Analysing The Long Tail... Options

[franco81]

Hi,

I just came across this tool for analysing the long tail:

www.hittail.com

Anyone used it - what do you use to crunch long tail data?

This post has been edited by Jill: Sep 17 2006, 08:36 PM

[Jill]

It's not very clear on what it does.

Want to give us some info? It seems to want you to register, but without telling you what you get.

Well, it does say this:

HitTail reveals in real-time the least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the Long Tail of your natural search results. We present these terms to you as suggestions that when acted on will boost the natural search results of your site. It's that simple.

But that sure doesn't tell me anything.

Not really sure why anyone would need to analyze the long-tail anyway. Aren't those simply words that are barely searched upon that you can optimize for with your hand tied behind your back? (aka guinea pig seo)

[franco81]

Yeah, well, I have installed it on our company site this morning (5hrs ago?) but only one keyword returned so far. I guess our company site is not all that popular...but it didn't come up with the test query string I entered into Google - only one result so far 'web designers'.

Basically, I think it returns all of the keywords used in search queries which resulted in a visit to your site. Then you can see the major terms used several times or more, and the other obscure/unique terms which have had less use but have resulted in a visit to your site.

Then basically they give you suggestions of what keywords to write articles for, you can add the keywords you want to bother with to a kind of todo list and tick them off as you write some content for that word and add it to your site.

One would hope they would aggregate some of the keywords/phrases so you don't end up writing an article for every bloody search term (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The demo has a better description with pretty pictures:

[That's ok we don't need links. - Jill]

They seem to want to reiterate that their service is a tool for seo, not seo itself? duh.

[Mike Levin]

The principle is that hidden within the logs on your site are the clues about which terms have the excellent possibility of bringing in more traffic than they do currently. From this list, if you choose terms that are already working well for you, you're wasting time. If you choose terms that are unlikely to ever lead to another search hit again, you're wasting time. It's that sweet spot in between where the most and best traffic can be picked up in the shortest amount of time.

Yes, because these terms issued as suggestions are often off the beaten track, they are easy to optimize for. And that's a big part of the appeal--getting more traffic on terms that are easy to optimize for, and which are very likely to work for you. In particular, you ferret out terms were you were previously buried maybe three or more pages in, but can very easily be moved to the first page of results. Sustaining this process over time causes the traffic on your site to snowball.

I'm always around and available to answer questions.

[franco81]

Hi Mike,

Fancy running into you here (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

Yeah, I've been watching the results come in for our site today and it is going pretty good so far. I like your ideas about hitting the sweet spot - that makes a lot of sense to me.

Our site isn't all that busy so only a few search hits have been generated so far. One search term is a bit obscure and not really related to our business and it hasn't propagated to the HitTail - is this part of the system?

Also, how does the suggestion stuff get generated? Does your system find the 'sweet spot' for you and if so how - in a general sense. (I haven't had any suggestions yet but the HitTail is only very short).

Anyway, so far I've found it pretty easy to use and understand what is going with the feedback about where the keywords are coming from. Demo on the site was cool too. Yeah, good job, cool tool, I'm going to keep using it and see how it goes.

[Mike Levin]

It seems to want you to register, but without telling you what you get.

I guess I should point out some of the resources. Without registering, we have available to all visitors...

• A 6-page sequence that gives the complete overview.
  
• An FAQ answering many additional questions.
  
• A blog with over a hundred posts delving into issues in some depth.
  
• A forum where we interactively field all questions or you can talk with other users.
  
• A demo.
  
• A guest login.
  
• Help screens built into every page, which you can get to with the guest login.

We actually prefer people not registering if they're not serious, which is why we have all this up front.

Glad it's going well for you, Frank The Tank. I like the explanation of your name from your site.

Slow sites definitely take awhile to get started. We often liken it to getting a snowball rolling--a lot of energy and finesse required up-front until some self-sustaining/fueling momentum is built up.

The suggestions are derived most generally from being "buried" in the search results. There's no point in optimizing on things on the first few pages. We got a schpeckling of other criteria we throw in, but you know, we can't give everything away.

I guess I should add that all the keywords are from actual activity on your site--there is no aggregating, cross-pollinating, data feeding or otherwise going on. All the data is from your site, evaluated by the system, and fed back to you.

One search term is a bit obscure and not really related to our business and it hasn't propagated to the HitTail - is this part of the system?

If it's under the Keywords tab, it's simply been collected. If it's under the Suggestions tab, then it means its something that you probably could get a lot more traffic on. But if it's not actually on-topic for your site, there's no reason to take the suggestion. Once a site picks up some momentum (or you wait long enough), you get more of that "take 'em or leave 'em" feeling.

This post has been edited by Mike Levin: Sep 17 2006, 11:40 PM

[franco81]

Okay, cool, so terms that I should try ranking well for, but I'm actually on the nth page of results?

I don't really want to put effort into ranking well for terms which are really obscure and we're on the first page anyway, but it sounds like you have that covered with the schpeckling and so on...

I want to get the keywords mentioned by qwerty

in this post

right?

[Mike Levin]

Yeah, that's exactly right Frank. But anything that appears in the Suggestion tab (score 7 or below) meets that criteria. That's why they've been issued as suggestions.

A lot of SEOs have been doing something like this for awhile now. The only thing our tool is doing is alleviating some of the heavy lifting (or shall we say, list reduction).

Also, if little to nothing is appearing in the suggestion tab, it's time to look at more blog posts (but you seem to be doing fine), or optimizations to your blog template, like getting the subject line text into your permalink (comment) links.

[franco81]

okay, cheers mate. I'll let you know how I get on using your tool from the perspective of a fairly green, newbie log analyser if you want...

[Mike Levin]

We are very interested in the feedback of people who are fairly green at this. Thanks much.

[ewo]

We are very interested in the feedback of people who are fairly green at this. Thanks much.

In that case, what does There are no New Suggestions. You might switch filters or ensure your code is installed mean?

[franco81]

I think once a keyword comes up in the keywords tab with a score of 7 or below it gets added as a suggestion, then you can choose whether to write content to target that keywords and manage that process by adding to the todo tab.

This was confusing to me also as I did not have any keywords under score 10 for the most part - I thought you had to add them to suggestions yourself by clicking on the keyword.

[jehochman]

Mike, you PR guys are so clever. We're all hip to the methods so just level with us.

Your software looks like it might be useful, but picture me sitting here with a pile of websites to rebuild and an mound of PPC campaigns falling off the edge of my desk. People will pay me to work on those things, or I can experiment with your software.

What's your strategy to get thought leaders to try your product? Your web site is all fluff, no meat.

This post has been edited by jehochman: Sep 18 2006, 10:09 PM

[Mike Levin]

In that case, what does There are no New Suggestions. You might switch filters or ensure your code is installed mean?

We just do that to deal with the most common mistake: not having the code installed properly.

The filter thing is because it's possible to delete everything out of your list, and you have to switch to the "deleted" or "all" to see the keywords.

Yep, there are some user interface improvements to be made, but that's part of beta. It's the kind of feedback we're thirsty for.

Mike, you PR guys are so clever.  We're all hip to the methods so just level with us. 

Your software looks like it might be useful, but picture me sitting here with a pile of websites to rebuild and an mound of PPC campaigns falling off the edge of my desk.  People will pay me to work on those things, or I can experiment with your software.

What's your strategy to get thought leaders to try your product?  Your web site is all fluff, no meat.

Hmmmm. Sounds like baiting. But I'll bite. I guess for the thought leader thing first, check page 16 in the latest BusinessWeek. In addition, John Battelle already mentioned us. Then of course, there's my own writing.

As far as the belief that the site's fluff, I posted on that already: there's an overview, an active forum, a blog with nearly 200 posts already (some which delve into considerable detail), a demo, a guest login, built-in help screens, etc. And of course there's me being on top of every discussion mentioning HitTail on the Internet, with me offering to answer all questions. But that's our burden to dispel the notion of fluff, so thanks for the impression.

Not sure what you want me to "level with you" about. You mention methods. OK, we eliminate keywords that are doing well and ones that will are unlikely to occur again. This lets you zero right in on that sweet spot that's ready to be pushed over the edge from being buried to performing well in natural search. That turns out to be only about 5% of the long tail list. And that sort of pairing down saves a lot of time.

Thanks for the compliment on being a slick PR person. There's a room full of PR people who will get a kick out of that at work. I'm just a techie who lives in the objective world of numbers--which is what led me to create HitTail in the first place! There's folks in the SEO circles dating back to my first forum involvement in '98 who can attest to that. The PR folks sometimes get frustrated that I'm not more of a polished PR guy, and I like to tease them about it, pitting exposure produced from SEO against media coverage and advertising.

[jehochman]

No, Mike, I am not baiting you. I do all my baiting and trolling over at Slashdot. The question was earnest.

I don't take SEO recommendations from BusinessWeek. You're getting warmer with Battelle, but he's also a journalist, not an SEO.

Fluff is stuff targeted at clueless noobs. It's nice how you tell about the benefits and the philosophy of the product, but I won't try it until I know what this thing is going to do to my server and my web pages.

Meat: Answer these questions:

1. Does it install on the server, or is it an ASP type service using light weight JS?
2. Where's a case study of an SEM using this? Convince me that this is better than just dumping my analytics stats into Excel and massaging the data myself.

I'm trying to help you, and giving you a chance for more free exposure on this thread. It's me who's getting baited. Not only that, I am giving you valuable, critical feedback. C'mon, you'll never get better if you ask you aunt what she thinks of your web site.

Forgive me for being so blunt, but you're using the forum for free advertising. The Rules kind of discourage the promotion of specific products, and you're just barely skirting around them with the soft sell routine. That's why I think you're slick. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)