So what does this have to do with Search Engine Optimization you may ask? Well, it dawned on me that the Long Tail of Economics is precisely the same concept I preach over and over to clients in regards to ranking high in the search engines.

Keywords that one would optimize for can basically be split into two distinct categories, which would be short tail keywords and long tail keywords, or broad keywords and narrow keywords.

Let’s say you are a retinal eye specialist working in Las Vegas, NV. Conceivably you could optimize for short tail keywords such as “eye doctor” or “eye care”, but the chances of ranking high for these enormously broad and competitive keyword are exactly slim and none.

It would be better to optimize for the term “retinal eye specialist”, as that phrase will be much less competitive in the search engines and the traffic you receive from it would be much better targeted. Even better still would be to optimize for phrases like “Las Vegas Retinal Eye Specialist” or “Nevada Retinal Eye Specialist”. Obtaining a top ranking for these phrases would require very little effort or investment and visitors arriving at your site would be extremely targeted to your particular service.

This same exact concept also applies to Pay Per Click marketing.

Let’s say you are a wedding photographer working in Orange County, CA and are running a pay per click campaign with Google’s Adwords. If you were to bid for the word “photographer”, you would be contending for an extremely competitive term and it would likely cost you around $2.50 or more per click to rank in the top three spots. Even more important to consider is that it could be costing you $2.50 per shot for worthless clicks. That is, an aspiring actress in Omaha, Nebraska looking for modeling pictures is as likely to find your site as one looking for wedding pictures on Orange County. Suffice to say, a model from the Midwest is not the ideal client for an Orange County Wedding Photographer.

The correct long tail strategy in this scenario would be to bid on phrases like “Wedding Photography in Orange County” or “Wedding Photographer Serving Southern California “. Not only would the bid price to be in the top spot run much less than $2.50, but you can be assured that the people clicking on these ads would be seeking your specific service in your specific area.

So to get the best results with your search engine optimization efforts, follow these simple rules.

1. Do not use single word keywords, as they cannot be promoted effectively.

2. Avoid the most popular keyword phrases because you’ll be competing with millions of other pages for a search engine’s attention.

3. Specific multiword phrases are the keyword terms to optimize for. Not only will they be less competitive and much easier to rank in the top spot for, but the traffic you receive will be of much higher quality.

William Foote is co-founder of http://www.vmg-interactive.com.

The reason in almost every instance is that they have failed to generate any meaningful incoming links to their website. Generating relevant incoming links is by far the single most important aspect of Google’s algorithm.

If you don’t believe me … then perhaps you will believe one of the internet’s premier internet marketing superstars.

“The most critically important aspect of search engine marketing is building quality incoming links to your website. And anyone who says differently doesn’t know what they’re talking about…” - Brad Fallon (Accredited SEO Expert)

Before I go any further, let me quickly reiterate why high search engine rankings are imperative to business survival in today’s e-marketplace.

Simply put, organic search engine traffic is Free Traffic. A high search engine ranking virtually guarantees that floods of visitors will arrive at your website looking for exactly what it is you have to offer.

This will happen because the visitor typed in a keyword or a phrase that is relevant to your website, and because your site had proper optimization, your site shows up in the first few positions of the search results and gets the click-thru from the searcher.

So with this in mind, does it not make sense to focus in on “incoming link building” … the single most important aspect of obtaining a high search engine ranking? Of course it does.

I do not care if you find incoming links for yourself, have someone in your office find incoming links or you outsource to a company that specializes in it. The point is to simply not overlook this golden key of SEO success.

William Foote is co-founder and a managing partner of http://www.VMG-interactive.com.

• Research the keywords your prospective clients will be using to search for your web site.
• Optimize your web pages for these keywords so that they can get high search engine rankings.
• Submit your web pages to the major search engines and internet directories.
• Get incoming links from other web sites to your website.
• Track the results and refine the first four steps accordingly.

Most websites focus exclusively on aesthetics and completely neglect one all important truth. The purpose of a web strategy is to drive sales for the business and websites that fail to garner top ten rankings are losing an enormous number of their prospective buyers. Consider that 85%-90% of all internet users rely on search engines to find information. (Georgia Tech /GVU Survey)

Search engine users are some of the most qualified and motivated visitors your web site will ever have. However, getting listed in a search engine doesn’t do you much good if you’re number 375 out of 1,447,000 search results. In fact, it doesn’t even help much if you hold the 11th position, as 75% of internet users never click past the first Search Engine Results Page (Georgia Institute of Technology).

Posted By: William Foote, Co-founder of http://www.vmg-interactive.com