In the long run, I use Google Analytics to track my site’s stats. But in the short term, I prefer Statcounter. Every day or two, I check in on my “Recent Keyword Activity” section to see what people have been looking for.
Most of the time, the searches are logical.
Sometimes, however, they’re actually useful for making your site more visible. Because sometimes people search for something that’s related to your site but that you haven’t actually covered.
And if your site ranks highly for this search, then it’s likely that if you write a real article based on those keywords you’ll rank highly for that as well. Apparently few other people do.
Simply use common sense by putting those keywords in the Title, in the post-slug, in the post, and perhaps in an h3 tag or at least bold. And write something useful, since part of ranking well is getting links to the post. Trying too hard—stuffing keywords and the like, probably won’t help on a number of levels.
Example of SEO Ranking for Keywords
Back in February, someone found my personal finance blog by searching for how to hide money from an abusive husband. She was sent to a post which wasn’t really related at all.
I didn’t know much about SEO at that point, I just thought it was a real pity that she couldn’t find something more useful. So I consulted my readers and wrote a series of posts. There was a lot of good discussion.
Now, I get a lot of traffic on that post. I rather wish I didn’t, because it seems to be mostly people who are being abused or people who want to hide money from spouses—which I believe is unethical if the marriage isn’t abusive. But I’m also hopeful that people coming to my site will find something useful.
And I’ve learned a valuable SEO lesson.
So the next time someone gets to your site using a crazy search term, go ahead and laugh. Just keep an eye on the search terms. Sometimes they’re a way to discover keywords and phrases which you can turn into even more relevant articles and which will rank even higher in searches.
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