How difficult is it to get to the top of Google for a phrase like "marketing and advertising strategy" and does it mean anything anyway?
I have just watched a video from UK marketing man Chris Cardell from his VIP Inner Circle about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and this is a subject I know a bit about myself.
This video commits the same deception I see from people selling SEO services by picking an impressive sounding phrase like "marketing and advertising strategy" and saying "look go and check Google and you will see that I know what I am talking about because I am top of Google".
I should point out that Chris Cardell is not representing himself as an SEO expert but giving tips on how to improve your Google ranking as part of a bigger marketing initiative so this is not intended as a dig at him.
It's just that he's inspired me to point this out and use it as a specific example because I see so many SEO firms doing the same.
When I go and check Google for "marketing and advertising strategy", Chris Cardell's website (cardellmedia.com) is indeed there at number one in google.co.uk .
It looks very impressive too as when I checked Google as listing 41,100,000 pages for the phrase "marketing and advertising strategy".
But what does it mean? Is there any value to be number one for "marketing and advertising strategy"?
For that you need to know how many people are searching for the phrase.
To find out you can turn to the Google Keyword Tool which gives you the chance to interrogate Google's worldwide database of searches.
It's easy to use and just set the match type on the right hand side when you get to the numbers to "exact" or you will get inflated numbers.
And at the moment, "Marketing and Advertising Strategy" is showing 46 searches on average per month throughout the world.
Narrow it down to just the UK and it comes back with the answer "Not enough data".
That's right there are not enough searches for "Marketing and Advertising Strategy" to make it worth trying to optimise the page.
Sadly I see this manipulative technique used all too frequently by people trying to sell you SEO services.
I get quite a few emails and even telephone calls from people who want to get me to the first page of Google. They go away when I point out I am already there - see Google business coach.
You can fight back with the Google Keyword Tool since you only want to be spending the time and money optimising for phrases that will give you regular traffic.
I must admit I was surprised at how low the searches were for marketing and advertising strategy. II would have thought that it was human nature for Chris Cardell clients to try out the search and see for themselves the results.
Strangely enough I would say that the page is not well optimised.
Another good clue on whether a keyword phrase is worth optimising for is to see how many pay per click adverts there are for the phrase. If people think it is worth being on page one, they have the choice between investing time and / or money in SEO or to pay for clicks.
I won't go into detail for what Chris Cardell revealed in the video except to say that he is emphasising the importance of having incoming links which I agree with. I wouldn't downplay the importance of on page search engine optimisation.
Now I am not going to try to build incoming links to the webpage for the phrase Marketing and Advertising strategy because, as I've shown, there is next to no traffic for it but I will be interested to see how it ranks for what is basically on-page optimisation.
What that means is that I have included the phrase Marketing and Advertising Strategy in
- the title
- the text on the page as it is scattered around with reasonable frequently without committing the sin of keyword stuffing which is the over use of the phrase
- in my meta description which is the two lines of text you see below the main title when you search Google
- the meta tags which are not supposed to be used by Google these days - but I put them in as good practice since you never know when the Google Algorithm will change and I think it adds to relevancy.
Update - Google Frustrates My Experiment
This does seem to happen sometimes but when I checked a few weeks after writing this blog, it doesn't appear anywhere in Google when I search for marketing and advertising strategy.
For some reason the page hasn't been indexed and I must admit it is another very good reason for doing some work on building up incoming links.
Hopefully over time the Google spiders will pick up this page and index it. Then we'll see how well it ranks.
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