7 replies to this topic

[PatrickGer]

just had this quick thought....:

If I wanted to leverage my deep curiosity (i think this is my main strength) in SEO/Internet Marketing - any chance I could do this by specializing in keyword research?

mostly by finding industries where the tail of search is reeeeeeaaaallllly long and most of the competition who doesnt like to dig deep is missing out on tons of valuable traffic, by not shooting for the long-tail?

I remember some well known seo blogger stated that in some industries most of the traffic comes from the head of search whereas in others the tail of search is insanely long/thick - those where the tail of search is insanely thick would seem the places for me to find in order to specialize in deep kw research.

PS: then again I remmeber michael martinez telling me that one should optimize for topics, not keywords (hope i dont confuse anything). - does this kill my idea of "finding industries where the long tail is huge...are the ones to go to if i want to specialize in keyword research"?

thanks!

[Jill]

IMO the very nature of long tail kws is that not very researchable nor do they need to be. If you just write stuff you will naturally be found thru lt kws that just happen to be in the content.

[PatrickGer]

IMO the very nature of long tail kws is that not very researchable nor do they need to be. If you just write stuff you will naturally be found thru lt kws that just happen to be in the content.

How about PPC - any idea?

I just did a test run for a friend's friend (both agency SEOs) trying to find the right sites to target for their biz dev. team - and it only made me realize how extreme I am at this deep research thing. expected me to look up the top sites in the space for 6 different topics within 1 hour (it wasnt paid for - only a test run), and I just spent an hour scratching the surface of what I would have liked to research for one topic.

I would have 'loved' to use different keyword tools to dig as deep as possible into keyword permutations (I mean keyword+modifiers that make sense),etc. etc. . I really just scratched the surface of how deeply I would have enjoyed researching this, yet I already totally overdid it.

Any idea if I could use my love for deep researching things in SEO/IM?

PPC keyword research in long-tail industries seems to be a possibility?

or industries where people regularly need deep research for the creation of their content?

thanks!

Maybe companies that are wondering if they should enter certain markets? maybe even the german market....? Does anyone out there do that type of analysis in SEO/IM?

thanks!

(obviously no need to reply to every single question Im asking Im just spilling ideas left and right )

[Beakon]

IMO the very nature of long tail kws is that not very researchable nor do they need to be. If you just write stuff you will naturally be found thru lt kws that just happen to be in the content.

I disagree. Long tails are very researchable and should be. Why just write stuff about weight loss and hope to get picked up on some long tail keywords, when you can find long tail keywords like (quick weight loss tips) with anywhere from 1000 local monthly searches up to 10,000 and optimize directly for that and rank much easier.

Or you could still go ahead and write a generic weight loss article, but if you did your long tail keyword research ahead of time, you could find ways to implement the long tails you found with high searches like:

quick weight loss tips
weight loss without exercise
best weight loss program

Now you can back link this article with all these anchor texts including just weight loss. You will get picked up for the long tails well before you ever get picked up by just [weight loss] and atleast you know those long tails have good traffic.

[Jill]

with anywhere from 1000 local monthly searches up to 10,000

Except that those aren't longtail keywords if they're getting that many.

By its very definition, longtail keywords are only those searched upon once in a blue moon. Perhaps 1 time a month or even 1 a year. That's why they're called longtail. They are only good keywords in aggregate.

What you're talking about are good keyword phrases, perhaps even what I call keyword gems. They are of course researchable. Longtail ones really aren't since they are rarely searched upon and don't show up in data. Which is fine, because you don't need to know what they are to get traffic for them.

[michael_ter]

What you're talking about are good keyword phrases, perhaps even what I call keyword gems.

I dare to call them "Crumbs from the Master’s Table". I run some sites and do not pay for ads at all. So for the main keywords I can not be higher then #3 or 4 because #1 is Wikipedia, #2 - Amazon.com, #3 - eBay. You know why. How Google dare to say about relevant searches if its search results depend on fact who paid more? In past I paid for keywords when this tricky business started at go.com, then overture.com, I took part in those crazy auctions and in the end realized that I lost more than earned and gave it up - this is unfair game and for sure only one player wins - the player who shuffles the cards.

I do not want to pay $1-3 per click (just empty clicks!) as I sell little inexpensive things. The only way to survive is to find words and phrases CPC of which is $0.05 (it means nobody bought them yet). Hopefully they will turn from crumbles into gems but soon the gems will be taken away by somebody.

This post was mainly inspirited by the last Jill's article in her newsletter #316 "Why SEO in All the Right Places Doesn't Cut It Anymore". Jill advised
a new strategy in these new conditions and it sounds as "Consolidate your business, be ready to pay more and spend more." I wish I were wrong and I understood the article not correct because of my poor English.

[piskie]

Except that those aren't longtail keywords if they're getting that many.

Jill, I always considered "Longtail Keywords" to be determined by the number of words in the phrase, not by search quantity.
So does the popularity of a search phrase promote it from Longtail to maybe generic regardless of the number of words in the phrase ??

[Jill]

Yes exactly. It's got nothing to do with the number of words, that's just people mixing up causality.