The Link Between KGR, Display Ads and AIDA

[smithy]

I have experience with affiliate marketing, mostly with Amazon's program, and I feel that I know exactly what to do for that sort of content for on-page seo, maximising CTR, conversions etc. The only other content I write on these sites is to create topical relevance, not really worrying about search volume. I now want to get more into the display ads side of things, but it's new to me.

After having read @CCarter SEO Avalanche thread I was inspired to do some keyword research and generate a list of KGR terms for my main site. What I'm finding is that there seems to be relatively few keywords that are worth going after in the sense that the vast majority are informational and in the Awareness stage of the funnel . Keywords like "What is x (definition)?", "Why does x?", "Does x?" etc.

If I google some of these terms I land on pages where the ads are generic, so even in the unlikely event that someone were to click on one of them, the CPC would be very low. However, that could just be me because I usually use an ad blocker and block tracking.

In the SEO Avalanche thread it was mentioned that you should throw in some high volume, high CPC terms too. This might counteract the generic side of things, but you're still left with users who probably won't be interested in the ads given the intent of their query, unless interest based ads are used, that is.

When it comes to these informational KGR terms, is there a balancing act? Or does it make little sense to even go after them in the first place? It seems like an inefficient and frustrating use of time to start knocking them out one by one to increase traffic when the CPC would be low. Having said that, that's not taking into account interest based ads.

In my niche, the money is in physical products, which I'm already ranking 1-3 for, and education which is more in-person than anything. Would it make sense to only target these education-based keywords or anything to do with the niche that I can generate a lot of traffic for? Interest based ads exist after all, so a user might see ads they're interested in anyway regardless of the content of the page.

Disregarding my niche, in general, how do you guys go about things? Do you treat display ads monetisation more like a numbers game or are you laser focused?

 

[smithy]

I've been mulling this over a bit. I think I've been getting too hung up on the specifics of KGR, volume and the monetary value of each keyword without looking at the big picture.

So the idea is to do the following:

- Input a list of domains into my favourite keyword tool, go through a domain's pages, find ones that are of particular interest, see what its top keyword is as well as all the others that it is ranking for. Export this data.

When I say of particular interest, I mean keywords that work towards the latter stages of the funnel instead of just random questions with low competition/decent volume. In my case, it would be keywords/questions that a user would have about products/education. You could also gather a list of terms here and there that would generate a lot of traffic and are low competition, but the focus should mainly be on intent that generates revenue.

- Create a topic cluster. From here you can either work from top down, bottom up or just have the one article, depending on the topic. Some keywords also usually have variations but with different intent. If the search volume warrants it, you can also write a stand-alone article that specifically targets the keyword.

So top down would be the parent keyword, KGR terms within the article and then linking to the individual KGR articles (that also link up) which solely focus on that term for the purpose of very closely matched search query intent/relevancy. Bottom up would be starting with the KGR terms and then building upwards. One article would cover everything and use headings to cover the sub-topics.

In this way you're not just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, with the overwhelming task of targeting every keyword under the sun that is low competition/sufficient volume.

This is kind of what I've been doing anyway (creating clusters and interlinking) except that I wasn't worrying about search volume too much. Using a different type of monetisation was confusing me. But regardless of monetisation, the principle remains the same. Macro vs micro thinking.

 

[Ryuzaki]

The entire premise of your first post is faulty, which is why you're having this confusion. You already know the answer: you're seeing generic advertisements because you're using some kind of ad tracker blocking. Other people aren't seeing generic ads. They're seeing interest based ads.

However, interest based ads are about to be dead, anyways. We're going to end up back to contextual advertising where the ads that show are shown based on the words in the content rather than the interest of the viewer. So we're kind of back, in the conversation, to where you found yourself in the first post.

If you have a site where you're already ranking in the top 3 for high-intent, bottom of the funnel keywords, you don't need to mess with all this low-volume, KGR, Avalanche stuff. It's for people who don't intend on competing and want to find keywords without competition. They don't want to build keywords or do anything but poop out poopy content. That's not what these methods were designed for, but the hope they offer has attracted flies.

The idea was to start with these keywords and expand outward as you validate yourself with Google. If you've already surpassed all that (by ranking top 3 for money terms), then the only reason to go backwards to scraping the bottom of the barrel is that you've ran out of topics to publish on and you want to dominate everything, no matter how low in volume the monthly searches are.

Another reason to do it might be that you sell a real product and you're creating a sales funnel. You need this Awareness part of the AIDA funnel to exist. It's not all about CPC ads. It might be CPM ads, affiliate commissions, lead generation, whatever. You should work from the bottom of the funnel (BoFu) and up and out. If this method doesn't make sense for what you're doing at the bottom of the funnel, then don't do it, I say.

Do you treat display ads monetisation more like a numbers game or are you laser focused?

It's a numbers game. If you're laser focusing with hot traffic, there's far better ways to convert that traffic than loading up an ad or trying to coerce them into clicking on one (so the advertiser can make the real money). While you get your 25¢ clicks or $1 clicks, the guy willing to pay those clicks is turning around and making $200 off that customer you just let go for a quarter. The exact same person. CPM ads are more like billboard campaigns to build awareness and are definitely a numbers game.

The bottom line is, you should be building your funnel from the money-making conversion in the action stage, then building the decision stage, then the interest stage, then the awareness stage. Start from where the money is made and design the user journey. Just because you ran into some guys on a forum talking about KGR and low volume this and that doesn't mean it has a place in your funnel.

It also sounds like you're have the mindset that ends up getting people into trouble, especially with Google. People that are only worried about the BoFu (bottom of the funnel) aren't running a business. They're middle manning transactions for a cut of the pie without adding value and are usually spammers, and Google knows this as does everyone else (think about used car salesmen, for example). If you aren't working the MoFu (middle) and ToFu (top) as well, you're missing out on a lot of ways to massage users down through your user journey in the funnel.

 

[smithy]

Hey Ryuzaki, that clears a couple of things up.

So it sounds like I'm already on the right path with my monetisation method for the site I mentioned and there's no need to bother with these KGR terms. My initial thought was that they would be a good way to generate lots of traffic for ad revenue. It's probably a waste of time for my niche, though, considering there aren't necessarily a wealth of these terms available in the first place and there are better ways of generating revenue.

I've already got the Desire stage down (more applicable to affiliate marketing than the action stage according to the Crash Course) and I also have posts that are in the Interest and to a lesser extent Awareness stage - posts like "How do you use..." "Brand X vs Y" "What's the difference between..." "What is..." "Ways to..." etc.

I get where you're coming from about the mindset and getting in trouble with Google, though I don't think that is an issue in my case due to some of the other content on my site. I also made sure with the money pages to provide plenty of value rather than just acting like a middle-man. Custom in-depth comparison tables, for example, which probably explains why I get return visitors to these pages. I've seen it happen to competitors though who exclusively focus on "Best X" keywords and are now on the 3rd-4th page of Google when they used to be top.

I bought a fairly powerful domain last year for $500 that I haven't done a whole lot with that would probably be ripe for the KGR approach, though starting at a higher level. The vertical is big enough and there's enough decent volume/low commercial intent and thus low competition terms to create a very extensive content plan, taking on a sub-niche at a time. This is the site that I will primarily focus on numbers to get traffic and primarily use CPM ads as a monetisation method.

 

[Grey]

However, interest based ads are about to be dead, anyways. We're going to end up back to contextual advertising where the ads that show are shown based on the words in the content rather than the interest of the viewer.

I read what you linked to here; I'm just getting my feet wet in this whole "making websites for the purpose of monetization" thing, and I've got a quick question.

If I'm going to monetize with ads (adsense and whatever else is the popular thing these days), will this change affect anything noteworthy for me in terms of keyword research, starting with low competition long-tails and so on? Or will everything pretty much be the same once every location is in compliance?

I don't think it would, but I'm trying not to assume I know more than I do.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Grey, it shouldn't change anything. The possible value range and average value of the Adsense clicks will be dependent on the niche. Then the direct value of the clicks on each page will be dependent on the keywords.

This is as opposed to some user highly engaged in learning about retirement funds who happens across your page about knitting blankets. Currently, it's likely they'll see retirement fund ads because the average earnings for Adsense are higher that way. Soon, it'll go back to only showing knitting ads or something less valuable if the fill rate for knitting ads isn't there.

As far as our jobs go, our tactics will remain the same, though we might choose different niches.