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SEO/SEM   URGENT - Need Help Fast!  
 
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The Best Choice Of KeywordsPremium Member
Posted By: AriRose on 1/16/2007 1:29 PM (CST) 125 Points
www.cpehr.com

We are a private LA based firm that provides human resources consulting and outsourcing to business based in California. In choosing the best words to optimize, the catch phrases of HR Outsourcing, HR consulting, human resources management, etc.. are highly competitive, and the top 10 spots are controlled by large, national and global corporations.

I use Wordtracker for my keyword research, but I don't find it is helping me hone in on the search terms I can optimize and have a chance of grabbing.

Will incorporating phrases such as "California HR services" or "California human resource firms" or "Los Angeles HR consulting", etc... be helpful? None of these even hit the radar in Wordtracker so I can't make an educated decision.

We are in the process of redesigning our site and incorporating new content, keywords and meta tags, so I'd really appreciate any insight! Thanks.

Posted by: jmiller Member Response
1/16/2007 1:39 PM (CST)
First, I'll say that as a professional SEO provider, I do not use Wordtracker and have not found it helpful.

I use the Yahoo! Search Marketing tool, found at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. This tool provides (for free) the number of searches done for a term in the previous month on Yahoo!. While this isn't Google data, we've found that the number of searches for keywords is fairly relative between Yahoo! and Google. So the comparison you need to make is between keywords -- how do they relate to one another? Which terms, relatively speaking, are searched more often? It's been a pretty accurate gauge for us.

Incorporating your state or city will probably make your SEO effort easier, but there will be less searches on these terms -- although they will be MORE TARGETED, which is the key. It's tough to control geotargeting through SEO, and so we do the same thing with our clients -- including a state or city where appropriate for clients who need to geotarget iin SEO.

I'm actually posting a training session today via Webex on my website on how to do effective keyword research. It costs $20. Check http://www.search-mojo.com/training tomorrow and it should be up there if you're interested.

Thanks!

Janet Driscoll Miller
Search Mojo
 
Posted by: W.M.M.A. Member Response
1/16/2007 1:40 PM (CST)
Welcome!
First, I think the site needs to be redesigned...definitely.
Second, it seems from your post, that you are primarily attempting to have your site as primary traffic-builder, to sell your services. If I am incorrect, let me know.

Key words are great...but SEO, and forgive me my SEO colleagues, is not a primary marketing tool for HR Services. I have worked within the HR field for one of the largest PEO's and a couple of the best HR and Staffing software design groups...I know the industry fairly well.

You need to get out there and drive business to your site. Make people aware that your site, and your company exists. Your marketing strategy should be strong enough that the site is inconsequential.

Not that it makes a difference to your grouping, but I didn't have a site for 10 years. If you use your site for primary marketing, in your ever-competitive industry vertical, and you rely on the numbers from this...you will be very disappointed.

Please, what other marketing are you doing to grow your business? HElp us to understand a little more about your firm and industry placement.

Randall
WMMA
 
Posted by: NuCoPro Member Response
1/16/2007 1:59 PM (CST)
To add to what Randall has said, I just read an article in BusinessWeek about how companies are starting to abandon keyword ads. Seems the "Big Players" have grabbed off most of the prime words with outrage click bids.
 
Posted by: holly* Member Response
1/16/2007 2:20 PM (CST)
Hi AriRose,

Have you checked your competitior's sites? I'm a copywriter for an SEO firm, and our keyword research is a very extensive process.

Two very effective strategies that have proven very successful for us are:
brainstorming
visiting competitor sites

My advice: begin by thinking from the customer's perspective. What terms would customer use? And then, take a look around at your competitors sites to see which words they are optimizing for - you may not want to target the same exact words, but this will give you a general idea.

Good luck.
 
Posted by: excellira Accepted Answer
1/16/2007 2:42 PM (CST)
The tool that jmiller references is good but only provides half the picture. You can manually look up competition but this is time consuming and you can easily overlook opportunities and you do not benefit from the artificial intelligence built into some of the software systems. I do however recommend the tool for those who do not wish to purchase additional services. It can be handy if you wish to hone in on some keywords that you have already researched.

Wordtracker is a great tool for most SEO projects. I agree that some industries are not best served by it. It is a paid service which is typically cost-prohibitive for most site owners. And most site owners can’t spend the time to learn how to use it properly. However, it does provide a more rapid and complete picture when used by a skilled operator.

I am a bit stunned by WMMAs post suggesting that you should not optimize and market your web site. Regardless of industry, that advice in this day where electronic media is growing rapidly and conventional media has to “adjust” may not be in your best interest.

Adjusting your web marketing budget may be beneficial (up or down). Abandoning your site marketing efforts however may not be a good option long-term. Keep in mind that everything has to be in balance. Web marketing should be a component of an overall marketing plan.

If a site is not converting customers there can be many factors preventing this. If you created a space ad for a publication and it wasn’t converting you’d rethink it right?

The reason most sites don't make money is because that most people don't understand the purpose of a web site.

A commercial site is not a brochure that you can point prospects to. This type of site is bound to be unsuccessful and it is the type of site most people are accustomed to. A good site however is a complete marketing, sales, and customer service system. It can and should prospect for you. It should be able to close sales (or at least bring the prospect closer to the close if you have a complicated consultative sales model). It should be able inform the customer post-sale. And more.

As for your keyword question my advice would be to skip keywords that have very few searches. If you look at keyword selection not as “what do I do” (ie human resources) but what benefit do I provide and what problems do I solve I think you will find some better keywords.
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/16/2007 2:47 PM (CST)
Vevolution - I don't believe that AriRose is referring to PPC keywords but rather on-page optimization.

As for PPC ads being too expensive many companies are willing (knowingly or not) to lose money on PPC campaigns. This is not a strategy I recommend. ;-)

There are many methods available to dramatically lower costs and produce a favorable ROI.
 
Posted by: AriRose Author Response
1/16/2007 3:07 PM (CST)
Thank you for all the excellent advice, although there is obviously no 1 correct answer.

We have a very modest marketing budget, where SEM is approximately 50%. It includes PPC, SEO and email marketing. The other 50% is traditional direct mail, print materials and trade shows. No print advertising.

I understand the need to speak in the buyers language, not our own corporate language. But at the end of the day, you must type SOMETHING into a keyword finder tool. The question is - what do you type? All the competitors seem to have the same stuff...
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/16/2007 3:49 PM (CST)
Again, what is it that you do FOR the customer. You don't "human resource" do you? Think of what a prospect is looking for rather than what you sell. You reduce payroll costs. You prevent hiring/firing issues. Etc.
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/16/2007 3:52 PM (CST)
I suggest that you meet with your staff to discuss the words that best describe the problems you solve for your clients. Call some clients and ask them the same thing.

What you come up with is a good start to your word tracker effort.
 
Posted by: KathySmithFilms* Member Response
1/16/2007 4:33 PM (CST)
Good post...a lot to be learned about improving your website for all of us working to build a better tool for business. Thanks for blazing the trail and setting a good example for me.

"The objective of Search Engine Optimization is to increase web visitor counts by ranking very high in the results of searches using the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site. This relative ranking is often viewed as a struggle to best use a few keywords, instead of a struggle to out-do your competition. If you search on your target keywords, you will see the leading site in the rankings. All you need to do is to be better than that number one site. This page suggests ways to optimize and improve search engine results with ranking and placement advice, information, hints, tips, and clues to improve your search engine keywords relative to existing leaders. After all, better keyword ranking is your real objective." http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm

This is one we also use that is reliable:
http://www.webuildpages.com/tools/

And, this helps for a guideline in your task
http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1534/1/The-10-Commandments-of-Link-Buildin...
Delicious dot com has a lot of good examples when you type in key words to other simple solutions. All the best,

Kathy
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Member Response
1/17/2007 12:49 PM (CST)
It is my experience that HR outsourcing is never done based on websearches. But, a well designed website is a "must have" for credibility.

Your site looks good, but I would begin thinking about how you use your site to make a difference to the person who has narrowed his decision process to you and another competitor.
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/17/2007 1:04 PM (CST)
Interesting. This is the second response stating that the web is not a good prospecting tool for HR outsourcing. Both are subjective however.

I do not have experience with this market but based on their bio's neither response is presented by search engine marketers. I'm wondering if there is any scientific data presented by those who know how to market web sites which proves this point.

I'm not intending to be argumentative but rather to learn. Is the problem that the market can't be reached in this manner or that it has been undertaken by those whose expertise falls within other realms. My initial thought is the former.

What do you think AriRose? You probably have more experience with this than any of us.
 
Posted by: AriRose Author Response
1/17/2007 1:23 PM (CST)
It is hard for me to believe that a prospective client would not research HR outsourcing online. Why would this industry be unique?

Based on our Google Adwords campaign, the following four search terms ALONE had a total of 15,000 impressions in the 4th quarter 2006 - "human resources management", "hr consulting", "california hr" and "hr management". Our small campaign of 30 keywords had a total of 25,000. And we have a limited budget so there were undoubtedly more.

I don't think the question is IF we should try optimize our site. The question from the start has been HOW to optimize our site and compete with the Fortune 500 HRO firms.
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/17/2007 1:33 PM (CST)
I know there are exceptions to every rule but I think in this day it would be difficult to come up with an industry that can't be prospected and sold online effectively. I thought it would be more credible coming from you Ari. ;-)

Thanks for the info.
 
Posted by: bcoots Member Response
1/18/2007 2:19 AM (CST)
I would agree that it seems a very broad (and likely incorrect) statement to say prospects in X industry aren't using the web. EVERYONE IS USING THE WEB. Everyone.

When I tell others in my industry that 90% of my closed sales (these are high dollar sales $30,000+) come from one Google AdWords campaign, they look at me like I am insane. It's hilarious, especially when they realize we are making more than them annually, for less than 1/10th the marketing budget, and with much less effort. They are all sitting around saying "no one searches for x product online" while we scoop up all the sales that allegedly don't exist.

Testing is key. Both Google and Yahoo let you build campaigns to track dozens and dozens of keywords, which means you don't really have to know the exact perfect key words before you begin. Try out a lot of the most likely ones early on (I used the Overture keyword tool to find my initial lists) and narrow the field based on your results. You may lose a little of your budget to trial and error, but testing is the only truly guaranteed way to find the magic key words.
As time went by I started to see the trends and was finally able to make sense of what my customers where ACTUALLY searching for, and I have honed in on those words. In the meantime, my competitors are all still fighting over the $5.00/click keywords that don't seem to bring in the really hot leads anyway.
 
Posted by: jerome B.* Member Response
1/18/2007 3:16 AM (CST)
I like bcoots answer. Google & Yahoo are both offering tools that drive you, with time, to the right exhaustive list of keywords based on web search analyze around your core keywords. I've personally started with 40 main keywords and after 2 years I manage 200 hundred keywords including some you would not have even imagine by yourself but brings cheap clicks. For SEO, I do the other way round by analysing the PPC campains and implementing the most expensive keywords in my SEO.

Second, Google also offer a tool that gives you the potential of clicks for your campain(s). It helps you to build your web marketing budget and secure your ROI estimation.
I wish it can help.
Regards,
Jerome B.
 
Posted by: 5starAffiliates Member Response
1/19/2007 11:23 AM (CST)
There are a couple of other keyword tools you may find more helpful that just using WordTracker or Yahoo. These tools combine several keyword tools in unique ways.

http://www.nichebotclassic.com/
http://www.nichebot.com/

Hope this helps and best of luck.

Linda Buquet
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/19/2007 11:54 AM (CST)
It is good to have the tools but to know how to get into the customer's mind is the important part of doing keyword research.
 
Posted by: dminenko* Accepted Answer
1/19/2007 1:19 PM (CST)
I will try to make story short. Yes, you can use all tools mentioned above, but they won't help you much in your situation. These days you can't beat big companies for top 10 spots in search result pages unless you have really well optimized website and use services of SEO specialists.

1. If you are doing business locally then please use keyword phrases that contain your location's names. Don't hesitate to put phrases with 3-4 words. It will bring more targeted traffic to the site. You don't need simply visitors. You need potential clients locally.

2. Don't focus too much on keywords, they mean nothing for Google, which usually drives 80-90% of organic traffic.

3. Focus on good content and functionality for your new web site. You can get visitors, but you need to convert them into users (clients).

4. To generate more traffic start Google AdWords campaign. Unfortunately, today you can't avoid spending money on PPC, for many sites that is the only way to have traffic coming. Start small but really targeted.

5. Use all kinds of free or low cost advertisement for your site to get people know about your business and visit your site. More traffic will get more attention from search engines.

6. Try to get as many one-way inbound links to your site by registering it with so called 2nd tier (smaller) search engines, web and business directories, portals, partners, etc. More links will get more attention from search engines.

I do web design and SEO professionally for last 8 years and these days I feel kind of sorry for all "little guys" on the web who are trying to get high organic ranking on Google and other search engines. It is close to impossible unless you know what are you doing or hire somebody to do SEO/SEM for you (if you have budget for that).

Good luck!
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/19/2007 1:48 PM (CST)
Above is a good post.

This "2. Don't focus too much on keywords, they mean nothing for Google, which usually drives 80-90% of organic traffic." is true for meta keywords tag - not true for page content.

Also, competing with the big boys means working around the major keywords. Highly targeted keyword terms that are two, three, or four words (or more) long will help bring traffic from less competitive, but highly targeted terms.
 
Posted by: AriRose Author Response
1/21/2007 6:19 AM (CST)
Thank you everyone for a fantastic posting. There is a lot to consider here, not only for my own site, but hopefully others who have read this.

I am left with one question, however: I am not clear on "2. Don't focus too much on keywords, they mean nothing for Google, which usually drives 80-90% of organic traffic." is true for meta keywords tag - ...."
Why not? I always thought meta tags were important? Thanks again.
 
Posted by: excellira Member Response
1/21/2007 12:56 PM (CST)
It would be unadvisable to not focus on keywords.

Researching keywords that are interesting and relevent to your target audience and then building content around them is a great way to extend the basic content requirements of the site.

Keywords on the visible part of the page that is and in the correct density.

The keyword metatag does not have the importance it once had. Keyword stuffing to get improve rankings killed it. It can still have value (though slight) but it can hurt you more than help. Having just a few (one, two, or three) keywords in a meta kw tag per page is ideal. If you need more then you should have more pages.
 
Posted by: susan Member Response
9/17/2007 12:57 PM (CST)
KeywordSpy.com a try for a keyword research tool, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time.
 


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