Keyword Research

[TrimarkProperties]

That's funny-- I had a similar but kind of jarring experience earlier this year.

We used this super expensiving housing fair. You weren't allowed to take names or contact info. You basically paid for a booth and gave out brochures and freebies. We stopped attending when the cost went up dramatically 3 years ago.

We too ask all of our customers how they heard about us. We use a survey that asks them lots of questions when they sign the contract. A pt employee added on the "housing fair" to this year's survey by mistake.

The same % of people checked that they found us by using the housing fair, as back when we actually attended the housing fair--- even tho we weren't there!

Sometimes, customers have no idea how they heard about you. That's one of the reasons I love analytics software. It's more trustworthy than human memory.

Funny huh?

[kid disco]

This is slightly off topic, but I always ask clients how they found us (what search engine, what did they type in) and I get some really odd answers. Search engines I have never heard of, or long search phrases you wouldn't think anyone would use.

Recently someone emailed me that they found me on Yahoo under "austin texas real estate mls listings". Anyway, we all shoot for those well known high traffic terms on Google, but when you ask actual clients they might say they found you while searching on WiseNut!

Coincidentally, WiseNut is no more...

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/10...ut-is-no-more/

[JimOlenbush]

Damn! I was dominating WiseNut! LOL

[RonnieG]

With AdWords tools, here is a trick I sometimes use when estimating potential traffic for keywords for a client in a new market:

I set up a couple of very broad match keywords for that market, using one of my standard ad texts modified for that market, and go through all the motions of setting up a new ad group, including clicking on the AdWords traffic estimator that shows up after you set up keywords and as you are setting up the default bid. The estimator shows you the average position of the ad and about how many clicks you could expect daily for the keywords you entered, based on the default bid, and assuming Google thinks it has enough history on that keyword phrase to even do an estimate. You can then modify bids for individual keywords to improve the estimated positions and see the impact on click-throughs. My ads, for any market, generally get an average of 3%-5% CTR, so I can estimate total traffic for the test keyword phrases. I may then save the test ad group, but immediately pause it, so it never runs, and I never get charged for it. Nothing says you have to actually start a campaign under an AdWords account, so other than the initial setup fee, you can do this at any time for keyword research purposes, and never pay for AdWords.

The difficulty then is that the results are AdWords oriented, not 100% applicable to organic searches. Plus, since click-throughs are highly position sensitive, whether you are using AdWords or relying purely on organic results, and your organic positions can never be guaranteed, the results are still very temporary, as well as subjective. My experience is also that some very popular keyword phrases get lots of impressions, and even lots of click-throughs, but seldom produce a lead registration. This is a statistic that you can only get after substantial real-world experience and follow-up tracking of actual Analytics or other website stats, assuming your website host and IDX/lead registration process even supports that level of detail.