Keyword Ideas - How to use server logs for keyword ideas

SEO digest

Many of you should know by now that I regularly check SEO Theory’s search referral data. I have often written articles based on the obscure queries people use to find SEO Theory. Some days it seems like I have a gold mine of suggestions to work with; other days I wonder if I’ll ever see anything new again. There is a sort of angst redlining the SEO community that drives certain queries over and over again. These queries help provide some great keyword ideas for new articles.

Here are a few rules of thumb I’ve developed through the years for picking query expressions from search referral data when I’m looking for keyword ideas. There are probably other ways to do this. No way is necessarily the wrong way, but figuring out what is most efficient is an exercise in quantum analysis. I’ll explain why below.

1. Never pick any of the top ten most active query expressions
2. Never pick an expression you have not seen in your referral data before
3. Determine which search engine probably sent you the referral(s)
4. Pick an expression that has several variations
5. Pick an expression that is relevant to the site’s purpose

I could probably optimize for a dozen queries relating to the Robert Irvine scandal (he was dropped from the Food Network show Dinner: Impossible after being caught exaggerating some of his background). That comes of writing about the Irvine scandal a couple of times, which were good case study articles. But though I’m an Irvine fan this blog is not about Dinner: Impossible, Food Network, or Robert Irvine. Hence, all the new referrals that come in for Irvine’s name are (presently) just clutter in my search referral data. Another day, I may find a reason to extend the case study on his situation.

Although I feel it should be self-evident why you don’t want to write new copy for your top referral queries, let me make this perfectly clear: you probably already rank very well for those expressions. Now, if your site is relatively young and hasn’t captured any number 1 rankings, it’s preferable to create new content for those expressions. You WANT to play to your strengths until you’re successful enough to afford the luxury of strengthening your weaknesses.

So when do you stop focusing on your best queries and start focusing on less successful queries? First, when you have gone as far in the SERPs as you practically can (maybe you top out at number 5), rather than beat your head against the proverbial “link wall” you should turn your attention to other queries. You’ll come up with fresh ideas, your passion will shine through, and you’ll get back on the track of improving your search results.

However, unless you’ve moved into the top ten of a very active query, you’re not likely to see the same top queries day in and day out. Some days you’ll see new queries that seem to have exploded out of nowhere. If they are relevant to your site, and you can create new content for them, maybe you want to do that. It’s possible you’ve gotten a temporary boost for some topics by people mentioning those topics on blogs and forums (you can mention your targeted keywords yourself, to subtly guide people to search for them).

A more mature site needs to look deeper into its search referral data. You want to find queries that people have searched on more than once (that is, in different months). Maybe there is a seasonal pattern to the queries (in which case, be sure you create the content well enough in advance of the season peak to get your content into the search indexes and ranking). Each referral string should be carefully researched so you know how long it’s been sending you traffic, where the traffic comes from, and how competitive the expression is. You also want to know how well you rank for it.

Generally speaking, with a mature site it’s better to focus on referral strings where your pages rank below the 10th position. The traffic those queries send you should improve after you get content onto the first page. Study the other content that already ranks well to find weaknesses. There is a reason why someone clicked through to the second page of search results, so instead of trying to position similar copy in the top ten to what is already there, figure out what the angle was that made your site worth visiting. Being contrarian in the SERPs is a great way of standing out and drawing people’s attention away from the gray-colored SERP clones.

If you try to mine your referral data every day you’ll probably run out of ideas quickly. However, the more content you produce the more queries you’ll get referrals from, so the faster you add content to your site the better. Just don’t compromise on the quality of your content for the sake of quantity. Spammers sacrifice quality and they are constantly building new sites. You want one site to last a long, long time.

You can get keyword ideas from almost any source of information. If you read an article someone else has written, look for the expressions they emphasis and repeat. Pay less attention to obviously optimized content and more attention to natural, well-written content. Pay attention to what people say in their spoken conversations. How do they refer to concepts? Which brands draw their attention? What do they say they search for?

As you learn more about how people express themselves and how people search, you can go back to your search referral data for fresh keyword ideas. You can start looking for concepts that are not explicitly mentioned in the queries people use by checking advertising research tools for related queries. Your keyword ideas research thus becomes more competitive and aggressive (and by this time you should be confident enough in your ability to take on the challenge of composing articles for competitive queries).

You may find inspiration for an entirely new site in your keyword research. Your search referral data tells you a great deal about the people who like your content. They are making judgements based on what they see in the search results. Of course, you need to gauge the quality of your visitor experience and ensure that you actually provide people with the content they are looking for. But that’s a topic for another article.

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published @ October 9, 2008