InfoKwik Marketing & SEO

Ad network Chitika has published interesting findings from an examination of a whole lot of search-driven ad impressions. Specifically, “Chitika looked at a sample of 41,103,403 impressions of search traffic coming into their network between June 13 – June 19.”

The company found that 26 percent of (organic) search-driven traffic was the result of “three-word searches.” Here’s the full breakdown of organic search volume by query length:

1. Three words: 26 percent
2. Two words: 19 percent
3. Four words: 17 percent
4. One word 14 percent

Chitika added that “any query beyond five words will see dramatically lower traffic.”

Yet the effect is different for paid clicks. Chitika said, “The highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words.” This validates the conventional wisdom about longer-tail queries being more qualified. However clicks appear to drop off after about five words.

The study doesn’t parse queries into commercial and non-commercial categories unfortunately.

Improving website performance is hard work, and SEO alone will not get the job done. The following analysis of human search behavior is the first step in developing a world-class website strategy. Top performing websites have most of these traits in common:

• They understand in detail human search behavior.
• They have strategically invested in information architecture.
• They have a commitment to develop and deploy high-quality content on a scheduled basis.
• They understand the role quality visual design (UI) plays in successful user experiences.
• They believe in human factors, and conduct usability tests.
• They don’t let technology impact products and services in a negative way (gratuitous use of web 2.0 gimmicks).
• They have high engineering standards, and validate their code before shipping.
• They understand that SEO page markup has to be based upon quality content, not gimmicks.
• They understand technically how crawlers and search technologies impact content find-ability.
• They understand that a first-page search engine ranking has more to do with high-quality content, and a superior user experience.

You should keep all these factors in mind when developing your website strategy. However, here I will only focus upon item number one, which is how do you figure out what your customers are doing when they are looking for your services.

Search behavior analysis

Choosing keyword phrases randomly, based upon volume or Google’s suggestion can lead to success, but you never really know until you try the phrases out. This costs time and money. A better way to insure success is to take a step back, and look at the total search experience as it is reflected in an AdWords data set. This means manually reviewing each keyword phrase, and classifying it to one of several behavioral categories—usually less than ten.

A quick look at the keyword phrase “home improvement” shows that nearly 10 million people a month search for home improvement products, services and information. When you examine the data to see what is going on topically you can identify nine categories of distinct search behavior. They are looking for:

1. Home improvement products: 1,477,100
2. Home improvement by specific project: 1,039,700
3. Home improvement by quality and value: 274,860
4. Home improvement company by Name: 208,890
5. Home improvement companies in general: 199,040
6. Home improvement TV / Media: 60,420
7. Home improvement advice, blogs & reviews: 88,000
8. Home improvement projects in general: 46,490
9. Home improvement financing: 6,900

Let’s look at each of these categories more closely.

Home improvement products

The largest category (1.48M) is informational in nature. In these searches the user is looking for product and information using vague terminology. They use just four secondary terms to modify the primary keyword phrase. In order of importance (volume) the terms are:

1. Tools
2. Hardware
3. Products
4. Appliances

Home improvement by specific project

The second largest category (1.04M) is users looking for information so that they can learn about or transact for services for a very specific project. There are ten secondary project related terms in this group, with the top four accounting for the lion-share of the traffic. In order of importance by volume:

1. Bathrooms
2. Flooring
3. Plumbing
4. Kitchens

The remaining six project related terms account for about 5% of this categories traffic.

5. Tile

6. Mobile home

7. Roofing

8. Drywall

9. Siding

10. Basement

Looking for products and services by quality and value

The third largest category (275K) is users who are concerned with quality and value. Hands down they are more concerned with quality than they are with value. The important observation about this category is that the lexicon of terms being used is small, and they should play a role in ad copy and page markup. The secondary terms in order of importance are:

1. Quality
2. Discount
3. Best
4. Value
5. Reliable
6. Affordable

Looking for a company

The fourth and fifth largest categories (209K and 199K respectively) are users looking for a company by name, or looking for a list of companies. Users searching for a specific company by name is the larger category. A review of all the company names show that these firms fall into two major categories:

1. Home improvement stores selling products
2. Home improvement contractors

When users does not yet have a specific company in mind they search for company related information using more ambiguous secondary terms such as:

• Stores
• Contractors
• Construction
• Centers
• Companies
• Services
• Design
• Websites

The Home Improvement TV series

This is the fly in the ointment. The sixth largest category (165K) is users searching for information about the Home Improvement TV series. This category needs to be understood so that the dominant secondary terms can be identified for exclusion from web page ad copy. The dominant secondary terms in this category are:

1. TV
2. Season
3. Video
4. Tim
5. Series
6. DVD
7. Cast
8. Set

The important issue here is that a company who develops and markets “how to” videos and DVD’s for the DIY community will likely get traffic that they are not really interested in.

Informational searches

The seventh category (88K) reflects users early in the search cycle. They are in research mode, and are looking for ideas and information. These terms represent rich content opportunities. The dominant secondary terms in order of importance are:

1. Ideas
2. DIY
3. Advice
4. How to
5. Guide
6. Reviews
7. Green

General home improvement projects

The eighth category accounts for 46K search a month. These searches are informational in nature, somewhat vague and cluster around three broad terms that have several meanings:

1. Remodeling
2. Repairs
3. Projects

Transactional queries

The final category (6.9K) is transactional in nature. There is very little traffic but it is valuable traffic because searchers are looking for ways to finance their home improvement projects. The top terms are:

1. Money
2. Finance

Observations about queries

It’s useful to remember that 71% of all consumer search terms are nouns, and 7% of search terms are adjectives. This means that nearly 80% of all queries are noun-noun or adjective-noun phrases. This is important when considering your SEO page markup and page copy strategy. Since verbs, for example account for only 2.4% of all search terms, you would not sweat bullets over their usage in your website. The linguistic profile for human search term usage is:

1. Proper noun: 40.2%
2. Noun: 30.9%
3. Adjectives: 7.1%
4. URI: 5.9%
5. Preposition: 3.7%
6. Garbage strings: 2.5%
7. Verb: 2.4%
8. Punctuation: 1.4%
9. All other parts of speech: 5.9%

So, how does the “home improvement” data set look when considering the importance of adjectives, nouns and phrase word order? There are three things that can be observed about these consumer queries:

First, 66% of the queries have this noun-noun pattern: home improvement [noun]

Second, 23% of queries have a proper noun-noun pattern: [company name] home improvement

The remaining 11% of the queries have an adjective-noun pattern: [adjective] home improvement

There are a few examples that don’t fit this model—but, as a rule-of-thumb linguistic search behavior follows these three simple patterns that we see with the “home improvement” data set.

A search behavior model

The primary thrust of user searches in the home improvement category is for information about products and information about remodeling or repairing a part of the home. Searchers are also looking for ideas, advice and reviews—and are interested in doing some of the work themselves. Quality and affordability are very important, and is reflected in the search behavior.

The secondary focus is searching for companies that provide contracting services, and companies that sell hardware. And finally, there is an interest in financing these renovations.

Modeling a content strategy

Once a search behavior model is understood you can use this information to develop a content strategy. The following strategic content model reflects human behavior in the AdWords dataset. Many users tend to start their search sessions using ambiguous queries such as home improvement remodeling, or home improvement projects. They then move to specific keyword terms, using phrases such as home improvement contractors, Home Improvement Bathroom or home improvement DIY.

The use of the terms remodeling or repairing is practically the same in intended outcome—the searcher wants to improve a portion of his house. Customers are using two different phrases to frame a single concept. From an information architecture perspective you could use these two categories as funnels on custom landing pages depending upon what preferred phraseology is being used.

When you view all the categories from an organizational perspective they fall into the following groups: projects, information, products and companies. This dictates a very simple home page organizational strategy, with four major modules with projects and products playing the most dominant roles, with information and company directory in supporting roles. The following information architecture reflects user intent, and provides a one-stop strategy to provide users with what they are looking for.

Web page copy

When you strip away the primary keyword phrase (home improvement) and look at the top secondary terms by volume, you are left with a set of terms that suggest major SEO opportunities, with a very focused list of words that should be worked into the website’s ad copy.

The following list also provides you with a set of terms that people are using to find information about the Home Improvement TV show (red font). Most of these you do not have to worry about—but, if you had a “series of How To videos and DVD” for sale on your website, you may want to think about providing some “goodwill” value by providing links to the content these folks are interested in. Or you could just ignore this traffic (unless you are running an AdWords campaign, in which case you should consider including these as negative match keywords). These secondary terms, with the number of queries for each, includes:

• tools: 1,000,000
• bathroom: 550,000
• hardware: 450,000
• quality: 246,000
• flooring: 165,000
• plumbing: 165,000
• kitchen: 110,000
• loews: 81,700
• store: 73,600
• tv: 37,200
• set: 33,100
• tile: 33,100
• warehouse: 33,100
• contractor: 32,900
• construction: 27,100
• product: 20,500
• center: 19,200
• remodel: 18,820
• tim: 18,500
• american: 18,100
• repair: 18,100
• cast: 14,800
• companies: 13,500
• service: 13,500
• discount: 12,100
• other: 12,100
• best: 11,800
• dvd: 11,500
• complete: 9,900
• ideas: 9,900
• inc: 9,900
• online: 9,900
• series: 9,900
• wilson: 9,900
• design: 8,100
• diy: 8,100
• projects: 8,100
• video: 7,000
• appliances: 6,600
• city: 6,600
• guide: 6,600
• review: 6,500
• reviews: 6,500
• advice: 5,400
• green: 5,400
• how to: 5,400
• professional: 5,300
• websites: 5,190
• season 3: 4,500
• classic: 4,400

Summary

In this analysis you see that a complex set of reported data from AdWords searches around a single topic can be reduced to nine search behavior categories. In my experience, I’ve seen as few as six categories in some travel-related AdWords data sets, and as many as twelve in medical areas.

Resolving the keyword phrases for the top secondary terms provides your information architects with a focused short list of terms that provide SEO opportunities, and content module labeling opportunities. This list of terms also provides you with a preferred vocabulary for website ad copy.

This analysis of human search behavior provides a data-driven approach to developing and refining a content strategy that aligns your information architecture with user intent. If you give the users what they are searching for—they will find you.

The term “Yellow Pages” has been a literal description of a business directory product and the name for the industry which has produced it for over a hundred years. Rapid evolution of internet media seems to be revoking the conceptual connection between printed pages which are yellow and sources for finding local businesses. So, is the “Yellow Pages” name itself becoming obsolete?

As a product transfers from one medium or evolutionary stage to another, it’s normal to try to adapt its legacy nomenclature to fit the new version—all that promotional good will built upon the old product name in the past can be leveraged to promote the new version of the product.

In some cases the product name will continue to be used into the future. However in other cases, the marketplace’s devotion to the legacy name begins to disconnect, and eventually the legacy name becomes obsolete.

I think there’s reason to believe this has been happening with the Yellow Pages.

I already suggested this a few years ago, and back then I was met with quite a bit of criticism and denial from some in the YP industry. I based that suggestion on observing that searches for “yellow pages” as shown by Google Trends was decreasing over time. That eroding trend is still continuing today:

There are now various other indications that “Yellow Pages” is falling in public consciousness. Declines in use of the print YP product is one indicator.

Financial performance of some of the top YP companies has suffered over the past couple of years. This doesn’t necessarily have a direct correlation, since advertiser revenue doesn’t automatically sync with brand-name recognition. Oversized debt load and economic recession could also explain poor performance.

But ad dollars will follow audience numbers, and some of the top YP companies are themselves predicting ongoing losses of revenue over time from their print side. Supermedia’s recently-published 2009 financial results not only outlined a number of reasons for revenue decline, but also listed “…declining use of print yellow pages directories…” as one ongoing risk.

And Joe Walsh, YellowBook’s CEO, was asked in this recent Fox Business News interview if there would still be a physical YP book in five years, and he answered: “Yes, not in every market, though. I think that some of coastal markets may be migrating away from print in that period of time.”BIA/Kelsey also predicts a decline in spending on traditional media, including print YP, and a continuing migration of ad dollars to digital media.

Another prime indicator comes from the recent Local Media Tracking Study conducted by Burke on behalf of the Yellow Pages Association (YPA). The telling part can be found in the partial spreadsheet of demographic results from that study, which may be seen in Greg Sterling’s post. In it, one can see that younger age groups, 18-34, are using print Yellow Pages and internet Yellow Pages considerably less than search engines for finding local businesses.

It doesn’t require a stretch to conclude that younger demographics have gravitated away from the Yellow Pages. Twenty years ago, there wasn’t an internet option and directory books ruled, but now the books are being abandoned by younger people. Unless those younger demographics are brought back to print, overall usage logically must drop as the older generation passes on.

So, users are searching less each year for “yellow pages” online. Top YP companies have experienced some ad revenue loss and are predicting reduced use of their print products. And younger demographics are looking to YP less for local info. I think this combo of indicators supports the theory that “yellow pages” may be dimming in public consciousness.

Now, if you’re a YP company, what do you do with this? You’ve been dependent upon marketing yourself to consumers and advertisers under a common brand which is rapidly eroding.

Some companies recognized this trend long ago and tried to distance themselves to some degree from the “Yellow Pages” moniker as they developed their online products. They either felt that “Yellow Pages” was too limiting, or that it was inadequate/imprecise for describing themselves online. DexKnows and Superpages fall in this category.

Yelp’s name was obviously derived in part from “Yellow Pages”, but they have managed to establish an identity independently of the legacy industry, while still having the connotation of “Yellow Pages”—giving them the best of both worlds. They’re not dependent upon brand name recognition of YP for their success and growth.

YellowPages.com, YellowBook, and YellowPages.ca have all got a big problem at this point. The promotional value of their brand names are all very closely tied to the fate of “Yellow Pages.” These companies, and others in the industry have a few choices in how they handle this: (1) do nothing and watch brand equity erode, (2) build consumer loyalty by developing an online product that competes well with search engines, or (3) step up ad campaigns and promotional activities to build brand recognition again.

AT&T is aggressively investing in their YellowPages.com asset, but is it enough to reinforce the erosion accompanying their brand?

Just this past week, the Yellow Pages Group in Canada announced rebranding with a new logo composed of the walking fingers on an asymmetric, blobby disc. They explained that the new logo removes the book in order to signal that the product is now multi-platform. In my opinion the reasoning for the change is good, but it far misses the mark since not only is the book icon obsolete in consumer minds but the “yellow pages” name itself references print product, too.

Perhaps Yellow Pages Group in Canada can afford to be in denial about the trend, since they haven’t experienced the same print erosion seen in America. However, Google Trends shows that the search volume has begun to slide there as it has been doing in the US.

There’s still a lot of disagreement within the YP industry as to the causes behind the market behavior shifts, and what should be done to address them. At the recent meeting of the Association of Directory Publishers as reported on the BIA/Kelsey blog, Jim Hail of Hagadone Directories apparently suggested that the industry should more aggressively defend print in the media, perhaps launching a promotional campaign. At the same meeting, Joe Walsh opined that it was likely too late for such a campaign, and “…the sense of print Yellow Pages as a passé medium has been fully baked into the public consciousness…” and “…we may not be able to reverse it.”

For a while now, industry executives have expressed the sentiment that some influential reporters and analysts have somehow artificially convinced consumers not to use print Yellow Pages and businesses not to advertise in them. This isn’t accurate, and it naively ignores the real forces that threaten the Yellow Pages brand name and the industry itself with obsolescence.

In my opinion, Joe Walsh is right that it’s likely too late to shore up the “Yellow Pages” brand—but not because the public has been made to think YP is irrelevant. Rather, the public is simply forgetting what Yellow Pages are, and are using other sources instead. I think that the brand awareness has eroded so much that it would be a waste of effort to attempt to rebuild it now. It would be like attempting to reestablish “Victrola” as a widely-known product name, despite the fact that consumers are using stereos and iPods.

I think YP companies would be better off moving away from the legacy name, and focusing more upon evolving to be more competitive with their online products. Expending effort to shore up the name tends to concentrate effort at the wrong end of the equation, and keeping that label seems to place subconscious limits on the innovative thinking of individuals within those companies.

In the “Business 1.0″ world, the Yellow Pages label was so deeply established that it could bring companies an instantaneous degree of success. In the “Business 2.0″ world, the name isn’t as relevant nor as compelling to consumers as is the combination of content and utility. Companies ignoring the trends will risk making themselves be perceived as dated.