Long tail keyword phrases are one of the very best SEO tools available. If your SEO webmaster is not utilizing long tail keyword phrases, you may be missing out on a very important segment of your target audience.

You see, long tail keyword phrases are usually the most profitable phrases because they are most often being typed in by Internet users who are ready to make the purchase.

Think about it. When you begin a search you begin (usually) with a general phrase and the more information you learn about what you want or need, the more specific phrases you type in. The long tail phrase is that specific phrase.

I took a look at the statistics for several websites that our SEO Firm is marketing and here are the results…

The 6 keyword phrases that converted 100% for Atlantis Plumbing were…
1) ga underground leak detection
2) plumbers in douglasville
3) plumbing leak detection marietta ga
4) polybutylene piping lawsuits
5) water main pinhole leak
6) water pipe excavation

The 5 keyword phrases that converted 100% for Certified Windows and Doors were…
1) hurricane proof sliding glass windows
2) hurricane window contractors broward county florida
3) manufactures in pompano bch fl
4) pgt approved south florida contractors
5) windows and doors miami

The 5 keyword phrases that converted 100% for Florida Divorce Law Online were…
1) divorce papers lee county fl
2) file for divorce in cape coral florida
3) florida divorce papers
4) limited representation agreement florida divorce
5) divorce lawyer online

This tells me (and it should tell you too) that the kind of people who type in long tail keyword phrases are the kind that are ready to make the purchase.   So, take a look at the keyword phrases your website is marketing.  Are they long tail phrases?

Many of you use Gmail – and you’re in the majority if you do.  You may notice a small change on your Gmail panel.  Right under “Inbox” in the left column you may notice the word “Buzz” – if it’s there, then you have been Buzzed.  You are now able to use Google’s latest social media marketing gadget.

What is Buzz?  Think of it as Google’s very own Twitter.  The benefit is that it’s right there on Gmail.  So, no need to open a separate screen of have a separate account or window open.  Your email, your chats and now your Tweets can all be performed, viewed, responded to right from the Gmail control panel.  Pretty slick.

Will it take over Twitter?  Who knows, it’s anybody’s guess as to what programs will still be in use months from now but one thing is for sure.  The ease of using this new gadget can’t be beat.

If you’ve already been buzzed, feel free to follow me at eckweb@gmail.com.  I’ll post my daily tips, notes and comments about this crazy SEO / Internet Marketing industry and hopefully you’ll find them useful for your own marketing.

Happy Buzzing.

Experimenting here, if I wanted to steal some bandwidth from a website – actually, I suppose my goal would REALLY be to steal the image but not only is it bad enough that I steal the image but the way that I do it, I may compound the bad karma by stealing bandwidth as well.

Usually, when you post an image online it’s something to a local file.  But if you post it directly from the website it came from, like this…

http://www.mauslawfirm.com/images/ad-home.jpg

Then you are stealing bandwidth.

So, as a responsible website owner, webmaster, designer, whatever – what do you do?  Easy.  You enter the following code into your .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?domain\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/stop_stealing_bandwidth.jpe [L]

Create an image and name it stop_stealing_bandwidth.jpe

So, that’s the story on saving bandwidth!

Your website is up (finally, probably took much longer to create it than you thought!)  The details involved were much more than you ever imagined!  But, it’s finally done and you can begin getting some business from it!

1 week goes by, 1 month, 2 months, 6 months, you’ve received a few emails, 1 sale and lots of spam!  What’s going on?  You have a website, it’s on the Internet, the designer said he would submit it to the search engines.  So, what’s wrong?

As an SEO webmaster and owner of an SEO firm, I can give you some insights.

Problem: Poor website structure
Just because a website is on the Internet, does not mean it’s search engine friendly.  Which means that the way it’s constructed, the coding, the words, where the graphics are, etc. are not easy for the search engines to scan.  If your competition has websites that are more search engine friendly than yours then they will rank higher.

Solution: Be open to the concept that your design may have to be altered.  Consult an seo specialist and they will be able to tell you what needs to be done to the website.  It’s all about HOW the search engines SEES your website.  Of course, it’s important how your visitors see the website too but that’s the fine line seo webmasters walk on.  Creating (often re-creating) websites so that they meet both the needs of the search engines and the desires of the intended target audience.

Problem: Content, content, content
Your website designer may have recommended a copywriter but they are just TOO expensive – so you decide to write the copy for the website pages yourself.  You write about how great your company is and the wonderful services/products you provide, etc.    Are you really capturing the attention of the audience?  Are you capturing what they’re looking for?  Maybe not if the conversion rates from your website pages are low.

Solution: Use the keyword research to outline your website
Many websites are created with the basic, home page, about us page, services page, contact us page, etc.  But the reality is, if you’re marketing your website on the Internet you need to market with the keyword phrases your audience is typing in.

I mean, it’s nice and appropriate to tell your audience about the company, of course (but frankly, you can do that better on facebook, linkedin, etc.).  Anyway, what you should REALLY create pages about are the keyword phrases the audience are typing in.  Think about it, search engines are machines.  All they can do is match up what people type in to the words that are on the website pages.  Of course, there are MANY more variables but this is the basic one.  If your website doesn’t meet this basic rule for the search engines, you may end up spending much more money to market your website.

Problem: The website isn’t working but you don’t know why

Solution: Tracking!  I don’t mean just tracking the number of visitors to the site, I mean tracking each individual website page.  This is done by assigning an “action” to each page.  In other words, what do you want your visitors to do on this particular page?  Go to the contact form?  Go to the “more information” page?

Once you’ve outlined what they should be doing you then begin tracking it.  If the audience is NOT doing what your intention is, why aren’t they?  This is where you begin making changes to the page.  Maybe you need a larger “Do This” graphic, maybe you need more content to direct them to the action, maybe you need to build more trust on the page.  Something has to be done otherwise, the page isn’t working.

If your website is 10 pages in length and only 2 of those 10 pages are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, you’re wasting your money.  All your website pages should be working to bring in visitors and sales.

So, what do you think?  Are you prepared for Internet marketing?  Are you willing to make the necessary changes to your website?  Will you work with your seo firm to continue adding, tweaking and altering your website until it produces the end results?

If your answer is YES, then you will enjoy a profitable relationship with your seo firm.

If your answer is NO, don’t sign the seo contract.  You might be better off doing something more passive like Pay Per Click to market your site.

Either way, know what you’re getting into when you begin your internet marketing campaign.

Although Internet Marketing has been in existence for over a decade, there’s still a grand mystique about it. Maybe because it’s in constant change, maybe because it’s somewhat complicated, maybe because it’s just part of that whole “internet thing” that so many people seem to be confused about. I really don’t know.

As an SEO Webmaster, it’s difficult for me sometimes to explain all the aspects of Internet marketing. Not because I don’t understand it but because I don’t know what my audience understands. Everyone has a different level of education about the Internet and Internet marketing so there are many, many different ways of explaining the process of SEO, social media marketing and other Internet marketing projects.

But, no matter what your level of understanding, please know that there is NO MAGIC to Internet marketing. It’s simply plain hard work. That’s all. It’s not rocket science, it’s work. If you knew how to take apart a car engine and then put it back together so that it would work, would you consider that to be rocket science? No. Would it be easy for you? Probably, if you’ve done it enough times. Could you sit down and explain each step to someone? Probably not. So many different little details go into putting together a car engine, you’d spend days going through all the intricate steps.

That’s Internet marketing. There’s nothing magical about it. Internet marketing is a series of tasks:

1) It’s knowing what the search engines want, what they see and how they see it.

2) It’s knowing where the audience is and getting the website there.

3) It’s finding what the audience wants and then giving it to them.

4) It’s reading and re-reading and analyzing the statistics on the websites to plan out new strategies or make corrections or improvements.

5) It’s finding and analyzing the competition on the Internet.

6) It’s studying the trends in the marketplace to help take advantage of current events, etc.

7) It’s reading and studying to keep up with all the constant changes that are taking place on the Internet.

All this isn’t rocket science, it’s hard work. It’s time consuming, hard work.

So, if you feel that your SEO firm is taking advantage of you, consider what they’re doing for you. There’s more work than magic behind the scenes.

If you haven’t yet read or heard about Google’s rollout of changes as of late, let me inform you that one of them is Google Personalization.

What is that?

Well, it USED to be that IF you had a Google account and you were signed in to your Google account  while you were using the Google search engine, the results that you got back were tailored to your history and your geo location.

But NOW you don’t have to have a Google account and you don’t have to be signed in to a Google account at all.  ALL your searches on Google are being recorded and kept in a history just for you.

Let me explain how the personalized search thing works.  Let’s say you previously searched for Pizza joints in the past a few times and you chose a particular pizza joint a few times, the next time you looked for a pizza joint, that particular one that you chose before pops up as the #1 result.  Even if that particular pizza joint is ACTUALLY on page 20 of the search results, it doesn’t matter.  Because YOUR web history shows that you liked this particular pizza joint, Google is giving you what it believes you like.

It’s Google Personalized to you!

Kinda sounds great – for users.  Maybe, we’ll have to see.  But for website owners and Internet marketers (like me) it’s uhhhh, not so great.  SDInteractive says it best when they outlined the following…

“Below is a list of ways that Google personalization is changing search engine optimization today:

• Everybody now sees different Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) based on their searching patterns making measuring a consistent ranking no longer possible.

• Content development simply for increased page count and link building no longer has as much influence on your site’s rank.

• People who visit their own sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites are ranking well in the SERPs and are stopping SEO services.

Other ways that Google personalization are changing optimization are listed below:

• People who visit their competitor’s sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites AREN’T ranking well in the SERPs and are blaming their SEO company.

• Search spam is starting to get filtered out as people, by and large, do not revisit spammy pages.

• Fresh content is becoming essential for rankings, as new pages stand out in someone’s personalized SERPs and are getting searchers to come back to your site. Social media content is now critical and is being done at increased levels.”

What does Google Personalization Mean To Your SEO Campaign?

Well, for starters, it means you can’t avoid social media anymore.  It also means that you absolutely have to pay attention to each individual page of your website, not just the overall website anymore.

If your SEO firm has been trying to get you to open (and use) a Facebook page or Twitter or even Blog and you’ve been resisting, well, 2010 is the year you will have to give in and cry uncle.  There’s no doubt that the fresh content provided through social media will only enhance your Internet marketing campaign.

Let me explain how.

In the past, SEO marketing success was based on the ranking the website reached.  If it was #1 for a specific keyword phrase then the expectation was that the ranking brought in traffic and the campaign was a success.  In the last few years, that has shifted from “being #1 for a keyword phrase” to “being #1 for a productive keyword phrase” – in other words, the keyword phrase had to bring in relevant traffic.  The kind of traffic that converted into sales.  That made sense.

But now, with Google personalization in full swing, the focus shifts.  Since search results will be different for everyone, we can’t rely on that anymore.  Instead, we have to now focus on other methods of getting traffic to the website and today, that means social media.

You will still get traffic from your rankings, after all, if there is no search history for “divorce attorney in florida“, then the natural search engine rankings will remain intact.  But it will be less traffic than in the past.  So, the game is now changed.

1) Increase traffic to your site via article marketing, social media and blogging.
2) Increase website usability to encouraging your site to be shared or bookmarked.
3) Stop fighting with your SEO firm – after all, if you don’t win, they don’t win.

Okey dokey, has everyone swallowed the latest Google news and algorithmic changes?  Are you ready to embrace the new way of thinking about your SEO campaigns?  If not, well, don’t wait too long.  Before you know it, you’ll be left behind and other SEO firms will be way ahead of you in marketing their websites.

According to Search Engine Journal, …”SEOs are going to have to focus on two new concepts in their marketing plan in 2010:

1) Social Media
2) Mobile Search”

Basically, what the article points to, and I believe they’re correct, is that the future of the “relevancy of a website” (at least in the eyes of the search engine) will be how “interacted upon” the website is.  In other words, how many visitors come to the page and how many refer the page, how many talk about the page, how many twitter about it, facebook about it, share it.

And not just “share it” but “engage with it”.  All the hoopla about Personalized Search – Search Engine Journal boils it down to, “The more users engage with a document, the more it will show up in their personalized results.”   In addition, it’s not just the actual page the user will be interacting with, but what comes before and what comes after.  “Google will look to categorize a document according to the sites a user navigates to before and after the document in question.”  I know, it can all be quite frightening.  But, with Bing in the background, as search marketers, we have to remember that we need to optimize for Google, yes, but also for Bing as it grows and we’ll see how it grows!

So, what’s the bottom line?  Change, that’s the bottom line.

Basically, Internet Marketing firms have to make some changes…

1) Drop the old ranking game.  You can’t track rankings anymore.  You have to track visitors, conversions and usability.

2) Make the websites more informative and interactive.  You can’t just market the website for “denver dentist” anymore.  You need to add to the site so that the users will “interact” with it.  Share it.  Talk about it.  Refer it.

3) Stop ignoring the mobile web.  It’s time to go mobile and begin tracking how users go through (or not) your mobile sites.

If you haven’t yet heard what the latest Google changes are, let me give you a brief synopsis…

Google announced and began implementing several new factors in their list of ranking factors…

1) Real Time Search
2) Personalized Search Results
3) Page Speed
4) Easier search on mobile units

So, what do these mean?

1) Real Time Search
Basically, when you do a search on Google you will be given results from within Social Media programs such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. along with the other search engine results.  Here’s an article from WebProNews that explains the entire process in detail but know this, there is no doubt that from now on, your exposure in social media programs will impact your website.  This “change” by Google ensures the future of social media.  What you say and do, and what is said about you in social media circles can and will become a line in the search result pages.  So, if you haven’t yet begun the process of joining and participating in social media, the time has come to jump in.

2) Personalized Search Results

It used to be that if you had a Google account and you were signed in to your Google account and you used Google to search for something, your search results would be skewed to your history.  In other words, if your Google history showed that you shopped often at Sears online, then when you made a search for an item, you would be shown results from Sears because to Google, you like Sears so they’re trying to give you what you like.  Google calls this “Personalized Search”.

You could, of course, log out of your Google account and your search results would be different because Google had no history to tap into.  But those days are now gone.  Personalized search is now ALL THE TIME and FOR EVERYONE using Google.  So, no matter if you have a Google account or not, if you’re signed in or not, you will have a Google history and they will tap into that history everytime you do a search on Google.

This is a great feature for Internet users, it makes the entire search process faster, easier and more relevant.  But for website owners and marketers, it changes the game completely.  It means that we can’t rely on website rankings anymore for traffic.  Because, truthfully, rankings aren’t going to matter much.  After all, 10 people in the same city doing the same exact search can potentially get 10 different search results depending on their zip code and their search history.  So, what good is it to be #1 on Sally’s computer and #8 on Mike’s computer?

The game now changes from rankings to traffic.  The goal now, for every website owner and Internet marketer is to increase the amount of traffic.  Rankings still play a part of course, but we can’t rely on those rankings as much as we used to.

Here’s an article with some more information about Google Personalized Search.

3) Page Speed

Web Designers, this is for you!  If you’ve been resisting the use of CSS and other code enhancements to create websites, you’re in for a large learning curve.  Google is now using the load time of a website page as part of it’s ranking algorithm.  So, if your website page takes 5 seconds to load onto a browser and your competitor takes 2 seconds to load, well, your competitor will get some extra ranking points for that.

Of course, this is just one of over 100 ranking factors that Google uses to rank websites but it is a new factor.  It’s important enough for Google to add to their Webmaster tools which in turn, tells us that they are looking at it right now!  So, get your websites loading faster!

4) Easier search on mobile units

I said it at the beginning of 2009, that this would be the year that Mobile Internet would hit big in the US and it has proven to be true.  2010 will only be bigger and it will just continue to grow.  The impact has been acknowledged by Google as they are now providing some easier ways to search on mobile units.

They already have search by voice, search by location and now they’ve introduced search by images.  Basically, you take a photo of the item that you’re interested in and Google will “attempt to locate it and give you information…” about it.  They’re calling ig Google Goggles.  How this will pan out, I have no idea but it’s an extremely interesting concept!

All in all, Google has launched 38 different new ways to search in the last 70 days.  There’s no doubt that the “big brother” theme comes to mind but for now, as an Internet marketer, I have to change my game plan.  We all do.  Anyone associated with SEO and Internet marketing has to re-structure how they manage their website marketing campaigns if they want to work with Google and gain the benefits of that search engine.  After all, it’s being used by 74% of the planet!

If you haven’t yet heard from your SEO firm about these changes, shoot them an email.  Don’t call, they’re probably working 22 hours a day just trying to keep up!

So very often I hear comments like, “But my business is local, why should I market on the Internet?”

These comments obviously come from someone who still hasn’t figured out how to use the Internet.  What I mean is there still are people out there who don’t use the Internet daily.  Yep, it’s true.  If these folks need to find the phone number for that pizza place around the corner that they can’t remember the name of, they go to the yellow pages or call their neighbor or rummage through the drawer full of menus from local restaurants.

But if they used the Internet regularly, they would know that they could just go to Google Maps, type in their address and then search for Pizza and Ta-Da!!!  There it is.  Phone number and more.  (So, now you know what i mean).

Anyway, local listings are becoming more and more important because of the increased use and availability of mobile phones and GPS units.  If your business is not listed in local Internet directories, it won’t be found by those folks who are looking for a nearby store or service.  Is it as costly as it was to get into the Yellow Pages (you know, the print kind)?  Absolutely NO WAY!!  So, what’s keeping you from going local?

But, here’s the tip.  When you do optimize your website for a local search engine you need to let the engine know that you are local.  So, make sure to place your phone number with area code on every page.  Make sure to include your address on every page.  And make sure to focus some website pages on geo locations such as city, county, etc.

Here are some examples:

Pompano Beach Personal Injury Attorney
Miami Dentist
Pembroke Pines Dentist
Atlanta Psychiatrist

Get the picture?  It’s important to be where your clients are.  The same is true on the Internet.  Location, Location, Location!