Have you noticed how hard it is to pick keywords these days? Not only does Google have a rather (in some opinions) skewed way of awarding top results these days with the way their algorithms are developed, but so many of the good keywords have been totally swept up and inundated!
Applying this mindset to picking keywords for fall holidays can make for quite a conundrum. I myself plugged some keyword ideas in Google’s keyword tool today and was rather unhappy with the results I found for keywords that I thought FOR SURE would stick. But alas, it was back to the drawing board until… I realized something…
Best Ways to Use Keywords this Fall
As I was scrolling down the list of keywords related to my query, an old idea dawned on me – why not use qualifiers specific to this year and add them to already popular keyword searches and phrases? I put my theory to the test, and here are the results I found.
Original keyword: Halloween recipes
My keyword variation: Halloween recipes 2012
As you might gather from the first keyword, you’ll probably get nowhere if you target “Halloween recipes” because there’s just too much competition. But when I plugged “Halloween recipes 2012”, in quotes, into Google, guess what? It drew up less than 55,000 results! That’s pretty amazing. It’s a short keyword with a very popular keyword phrase, but look what it does for you.
First, it turns your phrase from two into three keywords, and that alone is great for dropping the competition. Secondly, it gives you an additional variable, which is also helpful. Third, it makes it relevant to searches today because of the year “2012” was added. Fourth, since you should no longer be super-targeting your articles and posts around a keyword phrase, but rather indirectly using it as topical material in titles and such, searches for “Halloween recipes” are still relevant, and that will be the meat of your search base.
According to Google, not too many people are searching for “Halloween recipes 2012” but tons of people are searching for “Halloween recipes.” See how helpful this one little tactic can be for your website? It can mean the difference between not showing up at all and getting TONS of traffic!
The same rules apply for things like Thanksgiving recipes, Christmas recipes, Christmas gifts, Halloween costumes, Christmas party ideas, Thanksgiving ideas, Halloween party ideas – you name it. If you printed out all of Google AdWords Keyword Tool’s pages on fall holiday keywords that you search for, you would have reams of paper stacked on your desk to consult! But they wouldn’t do you much good if each one has too much competition. Adding relevant qualifiers of things that relate directly to 2012 (like things that came out in 2012, such as the iPhone 5), you’ll set yourself up for a lot less competition and a lot MORE search relevancy and traffic! So have fun with it and see what qualifiers you can think of to set yourself apart from the competition!