From small side-hustle T-shirt businesses to large apparel chain stores, establishing a method of online sales is the fastest way to big profits. Unfortunately, the ecommerce marketplace for heat printing is saturated with all types of competition. To be visible you must optimize your content, search engine presence, and product line to be better than the rest. Data shows that less than 25% of web searches move to the second page of search results. That’s why optimization experts say that the best place to hide is page 2 of Google! If you aren’t on the first page for keywords related to your niche, chances that you will get visitors from organic search engines (like Google) are slim to none.
There is good news, though! Plenty of online tools exist to help those of us in the heat transfer and screen-printing industries find and perform beneficial optimizations on all aspects of our websites. Using these tools to find keywords that have a high number of searches will show you what is trending in the industry. Those are the terms you should be optimizing for. In this Stahls’ Blog series, we will look at the best of the free tools and explain how to find the information you need to get up and running with them. Also, the theory behind their use for our industry. Though there are some very excellent paid tools out there, for this series we’ll be sticking to the free ones. So that your hard-earned revenue stays in your pocket.
Now, let’s look at the top 5 tools for finding trends in organic search. Once you find the top keywords being searched by people, related to your market, you can then use those trending search terms to optimize your content or tailor your product offerings to your audience.
Top 5 Keyword Research Tools:
1. Moz
Sign up for a free Moz account and get ready access to some of their most powerful tools. Plus, you can get a 30-day free trial of the Professional tools, to see if that is something worth investing in. Once successfully signed in and set up, navigate to “Keyword Research” > “Explore by Keyword” > “Keyword Overview”. Then use the search box to get information on terms related to your website content or products. You will get information on:
• Monthly Search Volume (how many people search that term each month in your country)
• Difficulty (how hard it will be to rank for the keyword)
• CTR (click-through-rate)
• Priority (a combination of the other metrics, showing how important the keyword is)
The higher these scores are shows whether the term is trending and if you should focus on it or not. Here is a link to more information on this tool: https://moz.com/help/keyword-explorer
2. Google Trends
A free tool with “Trends” right in the name, can’t go wrong there! Plus, this data comes directly from Google which is the search engine that a large portion of your traffic is probably coming from anyway. You won’t get the detailed scoring available with some other tools, but you will get trend data over time and by region. So, you can see what is trending in different parts of the country. That could be very helpful if your business has a brick-and-mortar component or if your sales are more local.
Another helpful feature is the ability to compare different terms. Wondering if you should optimize for “heat transfer vinyl” or for “heat transfer material”? Google can show you which one is more popular in your area. You can also see this data in terms of different categories of search and within different Google Search products. Seeing trends in Google Image Search or in Google News can help you with generating new content. As can the very helpful “Related Queries” box at the bottom of the page. This feature is great for finding keywords that you may not have thought of. It also shows their rising popularity, a great feature for exploring newer trends in search.
More info can be found at: https://support.google.com/trends/?hl=en#topic=6248052
3. Answer the Public
This is one of the most helpful tools to use in finding content ideas and to see what questions searchers are asking related to a keyword. But I must admit, one of the main reasons I included this tool is because the site is really cool! Using this tool may take some study, as the concepts are newer. But the end results are unbeatable. Let’s move through it in steps to make things easier:
a) Enter a primary seed keyword into the “Ask the Seeker” box. For example, “heat press”.
b) You’ll get a really interesting Visualization showing questions people have asked related to your seed keyword. Things like “Which heat press should I buy?” These will be grouped into an extended version of the five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why).
c) Then you will see them listed in Proposition format, things like “(keyword)(preposition) (___)” using words like “with,” “without,” “if,” “can” etc. For example, “Can I use a heat press without a cover sheet?”
d) Next, you will get an “Alphabetical” and a “Related” list using your seed term. This is basically a list of relevant content ideas and trending phrases to use all over your site.
For more information, see: https://answerthepublic.com
4. Ubersuggest
For a free tool, Ubersuggest is very robust. Those of you who have been in the industry of Content Optimization, in some shape or form, will probably recognize the creator of this tool Neil Patel. Neil has been creating content in the Digital Strategy space for a long time, with the purpose of helping the rest of us to stay on top of trends and industry changes. His tool, Ubersuggest, provides reporting on the level of larger, paid tools. But for the low cost of $0.00. Just type a keyword into the search bar and you’re off. You will get:
• Search Volume
• SEO difficulty (how hard it will be to rank for the keyword)
• Information on how much it will cost to pay to advertise on the keyword
• Trend data over time
• Content ideas
For more information, see: https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
5. Wordtracker Scout
This tool comes in an easy-to-use Google Chrome browser extension, which turns your competitor’s websites into industry trend generators. Choose a successful competitor that is big in your market and uncover the trends that are driving them.
Wordtracker has a huge database of organic search data on-hand. With Scout, they combine that data with the webpage analysis you perform to not only show trends, but also what kind of competition you will run into by pursuing optimizations on your chosen keywords. The interface is intuitive to use, and you will get helpful insights along with everything else. For a free download, you can’t go wrong with Scout!
For more information, see: https://www.wordtracker.com/find-the-best-keywords
As Digital Strategy Manager, Mark Kozyra is responsible for creating projects that keep STAHLS’ on the cutting edge of SEO, website activity tracking, and Digital Advertising. With 15 years in the field of Digital Marketing under his belt, Mark brings a collective expertise to STAHLS’ from many different specialties. For more information or to comment on this article, email Mark at Mark.Kozyra@stahls.com.
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