Targeting the longtail for more web sales in 2009
Posted practical ecommerce march 09
For many small online businesses, especially ecommerce, keyword optimization
is a once a year process at best. Once you have gone through the laborious and
mind numbing process of keyword research, writing title tags, page descriptions
and revising your copy the idea of doing all over again every year is enough to
make you want to crash a hard drive.
The simple solution is to hire a qualified SEO professional to handle it but as
budgets shrink this option might not be plausible. Don’t sweat it, you can stay on
top of new search trends and suck in more traffic without having a nervous
breakdown. The secret is in the longtail phrase and adding relevant content that
captures these visitors.
In case you aren’t familiar with the term: a longtail phrase is a series of words
people use to start a search query. Reports by Hitwise show that “queries with
four to eight words and over are all up year over year in growth ranging from 3%
to 20%.” which means your customers are getting more specific about how they
search and what they expect to find. These phrases can be very revealing for
ecommerce, especially when you identify words that indicate intent.
Longtail keywords help you get into the head of your visitor
A good example of longtail phrase would be “orthopedic dog bed large” or
“antique tiffany diamond engagement ring” The qualifying words like “orthopedic”
or “antique” and “engagement” indicate a clear understanding of what they want.
Normally this indicates a person who is closer to the buying decision. Once you
start keyword research you are bound to find dozens of phrases that are specific
to a product or problem. These are the money terms because these people are
ready to act.
Set aside one hour a week to do keyword research until you have a good long
list. Edit it mercilessly and identify trends and action terms. Now that you have
your money terms do you have to rewrite your entire ecommerce store? No,
focus on creating content pages that are optimized for your new longtail phrases.
Create new pages featuring articles, video descriptions, testimonial pages or
reviews that are relevant to your new keywords. This gives your ecommerce
store more search food and more relevance to your visitors. Adding good content
that is optimized for the longtail is an inexpensive way to attract more traffic and
increase sales.

Wordcount 411
Bio; LeadMasterUSA
Jan Riley
Jan Riley is the CEO and founder of LeadMastersUSA, a website marketing
company founded in 2004 and based in Atlanta, Ga. Her spirit experience has
made LeadMastersUSA synonymous with innovative marketing tactics,
increased ecommerce profits and business websites that build relationships. We
believe that the true power of the internet is NOT technology – it is
communication. People buy from people. Discover how your website can
connect, capture and convert visitors into customers with our 3 minute weekly
video series at www.LeadMastersUSA.com You can contact Jan at 678 318
7515.
www.LeadMastersUSA.com
jan@LeadMastersUSA.com
http://leadmastersusa.com/blog/