Why Search Phrases Convert Better Than Keywords

Few marketers realize that they need to write headlines and other copy to be relevant to both the search engines and human readers. This costs them in PPC bid prices, a 30 second bailout rate of over 25%, and dismal, if any conversions.

Uber Relevance is easier to demonstrate than explain using Mustang for the keyword, since we all know what it means. Right? Since Google has to guess the context, it may pull up 2 results each for the horse, car, fighter plane, and two other contexts for mustang.

This search term is meaningless in most cases since it is only 10% to 20% relevant. It's only apparent purpose is to discover other contexts, so it can be used for preliminary research, not a keyword to target unless you have a corporate grade link-building budget and staff that can do battle at that level.

Fortunately for us, 35% of all searches are done for 1% of over 32 billion search phrases- the obvious ones like car, camera, cell phone, mp3 downloads, etc.

Another 35% of all searches go to one-hit wonders with a life span of 1 search, so we can totally ignore 70% of all searches before we even begin to look for our niche.

The vast majority of the remaining 30% is usually very easy to index and debut on page 1 for. I've debuted 3 pages on G1 (Google's page 1) for their terms with only 1 article linking to them. Hubs and lenses make very high value links that can bring traffic as soon as its indexed.

The nuclear option is to let the moths out of your wallet and give USFreeads.com $28 for a premium membership and feature ad. This can look just like a webpage or hubpage or lens or whatever, but the SEO connections are thru their daddy Google, so uber relevant content can drop as many as 50 incoming links on your article/presell ad in very short order.

Is there a difference between a '67 Mustang, '87 Mustang, and '07 Mustang? You bet your promotional budget on it. This first extra keyword, the year, cut the number of visitors while qualifying them somewhat. State, region, city, river, and street names can do the same thing. If all else fails, benefits are a good way to lengthen the tail for monstrous relevance.

This search term is too short to aggressively minimize the 30-second bailout rate, so let's go for buyers by eliminating the background searchers. Let's add the keyword "bearings" to come up with 67_mustang_bearings for our search term.

But we can add still more Google and human searcher relevance by using our search phrase in 6 places-

• The title meta tag shows up in the search results like the headline of a pay per click ad. It must scream to the viewer that your site has what he's looking for.
• Description meta tag shows like your search results ad's body copy: concise proof of the headline's claim, asking for the click (visit). Old school SEO wastes this with keyword stuffing, but that's our gain.
• URL: which looks more relevant to a searcher- joes_mustang _parts.com or 67_mustang_bearings.com ? Since mechanics require precision and quick results, your URL alone promises both. Even though you and Joe sell the same stuff, your URL is more relevant to your visitors' needs because it implies the generality of a warehouse inventory. Joe may or may not sell small stuff like bearings. His URL can imply junkyard just as easily as it can warehouse.
• First sentence, or at least first paragraph.
• Last sentence or summary paragraph.
• Copyright statement at bottom. This must be in text (not graphic) to be searchable and help the search engines figure out what the site's all about.
• Name your divisions, graphics, and CSS stylesheet with their purpose and your uber-relevant URL.

There is no need to go out of your way to sprinkle keywords throughout your actual content. Google actually frowns on it, and the newer rankings are generating lots of griping from '06 school SEO types.

The bottom line is that since Google wants to deliver the most relevant results in the number one slot for the particular search phrase. Being truly relevant to your readers' needs- human and machine- as expressed or implied by the search phrase, this simple template and technique will put your landing and inner pages there with tremendous set and forget staying power.