How To Build A Query Space

SEO digest

I wrote about building query spaces more than a year ago but more recently I found myself sharing a detailed plan for building a query space.

This is an important function of search engine optimization that has not been fully embraced by the SEO community. People aren’t even sure of what to call it. “SEO for the unknown” is descriptive but somewhat ambiguous and uncertain. It’s also a bit misleading, because it implies that you need a special SEO plan for something new — that search optimization for things previously unknown to the market differs somehow from search optimization for things everyone knows about.

You can build a query space for anything, regardless of its age or relevance to the market. I began building query spaces for my own Web sites years ago when I found that competing for the big money terms required more time, effort, and resources than I had available (or was willing to allocate). I stumbled into Divergence Marketing, which is named for Darwin’s Principle of Divergence. Darwin argued that all primates are descended from a common ancestor, rather than that the ancestor of any one primate species is another living primate species. That is, a single species diverged onto several evolutionary paths to become many different species.

Al and Laura Ries applied Divergence to Marketing in 2004 in their book The Origin of Brands: Discover the Natural Laws of Product Innovation and Business Survival. Now, all they did was identify a practice that has been around since at least 1495 (and probably much longer) and borrow a name for it.

Divergence works for small brands in large saturated markets by creating specialty niches. McDonald’s and Starbucks both followed divergent strategies. By standing out from the crowd and drawing attention to their brands, they were able to grow their businesses and build market share. They used classic Differentiated Marketing and Target Marketing strategies. By moving away from the competitive crowd they became the leaders in a new crowd (in effect, drawing the crowd toward them). Divergence is therefore not a strategy but rather a principle that is defined in part by the strategies that achieve the desired evolutionary effect.

A query space consists of the queries people use to find a specific type of content AND the content that search engines list to satisfy those queries. If no one is searching for a “whizbang magidget”, the odds of anyone optimizing for that expression are pretty slim. But as soon as someone in an influential position starts talking about Whizbang Magidgets, people start searching for them. Most search engine optimization operates in a Reactive Marketing mode: we identify trends for popular searches and then create content for those searches, competing for position in the search results.

When you build a query space, you employ Selective Demand Advertising. This is a another divergent marketing strategy, where you provide information about and make people aware of your Web content. Your Web site could be all about horses, and there are plenty of horse sites out there, but you show people that you look at horses in a new and different way. You define a niche and tell people about the niche, as well as why your Web site leads the niche (without claiming to be the niche leader).

So whether you’re promoting something no one has ever heard of before or just helping a small site compete with the big boys, you want to follow the same principles and apply similar strategies. You want to build a new query space where there is no competition to begin with (and perhaps always if you can establish a protected name space, as with a very special trademark). Here is how you build a query space:

1. Pick your keywords
Think of the keywords for the query as if they were a brand, but don’t confuse your brand(s) with the keywords you’re targeting. You obviously want to claim space for any specific brands you’re promoting, but the queries you teach people to use have to be unique enough to:

1. Be memorable and enticing
2. Ensure that your site(s) rank first without much effort
3. Be short enough to be worth typing

It would probably be a good idea to grab the obvious domain names before doing anything else, because once Web spammers and domainers see traffic for those queries, those domains will be bought and used in some way. Competitors might also want to optimize for the new queries. Make it as difficult for competition to invade your query space as possible (in an economic way — limit your paranoia to prevent it from sabotaging your efforts).

2. Build your flagship Web site

You know what queries you want to optimize for and you know what brand terms you want to optimize for. Now create the content that will be the authority in the niche. Even if you’re just taking an existing site into a new niche, you need to create niche-specific content. Without the content you’re stuck in a link-building mode and that is the worst-possible way to optimize for search (it also means you’ll start the campaign with weakly relevant content, which is vulnerable to competitive strategies).

3. Rank for the targeted queries

Don’t just focus on Google. Capture the query space on Ask, Live, and Yahoo!. Go for Cuil, Snap, and any other active search engine as long as you can. Obtaining directory listings is a two-edged sword. Ideally, the new query space should have its own categories. But if you have the only Web site in town, the directories will not be interested in creating the categories. But you have a few options to choose from:

1. Wait. This is the safest option but it may mean you’ll never get a special directory category.
2. Create other Web sites. If they are traceable to you, you probably won’t get the categories unless you can substantially distinguish the sites from each other by providing unique value.
3. Create your own niche directory (on its own Web site). Use it to identify related but non-competitive sites.

Notice that option 3 helps you implement option 2, but the real point is that if you create the hub for the query space AND the content that dominates the query space, you’re way ahead of your future competition.

I did not just say go out and create cheap, faux directories. I did not just advise anyone to use directories to obtain links.

4. Create an advertising campaign

This depends entirely on your resources. Do you have the budget for advertising? Spend it wisely? Do you have the resources to engage with other Web sites? Do it carefully.

The worst thing you can do in launching a new query space is run over to DIGG and use your 100 sock puppets to drop links to your new site. Have other people done that? Sure. But did they teach anyone to use a new query? No.

You teach people to use the query expression you prefer by using it yourself. You use it in your promotional copy, in your link-dropping comments, in your Web copy, in your directory listings — wherever you can squeeze those query expressions into sites that help promote your site. Doing this not only shows people what to search for, it may help you position some powerful sites to rank under your own in the new query space.

Advertising can be subtle and blatant. Subtle advertising only works if it’s subtle. The people who leave comments on SEO Theory in the form of, “Michael, that was a great post. It looks a lot like my article at some-amateurish-website-url” are not being subtle.

Your Web site isn’t solving anyone’s problem. Your Web site IS the problem if you keep shoving it in people’s faces. You’re building a query space, not links. It’s the QUERY you want to show people, not the Web site. The Web site already ranks number 1 for the query, RIGHT?

5. Stimulate buzz

Encourage anyone who talks about the new site to use the query expression. Help them use it by using it yourself in your comments. If a blogger says, “I found this site today that talks about [some unrelated but descriptive expression]” you need to do two things:

1. Leave a polite, engaging, informative response to that blogger that also uses your targeted query expression
2. Go back and optimize at least one page on your site for the expression the blogger used to describe your site

If someone in a forum or mailing list mentions your site, instead of rounding out their mention by telling people how much your business will save their souls, talk about the concepts your site is built around without ever mentionig your site or trying to persuade anyone to do business with you. Build interest in the TOPIC, not your business.

Get people to talk about the CONCEPTS. Get them to ask questions. Don’t tell people to visit your site. Don’t suggest that people look in the search engines for your site. Just talk about the concept and teach them (subtly) to use the query expressions you rank for.

Reward anyone who promotes your site with some praise, acclaim, or links (or all) as long as you feel comfortable doing so. Sometimes a smarmy person will say something nice about someone else. Don’t feel obligated to promote a schlock marketer just because he paid you a compliment. If you would not have linked to him before he complimented you, don’t link to him afterward unless you really do feel comfortable with the link.

6. Announce the site

Some SEOs cannot seem to get through a day without publishing a press release about how they stumbled across the office threshold. The SEO community tends to squander a lot of effort on press releases. A well-timed press release works because it really does inform people about something new and interesting.

Launching a new Web site rarely provides enough justification to warrant a press release. Changing your market focus, bringing a new product or service to market, or scheduling several events in conjunction with your launch — THOSE are strong justifications for press releases.

If you want to ensure you do it right, then work with a publicist. Publicists have media connections you cannot buy, borrow, or steal. They also know how to develop marketing campaigns. There are low-cost publicists who don’t charge Fortune 500 prices. Many of them can work just fine for small businesses that are building new market share.

If you can hold five parties, news conferences, sponsored events, or whatever to announce your product, service, or marketing initiative, do so. You can generate press for each one (I mean real press) or at the very least publish a press release for each event. A publicist can help you tremendously in this area.

If you are active in several Web forums already, announcing the events in an informative, non-promotional way helps. Don’t be a self-promotional schmuck and link to your site. Just give people enough information that they can get to the event from the forum. Create value about your event on other people’s sites. Don’t just drop press releases across the Web.

Site announcements, when done properly, can stimulate a lot of traffic. You can announce them on blogs, and get your friends to announce new sites on their blogs.

7. Advertise your site and the query space

You can buy advertising both online and offline. Advertising can be cheap or expensive. As long as it reaches some of the right people and persuades them to check out the new site, you’re good.

Here are a few places where you can buy advertising:

1. Online classified ad services
2. Online advertising networks
3. Local radio and television stations
4. National radio and television networks
5. Major magazines
6. Major newspapers; both regular ads and classified ads
7. Trade magazines, niche magazines, special newsletters; both regular ads and classified ads
8. Local newspapers; both regular ads and classified ads
9. Local menu services
10. Shopper guides, trader magazines, and alternative interest newspapers
11. Billboards

Nearly every advertising publisher has some sort of price range. You should be able to find at least a few hundred dollars to advertise a Web site and promote the new queries. You can reach a lot of people with that kind of money.

It is better to plan an advertising campaign than to simply buy ads. Your campaign should have a theme, a strategy, a timeframe, and a budget. What is the point of the campaign? To drive traffic to your site AND to create a brand-like value in the queries you have selected. To become the brand that dominates those queries. In advertising, you can be as simple and blatant as, “Search for SEO Theory at your favorite search engine.”

Pay-Per-Click advertising can help siphon off traffic from related query spaces. It can also help build brand awareness.

8. Measure your success

Do people find your site through the search engines? If so, what are your metrics for determining search engine success? You need to understand why people search for your site to ensure that they are looking for the right reason. Just creating curiosity about a site doesn’t mean you’ve achieved your objective. They need to be curious about the topic of the query space and your site needs to satisfy their curiosity while intriguing them further.

If you can establish a relationship with your visitors, you’re set. It will take someone else a lot of work to knock you out of the top search results. Someone else may actually do that (it has happened to me), but don’t panic if it happens. You’ll still be well-positioned to compete for the 1st position, or you’ll have the option of doing what reactive competitors cannot do: build a query space.

You shouldn’t be afraid to consider that option once you’ve learned how to execute it properly.

www.seo-theory.com

published @ October 22, 2008