Is it worth ranking for single-term keywords?
February 6, 2008
In examining the sites in my three way links network, I've noticed quite a few folks targeting single keyword search terms (i.e. "puppies" or "networking" or "apparels"). It's a small minority of all keywords, to be sure, but still enough that I felt the need to write about whether or not it makes sense to target single terms.
To get right to the point, most of the time it does not make sense to target single keyword search terms. There are exceptions, of course, which I'll discuss in a minute, but first let's go over the 3 reasons why it usually does not make sense:
1. Untargeted Traffic
In most cases, it's impossible to know precisely what a searcher is after when they put in a single search term. For example, somebody searching for "puppies" might be looking to buy a puppy, or perhaps they're wanting to find information about how to care for puppies, or maybe they just want to see pictures of cute and cuddly puppies. There's no way to know for sure based on a single keyword.
2. Low Conversion Rates
Because the traffic is so untargeted, and it's very difficult to know what a searcher is after, your conversion rate from a single keyword search term is inevitably going to be very low. In keeping with our previous example, if somebody is searching for "yorkshire terrier puppies for sale" you know exactly what to have on the page that you rank for those keywords. You know what the searcher wants, and can hone in on that desire and fulfill the need.
If you rely on AdSense or another pay-per-click program for income, the low "conversion rate" means a low click-through rate. AdSense, as good as it is about targeting ads to a page, will have a difficult time knowing what ads to show on a page that is very generic in nature. But for a page like "yorkshire terrier puppies for sale", AdSense will usually be spot-on.
With a single keyword search term you can only hope that what you have on the page appeals to some of the visitors who find your page. You can, of course, provide a variety of choices on the page (puppies for sale, puppy pictures, puppy care, etc.) but keep in mind that too many choices is not a good thing for improving conversion rates. Too many choices on a page leads to a visitor being overwhelmed and less inclined to act in the manner which you would like them to.
Keep in mind, too, that somebody searching for a single keyword is less likely to know what they want to begin with. If somebody is unsure of what they're looking for, they'll be equally unsure about buying from you. Again, this leads to lower conversion rates.
3. Too Much Work For Too Little Return
Despite the lower conversion rates for single keyword terms, they are notoriously difficult to rank for in most situations. That's because many deep-pocketed companies still see the volume of traffic they receive as being at least as important as the return on their investment to get that traffic. "Long tail" keywords (keywords with 3+ search terms) are generally much easier to rank for because the competition is a lot less fierce.
Very large companies are looking to brand themselves as much as they are looking to actually sell something from the potential customer's first visit to their web site. They want to get their name out in front of as many people as possible, with the understanding that if they consistently do this, when the time comes for the individual to actually need what they provide, their name will pop into the customer's head. It's basic psychology, and it works very well.
But smaller businesses can't afford to wait years before they see a return on their investment. They need to have a solid conversion rate from the get-go to warrant the constant effort and expense it takes to maintain their search engine rankings. If you're in that crowd, then ranking for single-term keywords probably isn't the right goal for you.
Exceptions to Every Rule
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. Some single-term keywords are much more narrow in definition, and therefore more likely to be worth ranking for.
For example, anyone searching for the acronym "SEO" is quite likely looking to increase their search engine ranking, so it's not hard to design a page around that need if you rank for that term. There are many terms which are also narrowly defined enough to be quite targeted, though they are, of course, in the strict minority.
Also, if your site relies on a CPM advertising model (where you're paid by the number of ad impressions, rather than the number of ad clicks), ranking for a single term keyword can be quite lucrative. Because those same companies that want to build brand awareness are also happy to pour money into advertising for that same purpose. It's not the number of clicks they care about so much as the number of eyeballs that get the company's logo burned into their brains that matters.
From My Own Experience
I realized the truth about single keyword rankings a couple of years ago when I got a site ranked in the top 10 for the term "veterinarian". I was sure that with all the traffic I would receive that my site would be a big earner — but it wasn't. The traffic was there, but the term just wasn't targeted enough to get a high click-through rate from AdSense or to be able to convert into any kind of real sales. I finally stopped working to maintain the ranking since it was not giving me nearly the return I had expected.
So when you're sitting down to determine what keywords you want to rank for, keep in mind that, unless you're looking to brand your site or to earn from a CPM model, single keyword terms are usually not worth the effort.
Please leave your thoughts in a comment below.
Niche Site Case Study Week 10
October 23, 2007
It's been a little over 2 months since I first started my niche site case study. Every few weeks results in a surge of improvement over the last, and this time is certainly no exception. After getting back from a two week overseas vacation with my family, I was delighted to get back and see the improvements.
Here are the overall traffic stats:
On September 27th, the date of the previous case study update, the site had received a total of 949 unique visitors. Less than a month later, that total is now at 2183 visitors, an increase of 230% in about three and a half weeks. Not bad at all!
Very little of my traffic is coming from EzineArticles now. Here's my site referrer list:
And my total EzineArticles stats:
Google is now the site's dominant source of traffic (which was what I planned for). Here's the search engine stats:
AOL is sending me a little bit of traffic, too, since they use Google's search results. The site is now ranked #4 and #11 for its two primary keyword sets in Google, and has received traffic from 261 different keyphrases. To rank the site, you may recall, I distributed 10 unique articles to EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com, and put my site into 3WayLinks.net. 3WL is what's responsible for my #4 and #11 ranking, although my distributed articles have gotten me about 50 links from other web sites so far as well.
The revenue has more than tripled since my last posted update. The update from September 27th stated I'd earned $29.81 from AdSense. As of this morning, that total is up to $86.85. In addition, I earned my first AuctionAds revenue of $3.25, for a grand total of $90.10.
My daily revenue average is up to $2.30 per day over the last 28 days of the last update. I'm very close to my goal of $3 per day.
To repeat myself from the last post: my goal is $3 per day per site, because achieving that results in about $1,000 per year per site. Since it only took 5 hours of work to do everything required to get this site built and ranked, it would be easy enough to create 50 or 100 or more sites that achieve the same goal. Do the math: 50 sites a year at $1,000 per site per year is $50,000. One hundred sites is $100,000 a year, etc.
I've decided that this is the last case study update I am going to post. I think it's very clear that the method I've followed has worked very well, even in a two-keyword market as competitive as the one I've targeted. Honestly, I think had I been just a little less ambitious in my keyword selections that I would be in even better shape, with both of my keyword sets having top 3 ranking in Google. I'm not unhappy, though. As it stands the site will certainly reach my $3 per day goal very soon.
As a recap, here are the tools that I used to build the site:
- Niche Inspector - This desktop software tool helps you find profitable niches to create sites around.
- HypreVRE Gold - This desktop software tool is what I used to create the niche site for the case study. I used the Gold (paid) version, not the free version.
- Instant Article Wizard - This desktop software tool is what I use to create all of the content for the site super fast. You need unique content if you really want to rank well, and IAW is the tool I use to create it (even if I know nothing about the subject).
- 3WayLinks.net - This is the service that I've put the site into to get it ranked in the search engine by building up link popularity while I sleep.
Of the four tools, Instant Article Wizard and 3WayLinks.net are really the stars, in my opinion. IAW's ability to create unique, rankable content really fast, and 3WayLink.net's ability to get the site ranked by building link popularity with virtually no effort on your part are really the bottom line tools.
That said, I like using Niche Inspector because it makes finding subjects to create sites around much easier, and I like HypreVRE because it makes it a breeze to build the sites. I've heard from others who prefer some different tools for those things. However, I have yet to hear anyone suggest any content or link building tools that come anywhere close to the power and ease of IAW and 3WL.
I hope this has been an educational case study for you. If you don't take anything else away from this study, I hope you'll realize that with a little hard work and a bit of patience, you can create profitable niche web sites very quickly.
My method is the antithesis of the million dollar orange. The story goes like this: a man has a fruit stand on the corner of a busy street. On the stand he has only a single orange. A curious pedestrian approaches the man to ask him about his fruit stand, when he sees the price tag on the orange: $1,000,000.
"One million dollars!" exclaims the pedestrian in surprise. "Who's going to pay such a price for that!"
The owner of the fruit stand replies: "I don't know, but I only have to sell one!"
As you might imagine, the fruit stand owner is going to be there a very long time trying to sell that million dollar orange. I prefer the opposite method: create multiple streams of small, profitable web sites. Rinse and repeat a proven method (like the one demonstrated in this case study), and the profits will roll in fast (with no waiting around to sell the million dollar orange).
Here are the links to each of the previous posts, for your reference:
Please post your comments and questions below.
Niche Site Case Study Week 6
September 27, 2007
I said I would wait two weeks before posting another update on my niche site case study. Well, it's been two weeks, and the traffic for the last two weeks is almost equal to the traffic for the previous month. Here's the stats:
Two weeks ago the total was 575 unique visitors. Now it's up to 949. Notice, too, that the total visits is 1,337, which means that about 30% of my visitors are return visitors. That's very important, as it demonstrates that visitors are seeing the site as a quality site worth revisiting. I thank the tools I used to build the site for that.
Even six weeks into the game, EzineArticles.com is still sending traffic. Here's the screenshot:
That's 269 total visitors sent from EzineArticles.com this month. Here's a snapshot of my EzineArticles stats screen:
According to this, EzineArticles has sent 413 visitors since I started the case study in mid-August. Comparing the stats to the stats from two weeks ago shows that I've gotten at least 100 or so additional unique visitors from EZA in the last two weeks.
Some exciting movement in the site's ranking in Google. Thanks to 3WayLinks.net, as of yesterday my site is now ranking #11 for its primary keywords in Google, and #14 for its secondary keywords. To date, people have found my site via 198 different sets of keywords. Thus, my Google traffic has officially overtaken my EzineArticles traffic for the month:
My traffic spiked now that I'm ranking better in Google for my chosen keywords. That resulted in a $2.90 AdSense day yesterday. That may not seem like much, but multiply that over a year and it's $1,058.50 — from one site. Build 50 or 100 similar sites and… well, you get the picture. So the goal is to keep things moving in that direction (which they are doing nicely).
I've also started getting a little bit of traffic from some of the other search engines (AOL and MSN/Live).
I am very happy that my site is already at the top of page 2 in Google's results for my primary keywords — and in only six weeks! I can't emphasize enough the power of 3WayLinks.net to get sites ranked like this. I'm hardly alone. I've read dozens of incredible success stories of 3WL members who are seeing the same results.
No doubt in a few more weeks my site will rank on the first page, resulting in far more traffic. The first page of results for any search engine gets a lot more traffic than the second page, and the top 5 results get far more than results 6 through 10 as well. My goal is to get my site in the top five for at least 2 of its 3 chosen keywords.
To date the site has earned $29.81 in AdSense revenue. I've been running AuctionAds.com ads on the site now, too, and despite 8,039 impressions, it hasn't earned me a dime. I'll be patient, since I've only gotten 38 clicks and the ads are well-targeted, but so far I'm not impressed.
$30 in 6 weeks may not seem fantastic, but look at the growth in earnings per day since the case study began:
Week 1 : 13 cents a day
Week 2 : 16 cents a day
Week 3 : 39 cents a day
Week 4 : 66 cents a day
Week 6 : 71 cents a day
My goal is to get the site up to $3 a day in revenue. Why? Because that means its earning about $1,000 a year. 5 hours of work for $1,000 in return per year is $200 an hour. Not a bad wage! Repeat the process 50 or 100 times and… like I said, the goal is clear. The site may do much better, as many of my sites do, but that's the goal.
Also, with Google you have to be patient. It takes a solid 2 to 3 months to rank well (even with 3WayLinks steadily aiming more links to your site from its network of websites). So don't give up on a site just because it's not getting a lot of traffic and earning wads of cash in its first few weeks.
Finally, one observation that I'd like to make is that my AdSense CTR is awful on this site, only 5.47% overall this month. However, it's spiked in the last few days since I started getting more traffic from Google for a variety of new keywords. Over the last 7 days my CTR was 6.46%. I hope that once the lion's share of my traffic comes from my primary and secondary Google keywords, my CTR will continue to rise. The preliminary evidence appears to be pointing in that direction.
I'll post my next case study update in about one month (October 25th). My family and I are going on vacation next month, and so I won't be available to post until then.
As always, to see exactly what I did to create this niche site from scratch, with only 5 hours of week, click this link.
Please post your thoughts and questions in comments below.
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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