Vanity Terms vs. Valuable Keywords

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an Internet marketing strategy that considers how search engines work and what people are searching for. When utilized, SEO allows a website to show up for keywords and/or phrases that are being searched by those interested in the services and products offered by the website. However, “vanity keywords” can often get in the way of the successful optimization of a website.

So what is a “vanity keyword”? It’s a keyword that perhaps describes what the website is trying to sell, but not likely to drive qualified traffic nor produce high conversion rates. For example, a hotel owner in Estes Park, Colorado thinks he wants to show up in the search engines when “Colorado hotels” is searched. Even though “Colorado hotels” produces high monthly search volume and the hotel is indeed in Colorado, these terms may not produce the best conversion results. When this happens, this keyword is considered a vanity keyword. Vanity keywords become problematic for the reasons listed below:

• Although the keywords “Colorado hotels” is highly searched, they produce broad results, often with unqualified traffic that leaves the website without navigating around, thus causing the keywords to have a higher bounce rate.
• “Colorado hotels” is likely highly competitive keywords to go after and the competition ranking for these keywords are probably large and highly authoritative.
• In turn, “Colorado hotels” will most likely have a lower conversion rate, because it is a very broad keyword combination, which makes it hard to rank high in the search engines.

The hotel owner in Estes Park would be more successful going after more specific keywords such as “Estes Park hotel,” “Estes Park hotels,” or “hotels in Estes Park.” These keywords may have lower monthly search volumes, but will ultimately drive more qualified traffic that is interested in Estes Park hotels, as opposed to hotels located anywhere else in the state. The key point to remember is that a website should be optimized for keywords that closely match the services, products, brands, and locations that the business is selling or serving. 

If you need help with your Internet marketing strategies, please contact the Internet marketing specialists at RezStream today at 800.391.6864 or sales@rezstream.com.