Winnable Words

What is a “winnable” keyword?

A winnable keyword or keyword phrase means that your efforts can directly affect your ranking for those terms, with a reasonable amount of effort. 

For example, what if we try to rank for the keywords “pet store”? According to Google’s Keyword Tool, there are over 2 million global searches on those words every month. 

If I am a small local pet store, am I ever going to rank above the fold on Page One for those terms? 

No, probably not. 

Those words are used by too many other businesses for you to be able to rank on those terms

So what is the small business owner to do?

Long-tail Keywords Rock!

This is where the concept of “long-tail” keywords comes in. 

Long-tail just means it is a longer series of keywords. 

These are phrases that have a small enough demand that my efforts can affect my site ranking and still have sufficient demand to be worth my time to win this page ranking. 

Here’s an example:

I search the Google Keyword Tool and look for a long-tail keyword phrase related to my pet store. 

I spot the series of words “supplies for a new puppy” with a global demand of 1600 searches per month and medium competition. 

If I create some pages for these terms and write some articles and posts, I may be able to move to the top of the list for this long-tail keyword phrase. 

This would likely be a better use of my time and money instead of spending all my efforts to rank on the words “pet store.”

Offer a Buffet

The rule of thumb for long-tail keywords is to have a nice assortment of them in the text of your web pages. 

Think of them as the buffet line at a restaurant. 

If you have only one or two items on the buffet, customers will get pretty bored very fast.

And people will stop coming. 

Just like a two-item buffet, your website won’t build its traffic potential if you don’t offer of a variety of keywords. 

Use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to find what keywords are in demand for your market niche and see how winnable these terms are for you.

Pick terms with enough connections to build your Digital Marketing presence. 

Think about how various keywords fit together into a hierarchy of higher and lower, yet winnable demand terms. 

Using the right keywords can be a secret weapon to elevate your business above bigger and more established competitors. 

How Much Competition?

Are lots of competitors’ websites using the same keywords we are? Are we the only ones using a long-tailed keyword phrase?   

The number of websites that include those specific words on their website is what is known as keyword competition. 

Think of it this way: 

If there are 1000 searches for the keywords “purple garden gloves” per month, but only ten websites use the terms “purple garden gloves” in their text, the competition would be considered low. 

On the other hand, if there are 1000 searches for the keyword “purple garden gloves” per month, but ten thousand sites are competing for those same keywords, the competition would be considered high. 

So what’s the “sweet spot” for keyword demand for your small business?

Just as in any other business setting, the sweet spot is to find enough demand with low competition so you can rise above the pack. 

Sound simple enough? 

All you have to do is find some keywords with low competition and lots of demand and then you’re set, right? 

Well, almost…

Sometimes low competition can be a bad thing.

If no other businesses are competing for a group of keywords that have demand, sometimes that means it has not been a profitable enough niche for a business to be successful. 

It could also mean that people search on the terms, but they are not willing to pay money for a solution. 

Subscribe to our emails and follow our blog for continuing education in this ever changing climate.