I’m reviewing Google Analytics on several businesses and it’s reminding me of the importance of the long tail.

I briefly reviewed the long tail and SEO for dummies in this post. Now I want to remind you of a few things.

The consumer is not landing on your home page looking for solutions.

They are hanging out searching words and phrases and linking to content on sites such as Google, Bing, Facebook, Linked In and Twitter, etc that interest them because it’s relevant and timely.

( Long tail book- and concept originator Chris Anderson)

They (consumers) have the remote control. They have the questions and THEY are in control. Will you be found when your prospects, future clients go searching for solutions and answers at midnight or will they find your competitor’s solutions?

More and more the consumer is online browsing, searching, linking in real time- NOW!

Think mobile. Think IPAd. Think quick and convenient. Forget URL’s. Forget .com .org. Who has time for all those words? Enter the semantic web. Begin typing and intuitively Google starts offering possibilities, keep typing and possibilities are refined. Solutions are found…

Recently I became interested in hot yoga. Imagine my surprise when I typed in the words ‘hot yoga’ and hot yoga of Kirkland came up first, well not today but the day I searched it was first and today it was third on the 1st page of Google.

That is invaluable because ‘hot yoga’ is searched locally 165,000 times a month and globally 310,000 times. I know you know- you can buy the ad space on page one of the Google for $ a click, you can run a facebook ad and pay per click, but to be there, top of page one of Google in organic search- well that’s valuable my friend.

So what words would you like your company, organization to be on the 1st page of Google for?

Can you purchase the URL? URL. Yes that’s the first place to focus on when you want to be found. Buy url’s that your clients are searching and point them to your site and specific content pages. Of course Hot Yoga of Kirkland has the url www. hotyogainc.com. Who know’s they might have 20 other hotyoga url’s pointing to the site.

You don’t need to rename your company to purchase keyword url’s. It’s a strategy to help people find you online. And for goodness sake if you are naming a new product or company in the digital age think very carefully about the key words your prospects will be searching before deciding on a name; social real estate is valuable.

So cool- you get that URL’s are important. Don’t forget you can have many URL’s tied up, purchased and pointing to different sites, pages, conversion outposts and remember each unique solution, product, service has it’s own set of keywords, long tails and url’s….

Increasingly you and your solutions will not be found in a linear manner. We will not be typing in your generic URL, your website rather we will be linking to words, terms, photo’s, videos with relevant keywords we are interested in.

In the old days the consumer landed on a website and moved around once there. Today they find you coming in on long tails. Now that you brought them to you – what do you want them to do? Is it clear? Do they bounce away, stay and linger, convert their browsing to behavior….purchase, contact you, join, sign up?

What behavior do you want the consumer to take once they find you? Is it clear? On every page of content you have online? What is the key behavior that drives your success? Click, call, contact, download, purchase…?

So if I am not ‘Hot Yoga of Kirkland’ and I want to be on the first page of Google eventually what do I do now? How can I begin to be found online?

let’s take a look at the Google Keyword tool box ( click to enlarge).

Now let’s get more specific. Since our hot yoga studio (for illustration purpose) is in Seattle. Let’s see what happens when we search ‘hot yoga seattle’

So looks like there are some good numbers here.

Let’s target ‘hot yoga seattle’ with 2,400 searches, ‘yoga seattle’ with 22,000 local searches, ‘bikram yoga seattle’ for another 2,4oo and’ seattle hot yoga’ for starters.

We will write articles on each, create a short video or add photo’s tagged with the keywords in each article, post. And of course we will publish the articles, blog posts on our website and syndicate from there. ( think share)

Review the prior post for reminders on how to optimize a web page.

So now that we are on our way to developing a content strategy based on being found around key searches our prospects are making online. Who is most likely going to be most interested in this content? Where are our peeps? Where is our tribe online and who are the influencers?

Good question. I like to use Twazzup to find influencers. Of course you can use Linked In groups, Facebook pages, Google and Bing also. Here’s what the home page of hot yoga influencers looks like on Twazzup. Of course we want to engage with these ‘hot yoga’ lovers- they are part of our tribe. Follow them. Listen. Learn and then begin sharing and adding value to the ‘hot yoga’ community.

(Aggregated twitter info based on keywords in tweets)

So what are the keywords and phrases your clients, prospects, members are searching? And will you be found

there? You will if you execute a long tail content strategy and engage with the online influencers in your tribe!

Call me if you need help- otherwise -here’s to you my friend!

Pam Hoelzle

learn about me here