Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.

This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.

It’s Still SEO – The Long Tail

This was originally posted back in 2008.

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 with 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?

For those who are new to this blog let me get you up to speed here. I have been a very big proponent of blogging for links. As with everything I am always multi- tasking. I endeavor to do multiple tasks at once. I like to consider it working smarter. When I would be blogging for links (leaving comments on other blogs to acquire backlinks) I would also be working on branding, networking, and learning.

Update 05/15/2011: I now mostly target Google Places and Local SEO.

I no longer use blog commenting for links.

Leaving blog comments solved four various elements of my marketing plan. I especially enjoyed the learning part of link building. I then would share what I learned with my readers. However, it has become increasing difficult for me as an SEO to get my comments past spam filters. Many blogger’s consider anyone that uses SEO as an anchor text for their comment links to be a spammer.

It didn’t make any difference that I was providing lengthy useful comments because I was using SEO in the name field the spam filters automatically rejected me. On occasion someone who would rescue my comment from a spam filter but not often. With this in mind, I did a little experiment where I made 100 posts and recorded the url’s. I went back a week later only to discover 43% of my comments had been approved. I was very careful to leave good comments and to follow comment policies.

That is not what I would call a very effective link building experiment. So I thought about this for a little while and I decided to go another direction. I now almost exclusively build link on high Page Rank social media sites and I am glad that I do. If any of you have followed this blog you will likely already know that this site ranks on the first page of the Google results, as in 50 times.

That’s right, I report at the beginning of each month the sites rankings. The last time that I checked back on September first we ranked on the first page of Google for 50 keyword phrases. Some of these are not very competitive but they still are niche markets that we target. Then again, many of these results are in extremely competitive markets. The key to this success was abandoning blogging for links.

When I decided to abandon blogs the site ranked 31 times on the first page of Google. Two months later that number is at 50. Over the last two months I have almost exclusively used Web 2.0 social media sites for link building. I usually leave a site with 5 or more links. The process is extremely easy if you are prepared. I simply take what the site offers in the profile area. Then I add value to the site through blog or forum posts and comments. I take the time to do it right!

I have many blog posts covering multiple topics ready in advance. The key here is to provide quality and not spammy posts. I close all posts using a signature as if it was a formal business letter. It includes a tag line. That’s where I add my links, into the tag line. As long as you are adding quality material that goes along with the sites theme you are generally not going to have any problems.

I have used this method thousands of times and only once did I get a complaint. That site banned me for putting links into my profile although they didn’t have a policy that prohibited this at that time. I got in trouble by reviewing the site on this blog. So all a sudden a whole bunch of people are doing the same thing. OOP’s!

That’s my method. The real beauty of this is that you are not visiting a blog hoping to find something to comment about. You pick the topic hopefully something that is related to your business and the sites theme. Many of these social sites provide you with a blog or they have a forum. When I discover these I begin to grin. This all goes hand in hand with my marketing approach, Scratch My Back Marketing. If you help other people building links is easy. It still requires lots of time but it can be a joy rather than dull boring work.

What say you?

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