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Two posts ago I ranted in a big way about outdated keyword tools that are too short-sighted and restrictive on the keyword research you can do.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 [tag-tec]long tail keyword research[/tag-tec] 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 [tag-tec]top ten rankings[/tag-tec] 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!)