Using ChatGPT and other Tools for Keyword Research

When it comes to SEO, words matter. And so, too, does search volume. (Using “session-proof failover” as illustration.)

“How and where do my customers search for a solution to their problem?” – that’s the question that should be driving your keyword selection. And, frankly, all copy on your website. This article will explain to you how we go about finding the “right” keywords that will fill our clients’ marketing funnels quickly and consistently.

Do you use ChatGPT as a sounding board? Our friends at Couch & Associates recently published an article in Forbes about using ChatGPT and other GenAI tools to expand your thinking and to act as a sounding board for ideas. We use ChatGPT all the time to help us evolve our thinking to where we are adding value to our clients’ marketing initiatives.

Here’s a recent example of how we used ChatGPT to help us understand a term we came across and how to use ChatGPT (and other tools) to propose more lucrative, synonymous terms in your copy.

Below is the chat transcript – unedited, but fixed (somewhat) for formatting. Incidentally, I’m sorry if you came here for any of the keywords we’re using in this article – wholly unintentionally, but it drives home our message. If you’re picking keyphrases/terms out of thin air, it’s important that you can win at them and that there’s sufficient search volume to benefit your marketing efforts.

Cam:

What does “Session-proof” mean in networking?

ASSISTANT:

In networking, session-proof refers to the ability of a network or system to maintain active sessions without interruption, even when there are changes or disruptions in the underlying network infrastructure. This ensures that user sessions (e.g., VoIP calls, video streams, or VPN connections) remain active and seamless, providing a continuous and reliable experience.

Here are a few contexts where session-proofing might apply:

1. Redundancy and Failover

• In environments with high availability setups, such as SD-WAN or load balancing systems, session-proofing ensures that if a primary connection or server fails, the session continues uninterrupted on a backup link or server without requiring the user to reconnect.

2. Persistent Connections

• For applications like online gaming, video conferencing, or secure financial transactions, session-proofing helps prevent session drops even if network conditions fluctuate (e.g., packet loss or latency spikes).

3. IP Address Changes

• Some advanced networking technologies allow users to roam between different networks (e.g., from Wi-Fi to cellular) without losing session continuity, even if the public IP address changes.

4. Firewall and NAT Traversal

• Certain firewalls or NAT devices support session preservation across failover scenarios, ensuring session continuity even if the path through which traffic is routed changes.

Why It Matters:

• Improved User Experience: Ensures uninterrupted service for critical applications.
• Enhanced Productivity: Minimizes disruptions in workflows that depend on stable connections.
• Increased Resilience: Maintains service reliability even during network failures or transitions.

Would you like more details on a specific implementation of session-proofing?

Cam:

Shouldn’t “session-proofing” a network, really be, then, “outage-proofing”, as you’re proofing against the outage?

ASSISTANT

You’re absolutely right! The term session-proofing could indeed be seen as a subset of outage-proofing, as it specifically focuses on maintaining active sessions despite potential disruptions. However, there’s a subtle distinction between the two concepts:

Session-Proofing vs. Outage-Proofing

1. Session-Proofing:

• Focuses on maintaining active user sessions (e.g., a VoIP call or video stream) without interruption.
• Deals primarily with ensuring continuity during events like failovers, network transitions, or IP changes.
• The aim is to ensure users don’t experience dropped connections or have to re-establish their session.

1. Outage-Proofing:

• Takes a broader approach, aiming to ensure the entire network remains operational and available even during outages.
• Involves redundancy at multiple levels: hardware, links, power supplies, etc.
• While it encompasses session-proofing, it also includes scenarios where new sessions can still be established despite an outage (e.g., failover to a backup data center).

Why Not Use “Outage-Proofing” Exclusively?

The term session-proofing exists because session continuity is a particularly challenging and critical aspect of network reliability. Outage-proofing might ensure the network stays up, but without session-proofing, users could still face service interruptions during failovers or transitions.

A Practical Example:

• In a session-proof setup, a VoIP call continues seamlessly even if the primary network link fails and traffic is rerouted through a backup link.
• In an outage-proof setup, the backup link ensures the network remains operational, but without session-proofing, the call might drop and need to be re-established.

Conclusion:

While both terms aim at resilience, session-proofing emphasizes uninterrupted user experience during outages or transitions, whereas outage-proofing is about keeping the entire network infrastructure operational. The choice of term depends on whether the focus is on service continuity (sessions) or infrastructure availability (network).

Cam:

That’s fair – and I get that you want to protect the session, not just the network. But wouldn’t “session-persistent” failover be more apt than “session-proof” failover?

ASSISTANT

You’re absolutely onto something! “Session-persistent failover” is indeed a more precise term than “session-proof failover”, as it highlights the core objective: maintaining the persistence of an active session through a failover event. Let’s break this down:

Why “Session-Persistent Failover” is More Accurate

• Session-Proof:
  • Implies a certain immunity or invulnerability, as if sessions are somehow impervious to network issues.
  • While catchy, it’s less technically descriptive and could mislead one to think sessions are unaffected by network changes when, in reality, the goal is to manage the failover process gracefully.
• Session-Persistent:
  • Emphasizes the continuity and survival of the session despite underlying disruptions.
  • Accurately describes what happens during failover: the session persists without interruption, even as the network path or link changes.
  • Reflects the key function of maintaining session state and connectivity through transitions.

Comparison in Context

1. Session-Proof Failover:
   • Marketing-friendly, suggests a strong defense against interruptions.
   • May overlook the technical nuance that sessions aren’t “immune” but rather managed to persist seamlessly.
2. Session-Persistent Failover:
   • Technically precise, emphasizing that the session stays alive and intact.
   • Reflects a robust design focused on persistence of state and data flow.

Examples of Session Persistence:

• SD-WAN solutions often offer session-persistent failover, ensuring VoIP calls, video streams, or VPN sessions remain active when switching between network paths.
• Mobile Network Roaming allows persistent sessions when transitioning between different towers or network types (e.g., Wi-Fi to 4G).

Final Thought

You’re right that “session-persistent failover” better captures the technical reality and purpose. While “session-proof” may sound simpler, the term “session-persistent” underscores the continuity of user experience, making it a more apt and precise descriptor for the concept.

Cam:

When I consider the word “proof” in such circumstances, I usually think that it is used to describe “blocking” something – “bullet proof” being the first example to come to mind. “Sound Proof” would be another. In the case of “session-proof”, I take that as being “not allowing sessions”. Can you explain where I’m misinterpreting “session proof” meaning “allowing sessions to persist”?

ASSISTANT

Your interpretation makes perfect sense given the typical usage of the word “proof” in contexts like “bulletproof” or “soundproof”, which indeed imply blocking or resisting something undesirable (bullets, sound, etc.). Let’s unpack why “session-proof” might seem contradictory in a networking context and how it diverges from typical usage:

The Usual Interpretation of “Proof”

1. Bulletproof, Waterproof, Soundproof:
   • These terms describe something that is resistant or impervious to an external force or element.
   • The key idea is blocking or shielding from harm or intrusion.
2. Session-Proof:
   • Given this pattern, “session-proof” could logically be interpreted as blocking or preventing sessions (i.e., preventing something from establishing or persisting a session).
   • However, this is not the intended meaning in networking contexts, which creates a mismatch between expectation and application.

Why “Session-Proof” is Used Differently

In networking, proofing sometimes takes on a slightly different connotation, closer to ensuring resilience or protection of a desired state:

• Session-Proof is meant to convey protection of sessions against interruptions, ensuring they persist despite failures.
• It’s not about blocking sessions but rather making them “immune” to disruptions.

However, this usage diverges from the norm because it borrows more from phrases like failure-proof or error-proof, where “proof” means guarded against a negative outcome (e.g., failure, error) rather than resisting something physical.

Where the Misinterpretation Comes From

• Expectation of Blocking: Based on common terms, it’s natural to assume that “session-proof” means blocking sessions, much like “soundproof” means blocking sound.
• Ambiguity in Terminology: “Session-proof” doesn’t explicitly clarify what is being proofed against (e.g., session interruption or session failure).

How to Clarify the Meaning

For better clarity, the term could be replaced with something that aligns more closely with its intended meaning, like:

• Session-Persistent (as you suggested earlier).
• Session-Resilient.
• Failover-Protected Sessions.

These terms avoid the ambiguity and clearly emphasize continuity and protection without invoking the “blocking” interpretation.

Conclusion

You’re not misinterpreting based on conventional language use! The term “session-proof” is indeed somewhat poorly chosen in this context because it breaks from the usual “proof” = “blocking” convention. A better term like session-persistent failover would resolve this ambiguity and align more intuitively with the goal of ensuring uninterrupted session continuity.

Cam:

Neither “Session-Proof Failover”, nor “session-persistent failover” are widely used online. Can you suggest ten other ways of conveying the same message?

ASSISTANT

Here are ten alternative terms that could convey the concept of maintaining session continuity during failover events, avoiding the ambiguity of “session-proof” and emphasizing reliability and persistence:

1. Session-Resilient Failover

Highlights the system’s resilience in preserving sessions during disruptions.

2. Session-Failover Continuity

Focuses on the continuity of sessions through failover processes.

3. Seamless Session Failover

Emphasizes the seamless experience for users, with no noticeable interruptions.

4. Session-Retention Failover

Stresses that active sessions are retained even during failover events.

5. Session-Continuity Failover

Directly conveys the goal of ensuring session continuity.

6. Uninterrupted Session Transition

Highlights the smooth transition of sessions across failover scenarios.

7. Session-Persistent Connectivity

Focuses on maintaining persistent session connectivity despite disruptions.

8. Failover with Session Preservation

Explicitly states that sessions are preserved during failover events.

9. Session-Stable Failover

Suggests stability for active sessions during network failover.

10. Failover with Seamless Session Handling

Describes failover in a way that ensures seamless handling of sessions.

These alternatives aim to communicate the concept clearly and precisely, avoiding the ambiguity associated with “proof” terminology.

Cam:

For all 12 of these options, the monthly average search volume is 0. What are some more popular, synonymous search terms for this feature of an SD-WAN product? (Audience is technical, usually service providers).

ASSISTANT

In the context of SD-WAN solutions, especially for technical audiences like service providers, the concept of maintaining active sessions during network disruptions is commonly referred to using terms such as:

1. Seamless Failover
2. Session Continuity
3. Stateful Failover
4. Session Persistence
5. High Availability Failover
6. Sub-second Failover
7. Zero-Packet-Loss Failover
8. Non-Disruptive Failover
9. Session Resilience
10. Failover with Session Preservation

These terms are widely recognized in the industry and effectively convey the capability of an SD-WAN solution to maintain uninterrupted sessions during failover events.

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Why strategic keyword selection matters?

Choosing the “right” SEO keyword is important. Marketers spend most of their time in the heads of their customers, asking “What does my prospect need/want?”. Importantly, that question has to be followed up with “How and where they looking for it?”. It’s that second question that, in this case, wasn’t asked – and why, as of today (the day after we published this article), CC Marketing Group (this exact article) is ranking #1 for “session-proof failover”.

You don’t want this to happen. If you’re not sure about which keywords you should be optimizing for, let us know – we can run a quick assessment of your site, your competitors’ sites, and help you identify high-value, high-traffic, and low-barrier keywords that will fill your funnel.

And if you *are* here looking for a solution that provides “session-proof failover”, please consider going here for a backup internet solution.