Its Still SEO – The Long Tail V 2.0

April 23, 2010

The original post:

There are a lot of ways to look at SEO or Search Engine Optimization. It all depends on your perspective. A professional may talk about organic or natural SEO where as the general public might actually just refer to SEO. I like the niche versions of SEO. They are more likely to be less competitive and if you have been around here you know that I prefer Niche Markets. In fact, the site currently ranks both #1 and #2 for Niche SEO. We also rank well for Niche Search Engine Optimization.

I point this out not to say we’re great at SEO, but to get you to think in broader terms about your own niche markets, or how that you can be competitive in your own markets. I previously managed a website of a manufacturer. This company sold dust collection equipment but not just any dust collection equipment they manufactured industrial equipment, or industrial dust collection equipment.

This company wanted to land on the first page of Google for the search dust collection. When I took a look at the market I consider this an unrealistic goal.The reason was that this term covered several industries and not just one. They were competing with home units and vacuum cleaners, as well as within their own market. I reasoned that industrial dust collection would be a more realistic goal, and it was. Their site easily soared to the # 1 spot for this keyword phrase with Google. Amazingly, I was actually able to get them high up onto the first page of the Google results for just dust collection. This beat my own expectations.

You can likely do the same in your markets if you go after what is known as the “long tail” of search. This means that you are going to go after keyword phrases that contain three or more words. Yes, there will be much less competition for these keyword phrases but the longer the tail the more likely this the visitor is a hot lead. If someone has entered industrial dust collection equipment, that person is more likely doing serious research rather than just killing time. These are the folks that are doing serious searching with intent to purchase.

Tucson SEO provide SEO service professionally so we are more likely to try to define a smaller niche within the SEO industry. Like any good SEO we could rely on our keyword development skills to create long tails for our keyword phrases that define us best.

In our industry some people go after Organic SEO or Organic Search Engine Optimization, and others will add location into the mix, as with Tucson Search Engine Optimization. When you go local it is sometimes called local SEO or Geo-targeted. These are areas that we specialize in.

Here are some other ways to define Search Engine Optimization or SEO. I have already mentioned Local SEO and Niche SEO. Then there is Geo-targeted SEO. I could have easily referred to Geo-targeted as well as Geo-targeting. In reality Geo-targeting appears more often in the Google search results, but I target them both. Essentially it is just another expression for local SEO.

Here are a few more to terms to  consider such as SEO services, SEO Solutions, or perhaps Business SEO. The tail could grow to include Small Business SEO Services. I think that you may be getting what I mean here. For us there is a huge pool of perspective clients who need our services yet they have no idea what SEO is and many have likely never even heard of the term Search Engine Optimization. Yet, these people understand marketing, they have a website, and they use the internet and most of their business is local. To reach these potential markets we peruse long tails such as local internet marketing services. This is a search that is more likely to be used by our clients since we target small businesses.

The hardest part about SEO is trying to determine what your target customer might actually use when searching for your product or services. You can try using all the keyword tools in the world and still can come up short. Keyword tools only respond to what you enter into them. If you don’t enter the proper keywords to begin with these tools are of little value. Finding your most effective keywords requires the ability to understand how your target audience thinks and that’s where these tools often fail. The best solutions is to do focus groups of real people (potential clients) and ask them what they would use to search for to find your websites business online. Now, with this information in hand you will stand a better change in the search traffic game.

So let me ask this, could you use good some long tails?

Well, this was written well, over a year ago. Back then I was just beginning to embrace long tail keyword phrases. We would eventually end up ranking on the first page of Google for over 90 keyword phrases. Local SEO would become Local SEO Services. Business SEO would then become Small Business SEO and so on. What I didn’t realize at the time was how easy it would be to rank for so many keyword phrases.

The process of gaining links was very straight forward. I would simply use the principals of Scratch My Back Marketing. It was staying focused and disciplined over time that was the difficult part. Now,  This is how I explain this too my clients. They almost always will have a primary keyword phrase that will be the most difficult phrase to gain high rankings for. I explain that we go after the easier low lying fruit (long tails) first and that the primary ones will be achieved over time.

It is very important to explain how and why things work they way that they do for clients. Clients like success and the long tails allows this to occur quickly in the SEO process. This way they can see results and they are less likely to bug you about the more difficult phrases.

Update 05/03/2010: I just did my monthly ranking report and I discovered that I am ranking for 107 keyword phrases. Of these 92 rank in the top 3.

What do you think about this? I would like to hear from you.

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