If you’ve ever tried to figure out search engine optimization for marketing your brand, your blog, or your business categories in Google, you know there is a lot to the whole thing.
IÂ always tell my clients that there are about 100 things to do for SEO and that none are rocket science, it’s just a lot of work, takes time, patience and some analytical skills. I also rely on my SEO expert business friend Sandy Donaldson of Donaldson Resources.
Sandy and I talk alot about website strategy and why it makes sense to target long tail keywords first. She reminds me that one of the most important point in SEO is don’t try to go for a home run everytime!
When you go after long tail words, the search engine optimization efforts on the page matters a whole lot more than for the most competitive words. So you can really influence the results from a long tail phrase, but going for the most competitive word is really tough, especially for a new website.
Because I focus on providing marketing consulting resources to small and medium sized businesses in Northeast Ohio, another thing I like about long tail words is that it really helps to attract the right target market. As a marketing consultant, I’m always asking my clients about what is the goal, who do you want to influence, who is the decision maker, what are you trying to accomplish with your marketing and so on. Just getting alot of traffic on a website isn’t nearly as important as getting the RIGHT TRAFFIC! It’s more important to me to get the right traffic than it is to just get up high in the search engines.
By focusing on long tail keywords, you can target geography, or specializations within an industry and really hone into the niche.
So, maybe you can tell, I am going after the long tail keywords of marketing consulting northeast Ohio. I’m doing pretty well with that phrase and also my Akron version, but as of today, we’re still a little lower with the marketing consulting Cleveland phrase. It’s currently at #3, but with all those Google local results on the map, visually it makes this phrase look a whole lot lower.
What are the long tail keywords you are trying to optimize your website for? How are you doing with it? Do you optimize for geography? Are you more interested in getting up in the search engines or getting the right traffic? Why?
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really liked this idea of the long tail.
I will use it for adwords. like embroidery insurance Texas. i’ll let you know how it works.
thanks.
pat
Pat:
Yes, as an example, an article you wrote comes up 3rd for “embroidery insurance Texas” out of 83,800 results. Of course, it changes every day. Being clear about which keywords you want to use and which pages you want them to lead to is part of your SEO strategy too.
Thanks for commenting.
Chris
Hi Chris, I agree the long tail phrases are where it’s at if you want to go after meaningful traffic and see results more quickly.
I also come across people talking about how they want to get 1000 hits a day or 20,000 unique visitors a month. The point that needs to be considered is that if you aren’t ranking for “paying” keywords or getting traffic from people who are interested in your product or service you won’t make much money at all.
A good example is found in the “Fake Steve Jobs” or Dan Lyons story. On his busiest month ever he had over a million unique visitors to his blog and only made a little over $1000.00. Why because his traffic was not targeted and he wasn’t ranking for “paying†keywords.
Nice post Chris,
Sam
Thanks, I should try using these long key word techniques next time. I would like to get 1000 daily hits for my blog.
Long tail keywords definitely helps after LSI updates from Google. Search Engine Optimization is playing a crucial role in today’s unfavorable economic situation.
Anyways. thanks for summing it up and posting in your blog. :)