Any ideas for capturing keywords that your client rejects because they aren't politically correct?
-
Here's the scenario: you need to capture a search phrase that is very widely used in common search, but the term is considered antiquated, overly vernacular, insensitive or outright offensive within the client's industry.
In this case, searchers overwhelmingly look for "nursing homes," but the term has too many negative connotations to the client's customers, so they won't use it on-page.
Some obvious thoughts are to build IBLs or write an op-ed/blog series about why the term is offensive. Any other ideas?
-
I remember talking with an SEO copywriter who gave an example of a loan company that wasn't allowed to use "bad credit" as part of their advertising, yet it still drew a lot of keywords. The copywriter would write text like "Have other companies told you that you have bad credit?"
I also like the idea about writing articles. You could do something about the history of the term, or myths associated with that term. Another idea might be any quotes from patients or families that could include "I didn't want to go to a nursing home when I got old, I'm so glad my family found Blue Hair Acres for me instead."
Remember you can try to work your phrase in across two sentences. "So and so has a degree in nursing. Home-like care is a goal" (cheesy, but it shows what I'm talking about).
-
I love EGOL's idea of sharing the search volumes to the client.
Jeremy, I can appreciate the sensitive nature of the conversation. The question here, what is in the client's best interests?
I know a bit about nursing homes myself. There are issues of abuse, neglect and an incredible range with respect to the quality of care offered. If your client offers a great service, wouldn't it be in the best interest of both your client and the world to let as many people know about the service as possible?
You can discuss advertising in magazines, television, referrals, etc. but when it comes down to it our role is SEO. We focus on using white hat techniques to maximize the ability of our clients to compete in search results. There is not any reasonable way I can think of to rank for a term like "nursing home" without using the term.
I would try to educate the client on how search engines work with respect to relevancy. It is the client's choice but if the word is not used on the site, then the site wont be found by users searching for the term and the primary audience will be missed entirely.
-
Just my opinion... I have been to a lot of nursing homes.... I go there a two or three times every week to visit. From what I have seen I don't think that the public is extremely touchy about this term.
But, your client has a specific business image that they are trying to maintain... and it seems that this word is on their agenda.
I would show them search volumes and see what they say.
-
Keep in mind that we're not talking about someone wanting "evaporative air conditioner" instead of "swamp cooler" here.
Consider a word like "retarded," which has a national campaign pushing people to stop using it, and is even considered hate speech by some. Swap out the word with "mentally challenged," and GKT shows less than half the local search volume!
It's a tough sell to convince a client who runs a care facility for the intellectually disabled to say, "Our services for retarded kids are the best in the state."
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be coarse or flippant with that example. That's a high-search term that some would find incredibly offensive.
Organizations that fight the use of certain words see it as more than just inelegant speech, they see real, tangible harm whenever the word is used. Reaction to that particular phrase is unique in that there are some who would vociferously argue against it, and other who would still see little to nothing wrong with it (as reflected in GKT).
-
It's all about educating the client.
The client may not like the term, but if that is what the rest of the world associates with the business your client offers, then you are stuck with it. If you wish to get creative I can think of a few options:
-
as you suggested, write articles on why the business model offered is not a "nursing home" but a "skilled nursing facility", "elder care group" or whatever name is preferred.
-
you could supplement your SEO with SEM by placing ads on "nursing home" which do not use that phrase.
-
you could use creative writing such as "...requires in home nursing...." and use image alt text, image names and other less visible means to get the correct associated for the term. This is certainly not the preferred approach but if you are dealing with a stubborn client your choices may be limited
-
you can walk away from the client. It's your role to offer appropriate SEO advice. If that advice is not followed, there is not much you can do. I would try to work with the client as much as possible, use some of the techniques listed above, etc. but in the end either the client's expectations need to change or no one will be happy with this arrangement.
-
-
I like your idea for an article about the term "nursing home". I'd write a couple of those articles and feature links to them on every page of the site.
If I was selling something and everybody everywhere was asking for it by an overwhelmingly popular name I think that I would adapt to it. Visitors to the site would know that they are in the right place. Using some fancyass name would have visitors wondering if you really offer the service that they need... or if they know you offer those services they might wonder if your prices are too high.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to rank for a keyword
Hi guys, I'm looking to rank a new blog for a search term which we currently already rank #1 for. I want to create a blog which provides a better solution to a searchers query and knock our current #1 page for this new one. Is there a way to do this simply without losing the real-estate the currently ranked #1 page has already accumulated? Or is just a matter of working on this new blog to find it's own way to the top? Thanks in advance, James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jameseacott0 -
Magento 1.9 SEO. I have product pages with identical On Page SEO score in the 90's. Some pull up Google page 1 some won't pull up at all. I am searching for the exact title on that page.
I have a website built on Magento 1.9. There are approximately 290,000 part numbers on the site. I am sampling Google SERP results. About 20% of the keywords show up on page 1 position 5 thru 10. 80% don't show up at all. When I do a MOZ page score I get high 80's to 90's. A page score of 89 on one part # may show up on page one, An identical page score on a different part # can't be found on Google. I am searching for the exact part # in the page title. Any thoughts on what may be going on? This seems to me like a Magento SEO issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CTOPDS0 -
When you can't see the cache in search, is it about to be deindexed?
Here is my issue and I've asked a related question on this one. Here is the back story. Site owner had a web designer build a duplicate copy of their site on their own domain in a sub folder without noindexing. The original site tanked, the webdesigner site started outranking for the branded keywords. Then the site owner moved to a new designer who rebuilt the site. That web designer decided to build a dev site using the dotted quad version of the site. It was isolated but then he accidentally requested one image file from the dotted quad to the official site. So Google again indexed a mirror duplicate site (the second time in 7 months). Between that and the site having a number of low word count pages it has suffered and looked like it got hit again with Panda. So the developer 301 the version to the correct version. I was rechecking it this morning and the dotted quad version is still indexed, but it no longer lets me look at the cache version. Out of experience, is this just Google getting ready to drop it from the index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BCutrer0 -
New website won't rank for branded keywords in Google, but does in Bing
We launched a website in October www.butterfly.com. The branded product name "Butterfly Body Liners" will not rank until page 2 of Google, but it ranks #1 in Bing. Organic traffic never really picked up so it's not easy to tell if it's been "hit" by any penalty. The strange thing is, this website: http://archive.is/PQZdO is ranking #1. This is an archived version of the site. Does anyone have any insight as to why this is happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LaughlinConstable0 -
Need help on SEO for my site. Can't figure out what is wrong.
My site, findyogi.com, isn't ranking well in google SERPs. For some good content and matching keyword, my pages are ranking 200+ whereas other sites that have similar or lower authority are ranking in top 10. I must be doing something fundamentally wrong but can't seem to figure out what. I am not looking at ranking 1 on google right now but my pages don't appear even on page 2-4. Sample Keyword- "Samsung galaxy s4 price in india" . Matching page - www.findyogi.com/mobiles/samsung/samsung-galaxy-s4-b94a37/price Please help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | namansr0 -
After Receiving a "Googlebot can't access your site" would this stop your site from being crawled?
Hi Everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMA-DataSet
A few weeks ago now I received a "Googlebot can't access your site..... connection failure rate is 7.8%" message from the webmaster tools, I have since fixed the majority of these issues but iv noticed that all page except the main home page now have a page rank of N/A while the home page has a page rank of 5 still. Has this connectivity issues reduced the page ranks to N/A? or is it something else I'm missing? Thanks in advance.0 -
How to get around Google Removal tool not removing redirected and 404 pages? Or if you don't know the anchor text?
Hello! I can’t get squat for an answer in GWT forums. Should have brought this problem here first… The Google Removal Tool doesn't work when the original page you're trying to get recached redirects to another site. Google still reads the site as being okay, so there is no way for me to get the cache reset since I don't what text was previously on the page. For example: This: | http://0creditbalancetransfer.com/article375451_influencial_search_results_for_.htm | Redirects to this: http://abacusmortgageloans.com/GuaranteedPersonaLoanCKBK.htm?hop=duc01996 I don't even know what was on the first page. And when it redirects, I have no way of telling Google to recache the page. It's almost as if the site got deindexed, and they put in a redirect. Then there is crap like this: http://aniga.x90x.net/index.php?q=Recuperacion+Discos+Fujitsu+www.articulo.org/articulo/182/recuperacion_de_disco_duro_recuperar_datos_discos_duros_ii.html No links to my site are on there, yet Google's indexed links say that the page is linking to me. It isn't, but because I don't know HOW the page changed text-wise, I can't get the page recached. The tool also doesn't work when a page 404s. Google still reads the page as being active, but it isn't. What are my options? I literally have hundreds of such URLs. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeanGodier0 -
What if you can't navigate naturally to your canonicalized URL?
Assume this situation for a second... Let's say you place a rel= canonical tag on a page and point to the original/authentic URL. Now, let's say that that original/authentic URL is also populated into your XML sitemap... So, here's my question... Since you can't actually navigate to that original/authentic URL (it still loads with a 200, it's just not actually linkded to from within the site itself), does that create an issue for search engines? Last consideration... The bots can still access those pages via the canonical tag and the XML sitemap, it's just that the user wouldn't be able to access those original/authentic pages in their natural site navigation. Thanks, Rodrigo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlgoFreaks0