For Effective US Web Site Promotion, Start with Long Tail Keywords

long tail

October 11, 2009


US web site promotion can benefit by the use of good keyword research techniques, and long tail keywords.

For additional search engine optimization advice, and a free web site analysis, take a moment to complete the SEO Preparedness Quiz

Long tail keyword phrases string several keywords together. For example Promotion, or Web Promotion would be the short tail for this particular post. Web Site Promotion could be the main keyword phrase. Web Site Promotion strategy, Web Site Web Site Promotion Methods, Web Site Promotion Tips, etc. would be possible long tail variations for this post.

Generally, the shorter the keyword, the more competitive the category. High traffic keyword phrases are highly desirable, but they are also very competitive. When you are starting out, it is better to use long tail variations, since not only are they less competitive, they tend to have more targeted, or focused traffic for your product or service. The disadvantage, of course, is that there is less overall traffic for them.

Of course, keyword research using tools such as the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, or the free suggestion tool from Wordtracker, is critical to reveal good keywords with desirable traffic levels. It is simply not productive to pursue keywords that very few people are searching for on the Internet.

In addition to reasonable levels of traffic, it is equally important to pursue keyword niches that have a good balance between traffic and competitiveness. Detailed studies have shown that the majority of clicks take place on the first page of search engine results.

The conclusion is simply that it is better to be ranked on page 1 for a keyword phrase with moderate levels of traffic, then to be on page 2,3,4, or page 10 for a high traffic keyword phrase.

It may seem as though you are working backwards by targeting long tail first, before short tail phrases, but that is actually a wise US web site promotion strategy. By gaining traffic from long tail phrases first, a site can come closer to achieve a long term goal in a shorter period of time. The short tails are going to require a great deal of effort that may take a substantial amount of time.

It takes patience and time to succeed at highly competitive phrases. In the meantime, you can get traffic and results from the less competitive long tail variations, and build momentum towards the bigger market of more competitive keywords.

A wise long term strategy is to combine both long and short variations for the best possible search engine placement, since the greater the number of targeted keyword phrases, the greater the total amount of traffic.

There are practical limits to challenging different types and large numbers of keywords. Usually it is difficult to challenge a large number good keywords on an individual post on a blog, but you can target multiple keywords if you set up categories based on them. All categories should closely relate to the main keywords for the site.

In the case of a Joomla web site, the choice of sections, and categories is an important one, and it should reflect the keyword goals of the site.

Of course it is also important to have the body of the text correspond to the section, or category, (or post) if the text is on a WordPress blog.

The correspondence between your title, your WordPress blog categories, or Joomla sections and categories, is very important. Remember Google is always trying to improve the quality of their search. If Google sees a site with a title on one topic, and structure or content on a different unrelated subject, that will not rate highly with the search engines.

Note: the Google robot is merely a name for the invisible visitor, or the crawl of a particular web site. This is actually a specialized automated search of a web site, to evaluate all of the factors that allow Google to place the site appropriately on Search Engine Results Pages.

Make sure that you have good keyword research on long tail keywords for your web site promotion, and you will enjoy great success.

Much more to follow on this topic

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Tagged as: Google, Google search, index term, Joomla, keyword, keyword optimization, keyword phrase, Keyword research, promotions, Search engine optimization, search engine results page, web promotions, Web search engine, Web Site Promotion, WordPress, Wordtracker

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