Chitika is a search advertising company which is promoting their service as an alternative to Google Adsense for website publishers and advertisers. CPC (cost-per-click) and CPL (cost-per-lead) campaigns are available for sites looking to boost advertising campaigns.
Chitika has also been generous enough to publish the results of several market research studies. The latest is an analysis of the search queries that led to over 40 million search impressions in a 7-day period this month. The study revealed several interesting tidbits.
First, the number of words in the most popular category of search query word count was 3-word queries. The data revealed the following were the top ranking word counts:
– 26% of search impressions were 3-word searches
– 19% of search impressions were 2-word searches
– 17% of search impressions were 4-word searches
– 14% of search impressions were one-word searches
Second, the study revealed that the best click-through ratios were for the 5-word, 6-word searches, and 4-word searches. These word counts delivered the most bang-for-the-buck or profit. This revelation is nothing new and has been backed up by many SEO studies on long-tail keyword conversions.
The conclusion of the Chitika study is that there exists a benefit for optimizing for 3-word, 4-word, and 5-word seaches on sites. A few simple ways to expand your SEO strategy from one-word and two-word keywords is to increase the words in incoming link anchor text and expand page titles and content category titles as appropriate. Finally, if the sweet spot for search truly is in the 3-word to 5-word keyword optimization, make sure your keyword research is detailed enough to decipher the proper keyword combinations for your site and potential visitors.
For example, perhaps more visitors are clicking-through to an automobile dealer site in St. Louis from the keyword combination “cars missouri” than any other search term. The site is happy to stay optimized for this simple two-word keywords combination, considering this there bread-and-butter. Keyword research could reveal, however, that optimizing the same site for “best auto dealers in St Louis” could lead to more traffic and click-throughs. It’s the future clicks-through and not the past click-throughs that should be the basis for site metrics. Never assume that your popular incoming traffic search queries are actually the keywords you should optimize your site for. So what should you do?
Have someone run detailed keyword research and analytics on your site. It could be profitable.
Clark Schultz Blog 