How SEARCH VALUE Highlights Winning Keywords

Today we are going to explore the ‘create a column’ feature of The Last Keyword Tool by creating a keyword “search value” column that makes the cream of any list of keywords rise to the top.

First of all, let’s talk about what ’search value’ is and look at how different interpretations can serve different purposes.   In it’s simplest form ’search value’ is the natural search multiplied by the PPC cost for a keyword.

This function is important because it’s practically impossible for the mind to keep track of the combined value of two disparate columns.  The tendency is to either look at the cost OR the traffic column, but keeping your eye on both moving targets is somewhere between hard and very painful.  Enter the “user defined column” properties of the Last Keyword Tool!

Practically speaking, if someone is willing to pay for a click on a keyword you would have to hope that they are making money on that transaction.  Either they have deduced the percentage of people that click to the percentage of people who buy and compared that value to the profit of the average transaction, or better still, they know the LTV (life time value) of a customer and weigh that against the amount which they are willing to pay for a potential customer.

Either way, we are acknowledging that someone is willing to give this keyword a value of $1 / click.  So let’s pause here and create a “Paid Value” column that multiplies the Paid Cost by the Paid Traffic.   To do that, we’d hit the ‘custom column’ at the top of the Last Keyword’s Project Screen and fill out the form like this:

Now for the cool part: once you have created a custom column you can sort by it, bringing the cream or highest ‘paid value’ terms to the top.  Check out the top results for our acai ‘golden niches plus’ filter from a couple of posts ago (click on graphic to see full size):

As you can see, the advantage here is that you get a value that is hard to calculate in your head, especially for a whole list of keywords.  I would have passed over terms like ‘graviola’ at 78 cents, the high traffic not really registering while I’m focused on the cost column; or conversely I would have passed over ‘acai juice’ because I was more focused on high values in the traffic column.

But we actually want to take this a step further and calculate “search value”.  For a simple version let’s take the paid cost per click and multiply by the natural search.

and the results, sorted, look like this:

Click on this and compare the results to the one above, because they are interesting.  Paid traffic is not just a percentage of natural traffic, so with this calculation you’ll see those terms weighed by the CONVERSATION.

The first results could be arguably be considered a better result for “buyer intent” and the later results might be considered more conversational and a less rigorous indication of buyer intent, but realize that ALL of these keywords were bid upon or the value, paid or search, would be zero.  If someone is bidding on a term I would hope they are seeing conversions off of it, indicating a ‘buyer intent’.

A couple more thoughts here, test, test TEST.  If you are going to do something with a list of keywords that involves an investment of time or money you should take the time to do some “Pay Per Testing” to make sure that these keywords convert for you and your product.  Even if “all” you are going to do is put them in a website and rely on “free” natural search, test first.   The time and energy required for good content, media, linking strategies, blog posts, etc., makes it worth your while to know your keywords are the ones you want.

Ok, so that’s a “simple” search value.  How could this possible be complicated you might ask?  I will admit that all the rest of this article will talk about things that will not change the ORDER of the keywords presented in the “search value” results, however we are going to change the reported “value”.

First of all, let’s consider search engines.  Our current algorythm reflects only google.  Google is the only major search engine  that gives us these values, so if we want to take into account “search” values for other search engines, we can only do so by adding a multiplier.

This is a bit lame because each major search engine (google, yahoo and MSN/Bing) have radically different demographics.  So where we will use a static number as a multiplier, realize that this is a band-aid for the lack of real data that would change these figures as radically as changing from paid to natural traffic did in the results above.

At Theme Zoom we calculate that other search engines contribute 20 – 40% of the traffic to over all stats.  To modify the equation to include a value your filter might look something like this:

keyword_upper_google_cost_per_click * keyword_google_searches_per_day * 1.33

Up until now we have been looking at these numbers on a daily value.   If you want to impress people let’s think anually.

keyword_upper_google_cost_per_click * keyword_google_searches_per_day * 1.33 * 365

At this point you have increased our figures in the last graphic by almost 500 fold and those numbers are starting to get large enough that not only will it  impress potential clients, it will probably even impress your wife…

–Sue and the Theme Zoom staff

p.s. Doesn’t this sounds like the hottest thing since sliced bread?  We are just starting to scratch the surface with what you can do as you make your own filters and columns.  You might want take advantage of our FREE trial, sign up now for the Last Keyword Tool and start playing with us!

Theme Zoom Krakken is an integrated application suite that radically combines Market Analysis, Competive Analysis, Keyword DNA Creation, Automated Silo Structured Blueprint and Website Development.

For more information about The Last Keyword Tool visit Theme Zoom.

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