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 [tag-tec]long tail keyword phrases[/tag-tec] 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 [tag-tec]long tail[/tag-tec] 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 [tag-tec]keyword research[/tag-tec] 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!