For more than a year now, I’ve been having this strange love-hate relationship with my job. (Yes, job. Thought it was something else, didn’t you?) Committed, but strange. It’s not actually with the work I have now or the company I work for, but the nature of my job. There are times that I love SEM and I can’t get enough of it; other times, I hate it and I don’t want to hear, speak, or even think a single thing about it! I can think of 3 things that usually causes my temporary strong feeling of dislike: 1) Pressure at work, 2) Information Overload, and 3) Weariness.
Right now I think I’m experiencing #3. I’m tired of thinking of other ways to make this particular website rank on the generic keywords selected by the client — which are really competitive ones by the way. Apparently, we have to try to do what the client wants us to do however absurd it is. Never mind that it’s a competitive keyword phrase, as long as we do it. So I did what I was told to do (since that’s what I’m supposed to do: follow orders. hehe!), but I made it clear from the start that they must not expect positive results. They can hope profusely though.
The customer is always right…. Until he is not.
While I am still in the middle of working on that task.. another request from a clueless client arrives:
…in searching specific keywords, i would like our site to come out with certain search words such as: angeles, manila, diving, golf, etc.
Keep in mind that our client is a hotel. And their owner or manager wishes to rank on those one-word keywords. Fun, huh?
I could’ve just shut up and did my job anyway even though I know for a fact that it’s not gonna work, but the new request is gonna put my ass on the line if I had just simply said yes. I won’t even attempt or imagine that I’ll do it, because I’m 100% positive that it’s just gonna be useless. (No good can come out of this, do you hear me!!) So, I politely, carefully, and calmly composed an e-mail..
We can try to target these keywords (angeles, manila, diving, golf) but 3 things come to mind as to why I believe this won’t be a good move:
1. Most of the keywords given by the hotel are one-word keywords. Considering our recent leap-of-faith optimization task alone, I think we can pretty much say now that targeting 2-word keywords is mind-boggingly difficult; let alone, targeting several 1-word keywords. Also, the hotel wants the website to rank on the keywords “diving” and “golf”. I see this as (almost) impossible because these are very generic keywords. We can create optimized copies and pages for them, build more links, but I believe the effort will just be in vain. This definitely requires more than just a leap of faith. hehe!
2. People searching for keywords such as diving, angeles, etc. may not necessarily be seeking hotel reservations. If it’s okay to say this, I’m almost sure that a person who entered “angeles”, “diving”, or “golf” in the search engine query is NOT looking for a hotel in *****. Because if he/she was looking for a hotel, then naturally, a more relevant keyword search would have been more useful. Also, the results for the keyword “golf” will not only generate a list of websites that are related to “golf courses”, but also “golf tournaments”, “golf stores”, “golf equipments”, “golf trivia”, “golf clubs”, “golf players”, and so on.
3. What can only happen from the hotel’s request is added traffic. But since our company recently set a target conversation ratio, attracting more visitors who are unlikely to book anyway will just add to the hotel’s bounce/exit rate. The impression bounce rates create might also contribute to the decrease of hotel name’s reputability; and making our goal of reaching a 2.5% conversion rate an even harder job.
Overall, we will not neglect the hotel’s request. The keywords are perfect to showcase the hotel’s vicinity and activities that can be done during one’s stay. In the long run, they might prove useful not for SEO purposes, but for the simple usability reason that they were itemized
(Note: E-mail edited for confidentiality’s sake)
In other words, “No, it’s not a good idea!” LOL. :P I have spoken my piece and I meant every word. Fortunately, our team leader is just the kindest! She said it’s fine and that she’ll just relay the message.
That’s just one slice of the pie to give you an idea of what I do. There are 7 other slices that cause me stress everyday. LOL. :D Nevertheless, even though this is mostly the case for me, I still do love SEM. I still believe I couldn’t have landed in a better, more promising line of work. It’s just that, sometimes I can also get sick and tired…
LOL. Anuba talagaaaah? :P
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