Visitor Tracking with Hit Tail…Update

So I’ve been using Hit Tail (A free stats program) for about 2 weeks now and I have some stats for you.

(See my other post about Hit Tail)

Hit Tail shows me long tail keyword phrases people are using to find me. That’s not a huge deal as several other stats programs do this as well in their own way.

What impresses me about my data coming back from Hit Tail is that its entire focus is driven by long tail phrase discovery for your site.

For instance, here are some stats for my site so far:

Top ten keywords are 19.4% of all your search traffic.
Long tail keywords are 80.6% of all your search traffic.

Hit Tail has also collected 143 keyword phrases so far and makes recommendations of phrases, based on the entire data set it collects from visits and where and how they found me, that I should capitalize on further.

Here is a novel idea for keyword research:

The only way to do proper keyword research for a niche is to build a site and develop content for it. You can get initial ideas from regular [tag]keyword tools[/tag] about the popularity of a topic, but developing a site and watching real-time phrases being used to hit your site developes the real keyword list you want to work from.

The keyword list I am developing through my content, which gets picked up and ranked in the engines the way it does because I publish on the Authority Site Center system, is second to none and no one else in the world has it.

No one can run a program to find out what’s on my list because it is developed in-house.

Think about that for a moment.

1. You are developing a strong, real-life list of phrases people actually use to find content in your market.

2. No one else can ever have the same list if you are writing original content on various topics in your niche regularly.

3. While everyone else is using some generic tool like Overture or Google phrase programs, you are developing a unique list of phrases you know for a fact people are really searching on, and that’s people who know exactly what they want. (People in niches like mine who type in one or two keywords to find something aren’t serious enough to convert. They are just playing around and wasting my bandwidth.)

4. While everyone else works like dogs to optimize for those generic phrases they are rarely, if ever, going to rank well for due to fierce competition, you are simply providing content informed by all the other searches in your market. Let the amateurs and Fortune 500s duke it out for the more useless phrases in your market!

Stats tracking has come a long way. With a three-pronged approach:

1) MyBlogLog.com,

2) HitTail.com, and

3) My log files (yeah right, like I’m going to link you to THOSE!)

I am able to triangulate and pinpoint data in my market that relatively few others in my market are able or willing to find.

It makes my content better for you and it makes it easier for you to find me because the engines find me more relevant than millions of other sites and pages on my search terms more often than not.

When you know the things I know about my visitors, the engines, and the ways I can improve and create rankings out of thin air, you will be a powerful publisher to watch out for in your market for sure!

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Tags: blog stats programs, competition analysis tool, keyword tools, long tail research, stats programs, visitor tracking

Beyond SEO: Guest Article

Editor’s Note: Here is a refreshing article talking about reigning in those pesky SEO urges of yours and making your marketing campaign whole again. Regarding the article quality itself, people are really starting to get this whole “writing valuable content” thing.

Look where it landed the author below! Front and center on at least this popular blog, but also in Site Reference Newsletter today as well.

Proof positive that good writing will get you farther than anything else you can do to promote yourself on the web.

—

Looking Beyond SEO
By Matt Jackson

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is one of the most highly talked about topics between Webmasters and marketers. It is probably also the single topic that more webmasters obsess over than any other (in terms of their website anyway!). However, while SEO can be an excellent resource for targeted traffic, all website owners should concentrate their efforts on more than trying to squeeze one more percent out of keyword density, or beg one more PR5 link from an authoritative site. As well as sapping energy, causing breakdowns in family relationships, and being responsible for the onset of male pattern baldness it also causes us to lose sight of our ultimate goal.

You Mean There’s More To Online Life Than SEO?

The ultimate goal for the vast majority of websites is to either make money or promote a service that makes money. How the site goes about it is entirely up to the Webmaster. Whether you choose to make money through affiliate links, PPC advertising, product sales, dropshipping, or any other method the single most important aspect of your website is your visitor. Visitors are those people that you attempt to attract to your site and they are the ones that will essentially make you some cash.

Don’t Forget The Real People

The biggest problem with concentrating on SEO is that while the search engine spiders might be difficult to please they are a walk in the park, a piece of cake, and an absolute breeze when compared to real-life, living, breathing, walking, talking visitors. Search engines rely on mathematical algorithms to determine the quality of your site whereas the visitor relies solely on personal opinion. The next time you’re attempting to inject 2 or 3 more instances of key phrases like “California Mesothelioma lawyer attorney” into your content try to remember that some poor soul might actually have to try and make sense of what you’re writing.

Some Search Engines Are Complying

Fortunately for you and I, of course, some of the mathematical search engines are also coming round to this way of thinking. Google, in particular, want to offer users natural search results. They want to promote natural web pages, with natural content, using natural keywords, gaining natural links. This means that Webmasters are able to start obsessing over a number of other factors now instead:

Optimizing Your Content For Conversions

Conversion rates are not a part of SEO but should be a part of your business strategy. Consider how many people visit your site and the percentage of those people that either click through the links on your page or purchase a product. It is virtually impossible to predict with any certainty what your conversion rate SHOULD be but you should always strive to improve it. Your content should convert, your newsletter should convert, your mailing list should convert, and your emails should convert.

Improving Customer Retention Rates

Customer retention is also important. Once you sell a product or provide a service, even if you persuade a visitor to click a link and make a purchase you should do everything you can to ensure that you retain your customer base and they return to make purchases again. A big part of every successful business is repeat custom and without it you will always be fighting an uphill struggle to generate new leads and convert those leads into customers.

Ensuring that you offer the best service, the best prices, the best results, or the best information and help can generate good customer retention. However this isn’t all of it. Company or website branding also plays a part, and following up with after sale emails and contact is also vital if you have the relevant information to hand. Use business cards and compliment slips whenever possible and always ensure that you include a company signature in all your email communications.

Generating Sales And Marketing Methods

Sales are obviously vital and without sales you will never achieve customer retention. In order to make sales it is important to acquire or generate leads. SEO is obviously a very beneficial way of generating leads but it isn’t the only way. PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, advertising is a good way to instantly drive traffic to your site. SEO can take months to begin to generate results whereas you can truly hit the ground running with an effective PPC campaign. Ensure that you have a compelling advertisement lined up and also ensure that your website content is geared toward the conversion of any visitors you do receive.

Banners And Text Ads

Banner advertising and text advertising (I’m trying to ignore the temptation to mention their use in SEO) have taken a back seat to SEO and PPC, but for some sites they still have their uses. Find websites or newsletters that offer information relevant to your product or your service and then try out a small advertising campaign before you inject large amounts of money in a campaign that may not bear any fruit whatsoever.

Offline Advertising Methods

Offline advertising is also an option, though it can prove costly. For geographically targeted campaigns it may [rove particularly beneficial. Local radio stations, local newspapers, and even billboards are options that do still generate results. These can cost money though. Bear in mind that some websites have been known to take this a step further with skywriting and other unusual tactics. These are best left to the behemoth sites like Ebay in all honesty.

Conclusion

SEO is not the be-all and end-all of a website. It is a powerful online marketing technique that can in time generate large amounts of targeted traffic. However, it is important to remember that once that traffic arrives your site must be optimized for conversions and sales. You should also consider using other forms of advertising in order to gain more site visitors and a more diverse range of traffic.

Matt Jackson is a website content copywriter for WebWiseWords and also a recovering SEO addict. Unfortunately, he still succumbs to the temptations once in a while and has been known to offer clients SEO content, link building, and other SEO copywritingservices.

Tags: long tail research, natural search, search engine marketing, seo linking, SEO strategies

Keyword Research Tool That Helps With Long Tail!

Ask and ye shall recieve!

Two posts ago I ranted in a big way about outdated keyword tools that are too short-sighted and restrictive on the keyword research you can do. Especially in the lack of long tail keyword research capabilities of all keyword tools on the market including Google’s, Wordtracker’s and other very high profile, popular tools.

We need a tool to help with [tag]long tail research[/tag]. Something to show what surfers who have been on the web longer than a week search for in the way that they search.

No one who is interested in “opt in list building with squeeze pages” types in “internet marketing” at the engines. C’mon!

People who have been surfing just a little while know that their results are better if they are more descriptive in their search terms. Thus the longer terms that no one is able to research with any of the tools out there today.

Except for one: HitTail.

I highly recommend you check it out if you want to see the difference between a list of phrases generated by your own site (what people actually use to find you) and the list you can get out of Overture or the other keyword list generators.

It’s like night and day. Here is a phrase someone typed in to find me just today: “myspace adding friends without requests”

If you got that out of Overture it would read like this: “adding requests without friends myspace” or some such nonsense.

Tens of thousands of people are using terribly bad data to write content around. And it is because the tools they use, that they accept as 100% reliable and “from the source,” are dinosaurs.

Using HitTail you can see where people come from with the actual phrases they use to find you.

What to do with this insight? Publish content around topics you are scoring well for to score better in the engines (and with your visitors who obvisously like the topic!)

Find holes in your content and develop stronger content to move up in rankings for phrases you can create around the phrase you are scoring 1-2 hits a day on.

The phrase above and several others I happen to be mostly on the second page for in Google tells me I need more hooks for Myspace users if I want to tap that market further and move up the ranks.

Without a good [tag]stats tracking[/tag] system like HitTail you will never know this kind of information about your site and therefore you will be leaving tons of traffic on the table while you are fighting an uphill battle to get into the top ten on phrases everyone in your niche is going after with the same fervor.

And at least 10 of them have more resources or experience than you do in many cases.

Finally, realize that you get top ten rankings for one and two-word keywords only after you get the long tail phrases down and get a lot more links and popularity.

No one can compete with the top ten in their niche with a site that has little popularity. It is ridiculous to try. Only time and consistent promotion and linking will get you into the top ten with the most competitive phrases in your niche.

Until then, publish for [tag]long tail[/tag] and use tools like HitTail to greatly inform your content strategy so you know where you are going with your [tag]marketing[/tag] campaign.

YouTube Hit Tail Video (These guys are marketing it like they are charging for it - but it’s free!)

Tags: long tail, long tail research, marketing, stats tracking