Choosing the correct keyword phrases at the beginning of any SEO campaign is vital for that campaign’s success, and the wrong phrases can waste countless dollars and hours pursuing those ever-elusive wild geese, targeted website visitors interested in what you’re trying to sell. Choosing the correct keyword phrases requires in-depth research using a variety of SEO tools, such as Google Adwords, Keyword Discovery, SpyFu, Wonder Wheel, and the perhaps all too often overlooked Google Trends.
I recently began keyword research for a client who sells romance ebooks online. My initial research showed that the base phrases ‘romance story’ and ‘love story’ would most likely produce the best results (Naturally, I would be targeting longtails containing these base phrases). As always, I typed each phrase into Google in order to determine the type of competition I’ll be up against and, lo and behold, the results for ‘love story’ returned results for Taylor Swift’s song ‘Love Story’.
In order to determine if this was a recent development that would muddle the keyword phrase for a short while and then pass away, I entered the phrase into Google Trends and found that the traffic for the phrase remained fairly steady until late November 2008, when it received a tremendous spike. After a little research, I learned that this coincided with the release of Taylor Swift’s album Fearless, featuring the song ‘Love Story’.
Because the inflated results for the phrase ‘love story’ and the high likelihood that traffic may be searching for a Taylor Swift song, I decided to abandon that particular phrase and pursue more promising, less muddled keyword phrases.
