Anyone who has used Netflix knows about its dark categories. Categories like “1980s Time Travel Movies,” “TV Detective Shows,” and “Dysfunctional Family Animated TV Comedies” may seem extravagant at first glance, but their purpose is good and well done. Netflix is obsessed with trying to learn exactly what its users want to watch.
They don't just invent these categories out of thin air. They are backed by data. As SEO becomes more and more personalized, we can learn a lot from these obscure Netflix categories and drive more targeted traffic with long-tail keywords.
Keyword research is still important. There are many in the field who believe that keywords are no longer important and that focusing more on keyword authority is the path to success.
Now, I totally agree that focusing on topics is crucial, but we can't just ignore keywords. If the keywords are no longer relevant, then why does Google go to such trouble to hide them in analytics? Why do AdWords have a Keyword Planner? The reason is simple: People still search with long-tail keywords.
Building authority on a topic is very important, but we still need to focus on researching, tracking, and applying long-tail keywords in our SEO strategies.
Good Keyword Research Gets Personal
Back to the Netflix analogy: what makes their categories so interesting is that they are created based on user behavior. You don't just have to randomly put things together, although sometimes it can feel like this. Netflix focuses on trying to give its users the best experience possible.
When it comes to keyword research, we too need to be obsessed with our users. We have to look for trends and behaviors to help us find terms that reflect the needs of the people we are trying to attract. Like Netflix, we analyze how users interact with the service, SEO is all about how users interact with your websites to learn more about user needs., then uses this data to find custom long-tail words.
Let's be a little more specific. Since we're not able to pull out as much personal data about our users as Netflix, what can we do to find some high-powered, personalized, long-tail keywords to boost our campaigns?
Use information to obtain keywords
While a number of paid tools can give us some very valuable user data, there is one free tool that anyone can use. Google Analytics has come a long way in recent years, and if you're only using it to track traffic and bounce rates, you're actually missing out on a lot. Sure, we no longer get access to keyword data, but the data we do get access to is pretty powerful.
SEO is about connecting people to information – and in order to reach your audience, you first have to define it.
Two very powerful tools are sections demographics and interests within the Public. Both provide details and insights about our visitors and help us start developing more user-centric keywords.
In the demographics summary section, you'll see the average age and gender of your users. Since this information is still very broad, taking it into account can help you better understand who you are dealing with. You can dig even deeper by clicking on the “age” or “gender” tab to see how trends change over time.
In the Interest Summary section, we get a broad overview of our audience's interest. Interests are divided into three categories: Affinity category, market segments and other categories.
The affinity category identifies users in terms of lifestyle. Market Segments identifies users based on their purchasing interests. Other Categories provides the most specific vision, the center of attention of your users. As you can see, the interests section has a lot of useful data.
Now, I need to clarify one thing here. If your site doesn't have a lot of traffic, or if it isn't driving the type of people you're looking to reach, this information will be nonexistent or incorrect. But assuming you're driving some qualified traffic, you should have an idea of the age and gender of your audience, as well as a broad idea of their interests.
Putting your data into practice
Using this demographic and interest data, you can create great custom long-tail keywords for your audience. What you need to do is take this information and, like our friends at Netflix, apply a little creativity to Start brainstorming possible new keywords.
Here's a quick example: The blog for a high-end furniture e-commerce site has a demographic that skews predominantly female 24-44 years old. Her top two “Affinity Categories” are “home decorating enthusiast” and “movie lovers.” Its two best “market segments” are “Garden/Home” and “Travel/Hotels.” Its top two “Other” categories are “Arts & Entertainment/Celebrity & News” and “Home & Garden Furniture.”
Here are some long-tail keywords inspired by Netflix based on the above data:
- Sets inspired by Hollywood theaters
- Sofas you'll only see in 5-star hotels
- Artistic Tableware
- Lounge chairs that will turn heads
- Celebrity Inspired Bedrooms
Of course, some of them probably don't have a ton of traffic, but what this exercise does is force you to have good practices and let go of the outdated ones.
Evaluate the words you created through Google Keyword Planner (or any other tool of your choice) and see if there are any that are worth your time. If not, keep spinning your ideas and search for related terms.
In the end, you will not only have a list of very specific keywords, you will also You will have a better understanding of your audience and their areas of interest. This will help you create a more focused SEO strategy, which should yield better results.
Get to work on custom long-tail keywords
Netflix's dark categories actually have a lot of science and a lot of data backing them up. As search marketers, we can learn from them by using the data we have at our disposal to discover new opportunities and grow our global reach online.
