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KEYWORD
TARGETING: THE SEARCHES AND THE SALES
By
Carlos De Paula
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As with
anybody who is trying to make a living using the Internet, keywords have become
almost an obsession with me. Lately, though, I have been compelled to think
about the matter in another, almost metaphysical light. So far I had been mostly
concerned with keywords that were directly connected to my business, now I think
a little differently. But that is another story. Let’s leave this thought
aside and go to the meat and potatoes.
In the
course of my studies, I began to think in terms of keyword popularity. I won’t lie. I was trying to find a new
product or service that could fit in my current Internet presence, and that
would not require an MBA or multimillion dollars to handle. So I began
researching the subject, and came up with a rather weird observation.
The two
parameters I was looking for was the most widely searched keywords, and the most
expensive keywords. For those not familiar with Pay-per-click schemes, certain
search engines, like google and yahoo, have advertising programs where, rather
than charging a fixed amount from advertisers (the typical banner ad), you
choose keywords and the amount of money you want to spend, both in terms of
individual click and total budget. Your success will depend on keyword
popularity, demand for your product, and of course, your position in the ad
queue. It is a nice way of seeing the law of supply and demand at work. If you
are selling very popular products, the keywords are expensive, and the lower
amount you choose for your maximum click, the worst positioned you are. Yet, if
you price your clicks too high, but have a small budget, your ad will show very
little. Well, I think you get the drift. These lines are not really a tutorial
on Pay-per-click programs, but I suppose an explanation was necessary for those
not yet enlightened.
One
might imagine that if you matched the list of 500 top keyword searches on the
Internet, and the 500 most expensive keywords, there would be quite a
substantial amount of overlap. Nope!
To my
surprise, the world has not progressed much in terms of searches, years down the
line. I remember back in the year 2000, just before the bubble burst, that there
was a lot of discontent among those trying to do business on the internet, to
the effect that a very large proportion of the search engine queries had to do
with sex. There was a perception that people basically used the internet for
titillation, not business. Guess what, we are in 2005, and a vast majority of
the search engine queries have to do with sex!! In fact, the most popular search
is “sex”, by a large margin, and the 2nd, Paris Hilton. Although video games
and bands have quite a showing, it seems that sex is still the driving force of
search engine volume. Genitalia and sex styles abound, and so do female
celebrities of the young and sexy set. Starting with Paris Hilton, on to Carmen
Electra, porno star Jenna Jameson, and the list goes on: Britney Spears, Jessica
Simpson, Pamela Anderson, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Hillary
Duff, Jessica Alba, Mariah Carey, Katie Holmes, Christina Aguilera (surprisingly
ranked 118th), etc etc. Even some yesterday news, such as Demi Moore, Anna
Nichole Smith, Nicole Kidman and Jenny McCarthy, are still on the list. Men,
very little: Eminem and Ludacris are notable in the top 100. A surprising
appearance in the list of top searches was lady racer Danica
Patrick, who ranked 89th. She was also the only athlete ranked in the top
500 most popular searches!
A look
at the top 1000 most expensive keywords is also surprising, in that the content
of these is totally different from the top 500 searches. I fact, one sees very
little sex among expensive keywords, or celebrities for that matter. Not even
Paris Hilton! The expensive keywords are definitely more “business driven” .
Casinos and gambling pretty much rule in the top rung, with web hosting and
domains a close second. Credit related keywords (such as mortgage, loans, debt
consolidation) also feature strongly, and so do health related keywords.
So here
is the story: most of the traffic on the Internet involves non-paying searches.
However, quite a lot of the most popular search keywords (sex, bands and
celebrities) do not generate even a single google adwords advertisement. On the
other hand, a lot of the most expensive keywords generate senseless google
searches! So much for optimization! These are two different worlds!
Conclusion:
popular keywords do not necessarily generate business.
I did
run a trial ad in google, with some of the most popular search keywords, to
check out whether one could use the most popular searches to drive a lot of
traffic using the adwords program and still increase sales. And then I found out
that while the number of impressions was huge, the number of clicks was
extremely disappointing, resulting in keywords being disabled within 24 hours,
due to google’s threshold criteria.
In other
words, there are definitely at least two types of distinct internet search engine users (there is at least a
third that does not really concern us in this article, but I will mention for
the sake of clarity). The first type of user is looking for free information
exclusively: he will probably not even click on ads, because he knows there is
no free ride. He/she is not interested in spending any money (many might not
have any to spend or don’t have credit cards, like kids), and his/her use of
the internet is primarily for entertainment. He/she is seeking thrills.
The
second type (which still seems to be in the minority, in terms of
keyword search volume), uses the Internet to do business. His/her
searches are product/service driven, with the resolute intent of consuming
products/services and spending money. This is the really interesting type of
user, the one that dishes out the bucks.
The
third type uses the Internet for research. The searches do not involve Paris
Hilton or boobs or playstation 2 cheats, but are rather more serious,
scientific, factual, academic research searches, made by journalists,
professionals, students, lawyers and academics in general. These involve both
unpopular and inexpensive keywords, which are basically devoid of any commercial
interest.
So back
to the drawing board. If you have any answers, tell me.