Using your analytics software to capitalize on the low hanging fruit is the smartest thing you can do for your website. Some of the easiest traffic you will ever get is from long tail keywords. It’s a proven fact that long tail keywords convert much better than the short tail. One of the best ways to find these high converting keywords is with web analytics software.
There are two main players in analytics software; Google and Adobe. Whether you use Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst (previously Omniture) or any other web analytical software you have plenty of low hanging fruit. If your SEO Company is not looking at your analytics at least once a month, go find a new search engine optimization company.
The trick is to find keywords that you almost rank for. These keywords will be getting anywhere from one to twenty searches per day. Here are the steps I take to discovery then exploit these search terms.
Step One – Analytics Research
The first step I take is to run a keyword report for the past 30 days. This will give me a good picture as to how people are finding the website. I automatically ignore any of the juicy short tail keywords I know we are already targeting. I take the top twenty long tail keywords and pull them into an excel spreadsheet.
Once I have my list I manually Google each keyword and discover it’s ranking. I create a new column on my spreadsheet and input its current ranking into my spreadsheet.
Step Two – Keyword Research & Discovery
After I have discovered what long tail keywords are bringing traffic I will prioritize my list. Anything the website already ranks number one for gets noted for further keyword research. A good example of this would be if your website ranks for “Blue Widget in Alamo, Texas” in Google.
If you aren’t targeting any of those keywords but are number one, then it’s safe to say you will probably have an easier chance of ranking for a lesser combination of those keywords. This is where I would check to see how much traffic “Blue Widget Alamo” would bring in and where your current rank for that specific keyword. I would also check for other keyword combinations related to the above search.
The other keywords have the potential to bring in more traffic if their rankings were increased. It’s amazing how many keywords you can discover ranking within the first five to six pages of Google this way.
If you are bringing in just two to three visitors a day for a keyword that ranks at the bottom of Google’s first page just think about how much you can increase traffic with the number one spot. Fifteen new visitors per day are 450 more visitors per month. Not to bad for a keyword you probably had no idea it existed.
Step Three – Marketing Implementation
Now that you have a new set of keywords to focus on its time to marketing for these words. Often times these keywords can skyrocket to the number one position with carefully placed link building. It often only takes one link to boost all the way to the top. Plus, long tail keywords are much more stable long-term and can really add up in traffic.
A good SEO will get you ranked but a great SEO will get you traffic from both long tail and short tail keywords.
