The theory of obtaining a decent search engine placement to attract free traffic to your site is pretty basic. Select a high traffic, low competition keyword to aim for. Buy a domain name with the keyword in it. Then simultaneously create keyword-focused content for the site while building incoming links that mention the chosen keyword phrase.
With enough patience your site will rise up the rankings and with your better search engine placement your traffic will grow.
But I'm here to tell you that you could be getting even more traffic from the same results if only you used the concept of “keyword mashing” to get a decent search engine placement for multiple keywords rather than just one.
What Is Keyword Mashing?
Keyword mashing simply involves targeting more than one keyword phrase in your web content writing. This may not sound too exciting (or new) but stick with me for a moment while I better explain the concept.
Let's imagine you're creating a website about dog training. The primary keyword you come up with for your homepage after some research is “doberman training”.
But of course there were other keywords you found which had a lot of potential so eventually you had to make a difficult decision and dropped the others. For the sake of argument let's pretend that one of the other keywords that looked good was “training techniques”.
Rather than choosing between the two different keyword phrases, using the concept of keyword mashing you would add both these phrases together into a single longer phrase – in our case “doberman training techniques” – and use this as your primary keyword phrase.
How Does Keyword Mashing Help Your Search Engine Placement?
Not only is it far more likely that an exact-match domain is available for this longer keyword phrase but we now have a chance of getting to the top of the search engines for both these keyword phrases which means far more potential traffic as a result of multipe search engine placements.
But it gets better. We all know Google hates artificial-looking links. You know – the ones where you quickly build hundreds of links to your site all with exactly the same text? Can anyone say “sandbox”?!
But by targeting two keyword phrases for your site you suddenly have a perfect opportunity for some link diversity. In our example we would build some links with the hypertext “doberman training techniques”, some saying “doberman training” and still others saying “training techniques”. This diversity of link text makes our linking appear more natural to the search engines, boosts our chances of higher search engine placement and furthermore these rankings are for multiple keyword phrases.
How To Use Keyword Mashing For Better Search Engine Placement
Of course keyword mashing works best when you're building a new site from scratch because you can carefully plan out your site structure and keyword arrangement to make the most of this concept.
But I have even used it for existing sites and easily got extra top rankings and traffic as a result. The key to leveraging keyword mashing for existing sites is to look for keyword phrases that work together in one “natural sounding” phrase.
So take the homepage of your existing website and consider words that could be added to the beginning or end of your primary keyword phrase then use your standard keyword research process to decide on which target will be best.
Let's say for example we have a website that targets the phrase “how to surf” it might be that we could target both the phrases “how to surf” and “surf lessons” by adding the word “lessons” at the end of our website name and then building some links to our site that contains this text.
What has your experience been with keyword mashing? Depending upon the link authority that existing sites in the same niche have, you will often see rapid improvements in search engine placement and organic traffic as a result of using this keyword mashing technique.
I am newbie so these article help me lot. I have new website so i need traffic to my website. Your keyword technique is help me lot. Its realy cool use multiple keyword as you explain. Very informative post.
You can count on the information posted here to be very reliable unlike other sites who offer advice with no real expertise behind it.
Hi there and thanks for the comment – wishing you all the best with your new blog. And what RedKathy says is correct – in my experience you’ll only find genuinely-useful information here on Basic Blog Tips. If you haven’t subscribed yet I highly recommend that you do 🙂
As I see it, Keyword is one of the crucial factors search engine consider in ranking a website organically. I am into keyword research and lead generation, I’ve seen it in my work how important really is proper keyword research and smashing in search engine placement. I believe the initial stage to get the best off page SEO is to do some manipulations with keywords.
good post. I personally use Market Samurai and tools such as those to do keyword research and succeed.
This seems like pretty basic stuff, but I think it’s good advice nonetheless since it’s easy to overlook. The key seems to be to add a little variety to your keyword strategy to both avoid overdoing a single keyword as well as opening up a variety of linking techniques.
Hi, Richard
You are absolutely right – better having a longer phrase than a short one – it gives you more chances to get visitors. I prefer doing this for each page on my site. Moreover, it is even easier to promote such keywords.
Anna,
Another useful way in which I have used this technique is to target initially a long-tail keyword phrase and then later on a short-tail phrase.
For example if we targeted the keyword phrase “how to lose weight quickly without exercise” – using those keywords on our site and generating links pointing to our site – we should shortly get a high ranking for that phrase. Obviously being a longer phrase it’s easier to get a decent ranking for it.
However over time as we both manually build links and our existing traffic links to us I typically find that I will start to rank for shorter, more competitive phrases included in that keyword phrase.
So I might find some time later I start ranking for the phrase “how to lose weight quickly” and then some time later even “how to lose weight” and so on. Each time we start ranking for an extra phrase we see more traffic and more natural incoming links.
By doing SEO in this way you avoid the “all or nothing” technique that many people use where you work diligently for months on end without seeing a single visitor then suddenly hit the top ten and traffic goes wild. With this technique you can see your traffic growing from the very start as your site ranks for increasing search terms.
Warm regards,
Richard
Hey Richard,
Now that was interesting and I had never heard of keyword mashing before.
I can see where maybe using two different keywords could help your site but what if you don’t have a lot of search results for the phrase where you are combining them together? Would that even matter? I would think it would if you are using that as the initial name of your site. As long as you have the two separate keywords that you are building your site around, would that even matter! Just curious..
Thanks for this explanation and I did find this one very interesting. Will look forward to your response.
Thanks again,
Adrienne
Adrienne,
Firstly in response to your own blog post about blog carnivals I have personally seen some good results from them so nice post 🙂
Secondly on to your question…
The theory of what I call “keyword mashing” is that you will rank in time for both the long-tail (“combined”) phrase *and* each of the individual phrases. In this way the search volume for the combined phrase is far less important than the search phrases for the two seperate phrases you’re targeting. Therefore I wouldn’t let that discourage you from experimenting with this technique.
Warm regards,
Richard
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Solid tip Richard. Just did not know that combining “several” keywords into one longer “keyphrase” is dubbed “Mashing”, lol. I will start mashing a lot of keywords form now on. This way it covers a lot more ground. Good one. thanks!
Thanks Richard – Good advice here. Isn’t this similar to long tail where I might be trying for phrases instead of a specific obvious keyword? Or am I getting the comparison wrong?
Hi Billy,
To a degree you are correct but in my opinion the key difference between the two strategies is that an article/blog post of decent-enough length combined with enough links will lead automatically to long-tail traffic though each search phrase that sends traffic may only send a tiny trickle. In other words every post on your blog should really be sending this kind of traffic if you’re promoting your posts properly.
However with the “keyword mashing” concept we’re far more conscious and deliberate in our efforts and aim to go after two or more reasonably high-traffic keyword phrases which have the potential to create a significant increase in our readership rather than the “trickle” seen from most “accidental” long-tail traffic.
Hope that makes it clearer.
Warm regards,
Richard
Hi Richard,
I heard about “Keyword Mashing” here first time in your post. But I think it’s very interesting concept and should work as well. Best thing I like about it, you can promote your 2-3 keywords at same time and making it natural. It doesn’t hurt Google as well. 😉
Great tips Richard….. I really liked them and I’m going to work them out as well.
Hi Richard,
Keyword Mashing is very important for seo. It’s very good concept. This concept is very useful for beginners.Thanks for posting.Keep posting interesting topic like this.
Wow, it has been the best tip about SEO that I have read so far. It changes all of my SEO knowledge from before till now. But I would like to add a point about this keyword strategy; no matter how many sub links you build around your main keyword, you must have maintain a 80/20 rules. 80% of links in your portfolio must around your target keywords and 20% is for sub-keywords. What do you think?
Hi Derek,
I must admit hat personally one of my watchwords when it comes to SEO is trying to look “natural” (as opposed to artificial) wherever possible. Because of this I tend to avoid 80/20 rules or any similar “clear cut” stats that would risk making my efforts look artificial in the eyes of Google. Instead I prefer a more holistic approach where I build a wide range of links and gently modify my link building strategies based on results.
So, for example, when I get a top search engine placement for a certain phrase I will reduce the number of links for that campaign and then gently increase the links for another keyword phrase – thus pushing that listing up the rankings too.
Stay natural – it’s one of the best long-term strategies for SEO success.
Warm regards,
Richard
Very Right. Variation of anchor text is a must even though a single keyword is targeted. LSI keywords and some totally irrelevant keywords should be used while building links. And it’s always better to target 2-3 keywords per page instead of one in order to avoid skipping opoortunities.
Excellent tips Richard, this might be what I’ve been looking for.
So far, I have one long-tail for my main blog. I recently sent an email to my SEO outsource asking her to come up with 2-3 more so i am able to switch on and off as necessary.
Hey ..it was nice information …
i’m here first time and found blog with very important tips and information.
loved to be here next time….keep rocking friends.
The keyword is very important on seo progress. Let’s choose the right one.
Don’t do any keyword mashing deliberately myself, but my defaults are to include potential “search terms” as tags and as part of the meta description and title of the post. I saw an article on another site. You are right that by adding some common typed words that may not be directly related, you can get lots of cross search traffic even if it wasn’t what the user was looking for it could translate to a subscriber or reader.
It sounds fairly easy I’d never heard of this mashing before. My site used to be “diabetic” was my keyword since it’s diabeticsnacker.com/ but now I have so many reviews & giveaways I think one or both of them should be my keywords. I am at a loss as which one to promote the most or all of them at the same time.
Hi Richard,
Nice post and discussion here. I like you emphasis on looking natural. There are some parameters the search engines set to determine whether the practice is attempting for unfair favor. If everything looks natural you’ll certainly get due credit.
I like the concept of Keyword Mashing and I do agree!
Hi Suresh,
You’re right that it’s absolutely possible to “over optimize” and sometimes the best method of attack is to use a degree of trial and error. Publish your article and build some high quality incoming links to it. Then keep an eye on your rankings and try out minor adjustments over time while you build links rather than trying to go “all out” from the getgo and risking getting flagged for your activities. Sometimes the simplest changes can have a massive impact on your results.
Warm regards,
Richard
I did a lot of article marketing with the same anchor text. Don’t know how will it affect my ranking !
Great post. I stumbled upon this method accidentally (or at least not knowing there was a term for it). It just made sense to me. When I first started, I was only targeting one key phrase. It came to me one day that I was not taking as much advantage of my keyword targeting as I could.
I like your post on keyword mashing, it is good for those who recently start a blog or also for those who do blogging from a long time and it really helps blog to move up in search engine.
Thanks for this informatics post as I think good keyword in the post and backlinks are the main cause to move our site at top page of Search Engines.
Hi Richard,
This idea of ‘Keyword Mashing’ is really brilliant and will help most of us in attracting traffic for our sites, the best feature of this technique is one has to add just few keywords and build his or her new site without even upsetting Google.
Angela,
Yes one of the nice things about this technique is that it’s possible to go back to content you’ve already published on your site and built some links to and then “tweak” it using this strategy for greater traffic rather than you having to start afresh with a whole new article.
Richard
Thanks for giving us a clue on keyword mashing. I have learned a lot from it.
I always recommend long tail keywords and also recommend one word in each phrase. Sites get power very quickly.
Hi Richard.
I have just read your article. I have read something new for me : Keyword Mashing. I’ve just heard about this here. But after I read your article, I usually use this thechnique to improve my search engine ranking. LOL. But it’s great post. I like to read it because your post is easy to understand.
Thanks for sharing.
Regads
Ery
Its always better to evolve the sub-niche in your niche and keywords according to that as working particularly only on very limited keywords is not good
Keyword mashing looks like the way to go. I’ll use more related keywords in my next post url. Thanks for the tip.
Great post! You sometimes just need to be imaginative in writing your content for your site and in keyword placement.
Use the Google Keywords Tool for getting a good over view for searched traffic for your chosen keywords.
OMG I have been mashing keywords and I didn’t even know it… Not really for domain names but for each article I write… I do the same thing but rank the one article on page one for all of the mashed words… It is amazing how many words you can rank for with one massive article.
Mitz,
You’re absolutely right – using this technique can be very effective when writing articles for your site. It can als be easier to “mash” when you have hundreds of words of content rather than just a website/article title. Also it’s worth noting that by inclduing similar/related keyword phrases in your articles in order to attract long-tail traffic you will often be setting off the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) triggers too which gives you an even greater chance of high rankings for your article.
All the best,
Richard
I always use Google Adwords keyword tool for choosing the right keywords for my blog posts.
keyword mashing is a new concept for me. I wasn’t using it, lets see,, what will happen after using it.. Happy Blogging 😀
Keyword mashing simply helps you target 2 different keywords in one main keyword.
The benefit of using keyword mashing is that the traffic you will be getting will be natural links. This is good in the eyes of Google and other search engines, as they do not prefer poor or irrelevant site’s links.
Great tip.
It is silly anyway to choose just one good keyword and letting all that other good traffic go.
Only thing I have difficulty with is mixing them up and not first focusing on one and then the next.
Because I don’t care if I’m number 10 or number 8, it’s both too far down the screen to see when someone searches for it. The goal is to at least be visible to the searcher without scrolling. Of course number 1 is best but number 2 is great as well.
So I rather first have one phrase on top of Google and then focus on the next. Instead of 2 or 3 different sets on number 8 position.
Interesting article, and have to say it effects Google ranking big-time!