The Life Cycle Of A Search Term

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There’s something you don’t think about too often when you first start the search engine marketing game. But most search terms do have very specific life cycles. Some keywords will soar for awhile, and then come crashing back to Earth. Many search phrases are news-driven, so they’ll go up and down depending on whether they’re mentioned on the news that weeks. Yet other search phrases are company names or proper names, so their importance will depend on what the companies or people do to gain press attention.

The basic idea is to understand that certain phrases will probably continue to go up, but others will decline with time.

As you manage your “portfolio of keywords”, understand that maintenance will become a greater issue as time goes on. Let’s think of some keywords that were probably very good money, but don’t bring in squat these days:

“Dr. Phil Diet” - Dr. Phil has been sued, and the diet withdrawn. Not much money there these days.

“Summer Olympics” - would be another great example. Obviously, this will have peaks and valleys.

How can you figure out the trend of your search terms?

Most of it will be from your own experience. Google Trends can also give you an idea of what’s happening to terms. You can do comparisons between two terms even to see what’s happening.

Check out what happened between dialup and broadband. Since 2004, dialup has flatlined while broadband has soared. Keep this possibility in mind when doing you keyword research, and be prepared to replace keywords each month as they go out of style.

There’s no way for you to “set it and forget it” when it comes to your keywords. You’ll be forced to constantly tweak, or you can expect lowered revenues.

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