Seasonal Use of Keywords and Keyword Phrases (Dallas, TX)

The words and terms people use in their on-line searches are the same words and phrases around which your on-line content should be built. These are called “keywords” and “keyword phrases”. Sometimes even single words are referred to as keyword phrases but I suspect that is directly proportional to the amount of time the author of the phrase spent paying attention in grammar school.

For example, if someone is searching using the word, “purple” and you desire to show up in the SERPs for the word, “purple” then your on-line copy had better contain that word a sufficient number of times.

Of course the targeted keyword should appear in your content in the proper context for which the searcher is looking.

Keyword Research Tools: I’m So Confused!

Keyword research tools vary in the time horizons in which they work. Some will return search results for 30 days, some for 60 and others 90 while some return keyword lists searched for over the prior 12 months. All have their place.

Short-term searches can give us a solid feel for what terms are popular in recent history and might be successful in the near-term future. They can’t give us a handle on seasonal uses of those terms.

Longer-term keyword search results will give us a better idea for total traffic in the annual period. This will average out any seasonal highs and lows that may trick us in the short-term search results. This will allow us to identify which words and phrases to select and incorporate into our copy. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t give us any seasonality information about the best times to utilize those keywords.

Seasonality Information: Which Keywords To Use and When

So let’s use a keyword tool that gives us the short-term information, the long-term view, and seasonality information to aid in our strategy development. How can a chart like that help us?

If I’m trying to map a 12-month strategy for developing content for a client’s website I want to know two things: which words and phrases to target, and when. The chart will tell me this.

Seasonal Keyword Usage Example

For example, the term, “Academy Awards” may be very popular in January and February, taper off in March and be largely ignored the remainder of the year. Knowing this I can develop a strategy for that topic that produces content beginning in December and right on through February in anticipation of the annual event. The tapering off in interest, as opposed to a precipitous, cliff-like drop, affords me another opportunity to gather traffic by focusing on the hot-topics and related keywords that are generated by the event (Academy Awards) itself.

The second part of my strategy might be to focus my resources on other topics of interest to my client’s business for the remainder of the year since traffic for the “Academy Awards” is extremely low and doesn’t provide a good return on resources utilized.

Seasonal Keyword Strategy: Conclusion

This strategy makes good sense on at least two fronts. One, better traffic, better results for the client. Two, a happy client equates to a high client retention rate for me. A win-win situation!

Call us right now, and let’s find some time to get together and talk about your current strategies. 214-213-7445.

Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com