Take Advantage of Your Own Popularity!
One of the biggest areas ANY website owner struggles with, is finding ideas for new content! Sure, we all “think” we know whats best for our visitors based on our own experience and research, but how about taking it up a notch, and delivering content on top of what they already like!
This post is going to walk through a simple way of discovering exactly what your existing readers like, turning that into fresh content, and ultimately appealing to an even wider reader base. Along the way, we will also see how we can leverage the existing content to further our goals of higher rankings for the shortest possible, and highest volume phrases!
I base almost all of my site building strategies on the philosophy of a keyword funnel. By attracting as much long tail, highly relevant traffic into the top of the funnel, as your efforts start paying off, the short, memorable and high volume phrases will be spewing from the bottom, along with the dollars!
A Peek Into Reality – Your Logfiles!
When was the last time you looked at your log files? I mean “Really looked at them“, and used them to build momentum from? They are one of the BEST tools you have, to determine what you should be doing, and if you don’t spend at least a few hours every month parsing your logs for info, you lose!
What can You learn from the Keyword Section of the Log Below?
Bill from the Blog Enterpreneur shot me a message with his site info within minutes of the volunteer request I posted, and the site he sent is a very good example to use!
(Screenshot from AWStats > Search > Search Keywords)
Exploiting Your Popularity & Preventing Dilution
Before someone asks – there is no tried and true set of numbers to work from here! You simply take what is working, your seeds, and combine them with opportunity to further build momentum!
I know Bill, and I know he believes in the same philosophy, that ranking in the top 3 for a few high volume targeted phrases can be MUCH more successful than ranking in the top 5-10 for 50 phrases! Ultimately, we want ALL of our phrases to achieve a top-10 ranking, and the phrases with the highest volume, to reach into the top 3!
Since I can see that the words at the top of the chart have already proven they are working, I want to take advantage of that and build onto them! By keeping these seeds in place, I can also prevent dilution of the terms and actually use them to help the overall site rank better for the higher volume terms!
- Seeds – Trainer, Trainers, Reviews, Bike, Bicycle
- Opportunities – Indoor, Mag, Minoura, Fluid, Kinetic, Cyclops, Blackburn, Kurt, Forza, 1UP
Building New Content & Making Existing Content Stand Out!
As I start looking at the new content I will add to the site, its VERY important to understand the leverage already in place with the seed words, and start reducing them to shorter phrases, that you want to rank better!
Action Point – In ALL new content added to the site – start linking the shorter, high volume phrases to their respective sections!
- Bike Trainers (home page link)
- Bike Trainer (home page link)
- Bicycle Trainers (home page link)
- Bicycle Trainer (home page link)
- Trainer Review (review page link)
- Trainer Reviews (reviews page link)
- etc…
By adding these links outside of the navigation structure and into the actual content – they will help the shorter phrases gain relevance! It also helps to revisit your existing content, making subtle changes to reflect your targets.
For new content ideas – Opportunities + Seed(s) = New Relevant Guide Content! For example:
- Indoor Bike Trainer Reviews and Guides
Using tags, build a custom page, that focuses on the indoor aspect of training. List 5-10 reviews below your content. - Mag Bike Trainer Reviews
Write a post or page about Mag or Magnesium type trainers, and list top 5 Mag Trainers at the bottom of your content. - Minoura Bike Trainer Reviews
100-200 words about the brand itself, along with links to the various brand reviews on the site. - Kinetic Bike Trainer Reviews
Another page or post about this “type” of trainer, complete with a list of comparable reviews from the site.
In the case of Bills site – he actually has the site structure for each of these opportunity pages already in place and can easily create a custom category header for each, add in 100-200 words of his own content, and start in-linking to those pages with relevant anchor text immediately!
Taking it Farther Down the Road
Looking at the list I created above, you would think I am suggesting Bill work on getting his site to rank for things like “Mag Bike Trainer Reviews”, or “Kinetic Bike Trainer Reviews”. Truth is, it already does rank well (Top 10-20) for those phrases…
By making small changes – those longer phrases will move into the top 3, and bring the shorter, high volume phrases, right along with it!
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- GuruWannabe SEO Advice, and Why You Need to Avoid The Traps!
- There’s Gold in Your Logfiles – Start Panning!
- How to Find Quality Domain Names
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
I used to use these keywords to generate more content, but with so much going on I had gotten away from(actually forgot) this keyword method. Thanks for the reminder
Lol…I guess I better get my butt to work.
:-)
@Bill – Shoot no… you are already there man!! Do you know how to make custom pages for your different categories?
Shoot me an email if you need help on it. Its the best 10 minutes you can spend on your individual brand pages.
The whole “Indoor” trainers is a tough one since its really the ONLY way people look for them. DUT, since there are no “outdoor” versions (in search demand anyhow) you have to MAKE it a relevant phrase on your own!
Ahh the wonderful world of search! :-)
BTW – I am THOROUGHLY impressed with the site and the traffic its achieved! Very well done!
Mark
Is there a way to see keywords within GA and the percentage? Right now I have only been able to see keywords vs count vs bounce, etc. Since I have so many keywords it would take forever to figure the percentages.
@Carl – I haven’t seen how GA breaks down the individual words Carl… it only shows the “phrases”.
There MAY be a way… but I don’t know how!
If you have a cpanel hosting account – just jump into your awstats. webalizer, or other stats program installed through your host. It should show the individual words.
Mark
I’m really getting sick of this QCP crap, bunch of my sites just got the dreaded .00 per click figure today (first time, but handful still did OK). Good thing is, 2 days ago I talked to a Google Adsense rep on the phone and they made some Adsense Ad placement suggestions for my site (best performing BANS site I have). Today after I implemented the placement, my CTR went from 1% to 2.5%. I’ll take that increase anyday and my EPN clicks haven’t changed. Bend over rover. Now to make that subtle change on my other sites; I only had 1 adsense block on the sites, now I’ll have 2. Goodbye to Chitika, like pulling teeth to become a publisher with them and I don’t find the ads relevant as an advertiser. Google love time, maybe jungle love (mzon) too – your next.
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