpicked open directory."

So, I think writing catchy lines helps now days. So, now on we'll need to be both creative and techy

Thanks a lot!
Ganesh J. Acharya