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Do you ever wonder what people type into Google or Yahoo to find your site? Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of someone that is looking for your keywords?

Let’s take a look at some factors that go into the mind of an average internet user as they search for what they are looking for. Hopefully that includes some of the keyword phrases that you are using!

Forget everything you know

As bloggers, we are usually a savvy bunch of people. We know about search engine optimization techniques that will make your head spin. We can keyword cram an article until it pukes. We can take an article and make it so perfect that it shines like that new Mercedes in the driveway on a bright spring morning.

But if the people looking for your information can’t find it, you have just been passed by.

Forget everything you know. It’s a pretty simple thought when it comes to keywords and phrases and SEO. You need to think like the “average joe” that is using Google, Yahoo or Ask when they are searching for items that interest them.

Now you might be saying “But Elliott, you are writing to the technical crowd here, screw the average joe! We know what we are looking for!” Yep, you are right. However, lets say that you are looking to expand your blogging network and begin a new blog in a new niche. Pretend with me for a moment that you want to create a new blog or site in an area that has been around for awhile, like golf, or pets. Pretty saturated market you might think.

Find the Long tail and hang on!

One growing method in keyword research and optimization is using a method called Long Tail keywords. Let’s say that you want to create that new site about golf. Try typing in some of the basic words for golf, like…golf. Ok, pretty saturated in the search engines.

However, what is the concentration of people looking for “how to solve a slice” or “increase my driver range” in the search engines? This is where the long tail concept really shines. While a lot of the basic keywords are saturated, the “long tail” or “average joe” keywords are still relatively open.

I’m not saying that you can go out and create a blog that says “how do I make money online” and find that long tail keyword wide open. We all know that isn’t true (just search for yourself).

So how do I long tail research?

Great, I’m glad that you asked! There are two tools that I have been playing around with some and have had some interesting results.

The first tool is 103bees.com. This is a free long tail keyword service. You sign up and tell them about your site, just the basics. They then give you a piece of code to copy/paste onto your web pages and every time a visitor hits your site it’s recorded and over time a picture of the site develops. You’ll see the top landing pages, the top key phrases and after you’ve received at least 100 unique search engine hits, you’ll see a chart that shows your search term popularity on the keywords that you are using. This will tell you how well you are exploiting the long tail keyphrases.

The 103bees.com site gives some good information, but when used in conjunction with the next site, you can really learn a lot.

The next site is Hittail.com. This site is also free, so that is good! You create your account and of course you are given a piece of code to copy/paste into your site. Hittail then tracks your hits and provides you with some interesting information. Probably the most important information that it gives is that it gives you a list of suggestions for future posts. These suggestions are your long tail keyphrases that it has found and it suggests to you to optimize your site for the keyphrases.

So, let’s take a quick look at the examples of golf. Would you type into a Google search “slice” or if you are average joe type in “fix my slice” or how to correct a slice”? See how the long tail keyword could make a huge difference?

In conclusion

I hope you have found something useful with this article. I know I have learned a lot from working with these two services and have already begun to put them to work on a couple of other sites.

Let me know how they work for you!

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