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New keyword research tool

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 15 Jan, 2009
Essential Essential topic

We all know the Long Tail is important to keyword research for search engine marketing. This recent keyword analysis by Hitwise from US data showed that top 1,000 search terms account for just 11% of traffic:

  • Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic
  • Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic
  • Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic
  • Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic

We all see similar patterns in our own / client's web analytics, with the majority of individual referrals from tail keyphrases.

But how can we understand the long-tail phrases we need to target and refine our existing approach?

Pattern recognition through stems and qualifiers

I have always believed that successful keyword research and copywriting for SEO is down the analysts "pattern recognition" based on finding the main stem terms and qualifers using this type of structured analysis and format:

<pre-qualifier(s)> + [stem(s)] + <post-qualifier(s)>

+- <cheap> +- [product name] +- <location>

For example:

Cheap beach holiday in spain
Cheap beach holiday in tenerife
Cheap beach holiday spain
Cheap beach holiday tenerife
Cheap beach holiday to canary islands
Cheap beach holiday to costa adeja
Cheap beach holiday to spain
Cheap beach holiday to tenerife
Cheap beach holidays canary islands
Cheap beach holidays costa adeja
Cheap beach holidays spain

Concentrate long-tail analysis

How to refine this analysis? Step forward Concentratewhich is a new search tool that is focused on understanding consumer search behaviour, going beyond the listings of keywords related to a search term as available in other tools such as the Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker or KeywordDiscovery.

The graphic below shows how Concentrate me can readily help identify stems, qualifiers and word sequences to target and how different competing sites are exploiting them.

ConcentrateMe search patterns and qualifiers
ConcentrateMe keyword search patterns and qualifiers

This graphic is from an advanced version of Concentrate and requires other paid data sources like Comscore and Hitwise to be uploaded if you subscribe to them.

For those who don't have access to these data sources, Concentrate also offers the option to plug their existing Google analytics data to understand search behaviour for visitors reaching their site.

Here is another example:

Concentrate output
Concentrate keyword output

If anyone has any experience from the demo or full version, please tell us what you think.

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

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