While many people spend thousands to get to #1 for elusive and highly competitive keywords, smarter companies are looking at optimising for long tail keywords instead .

Recent studies and statistics show an increasing growth in traffic and sales conversions generated by long tail keywords used in Search Engines when searching for a product or service. Research shows that four word, five word and even six word searches are becoming increasingly more popular. Here are three steps to improving your ranking, traffic and sales conversions through a long tail keywords SEO strategy.

So what are long tail keywords exactly?

Google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik says that put simply, long tail phrases are lots of key phrases that may individually account for low volumes of traffic by themselves but collectively could account for a huge amount of traffic.

The high ranking keyword phrases such as ‘digital cameras’ are known as the ‘head’ and the longer keywords such as ‘Canon 350D digital SLR camera’ are known as the ‘long tail’.

Popular, higher volume keywords are search terms that consumers typically use to do research prior to making a buying decision but specific searches using long tail keywords are far more likely to convert to sales.

Why would you want to optimise for long tail keywords?

Trying to rank on page number one of Search Engines for highly competitive keywords such as ‘gym’ or even ‘Sydney gym’ can be difficult but by analysing your business, you can break down the keywords into longer tail keywords that your target market may use to search for your business.

So instead of targeting the page for a trophy keyword like ‘gym’, you may want to target the page for a niche phrase like `women’s gym eastern suburbs Sydney’ or ‘personal trainer women’s gym eastern suburbs Sydney’ and be in the running (pun intended) to obtain traffic from long tail keywords combinations.

Highly specific multi-word phrases tend to be far easier to rank well for than more generic single keyword or double keyword phrases. However, the traffic will be better targeted as people who search with long tail keywords are far more likely to become buyers. Remember, the end goal of SEO is not to increase traffic but to increase your number of conversions.

What are the key steps to optimising your pages for long tail keywords?

1. Finding long tail keywords

Search Engine tools: Search Engine tools such as the Google Search-based keyword tool can help you identify long tail keywords that are being used on your website. Type in your website URL and find long tail keywords that are being searched on www.google.com that are relevant to your business.

Website data: The best ways to source keyword data is look at your own traffic and analyse what the combination of long tail keywords users have used to find your website. With Google Analytics, there a couple of reports you can pull to get this information (most analytics packages will provide you with similar capabilities).

Keyword research tools: Aside from your own data and traditional Search Engine Tools, you can also use keyword research tools like focus groups, social media networks, competitive analysis or usability tests to find out what long tail keywords are best to use to optimise your website.

2. Optimising the on page content

Page title, descriptions and headings: Place the long tail keywords in the title tag, header and meta keyword descriptions for your page. Each page must have a unique title, description meta tag, header tag, and body content.

Placement: Long tail keywords should be in proximity to one another. Where possible, try having a sentence in the first paragraph with the long tail keyword in it and also in the last paragraph. Use modifiers and synonyms throughout the page.

Synonyms and variations: Use variations and synonyms where possible in your content. Search Engines, especially Google, can recognise different words as meaning the same thing. For example, ‘fridges’ and ‘refrigeration’ can be found as one and the same.

Modifiers and variations: Use modifiers and variations in your headline. A modifier is a word that works in combination with your core keyword and creates your long tail strategy such as ‘best SEO company’ with the modifier being the word ‘best’. This will help avoid duplication of keywords on your website and missed keyword opportunities.

3. Link building strategies for your landing pages

Anchor text: When linking in your on page copy, it is important to include long tail keywords in your link building activities as well to help you rank for mid to low-competition keywords. Include long tail keywords in your anchor text when including internal or external links in your document.

Variation of links: To avoid keyword spamming or stuffing, use variations of long tailed keywords throughout the page that contain the head keyword with modifiers to help rank for that key term.

Directories: When adding your website to directories or social bookmarking sites you should include your “primary” long tail keyword phrase. In addition, also submit the page to bookmarking sites with the long tail keyword phrase as the header/link.

Find out more about link building strategies to build your link profile with Search Engines.

So what do you choose – heads or tails? Long tail keywords can bring you long term profit if used strategically. Cast your net wider and focus on creating landing pages with long tail keywords to bring you more qualified traffic to pages that are aimed at a niche in your market to increase your conversion rate. Contact us to find out how we can optimise landing pages for long tail keywords to boost your sales conversations, build your online business and maximise your return on investment.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – US Hotels Group

Explore the best New England Maine & Vermont luxury hotels, inns & spas offering lavish lodgings in unique locations from the coast to the mountains.

About US Hotels Group – Luxury New England USA Accommodation

US Hotels Group is a collection of luxury hotels, inns, spas, restaurants & events venue in Maine & Vermont, New England offering impeccable services & indulgent facilities.

The US Hotels Group includes a collection of luxury hotels, inns and spas and beach front family lodges in New England USA. The “Elite Hotels” include the renowned White Barn Inn & Spa in Maine and the Windham Hill Inn, located in Vermont. Restaurants include the AAA Five Diamond, Mobil five star White Barn Inn Restaurant,  Grissini Tuscan Italian Bistro and Stripers Seafood Restaurant, serving innovative modern cuisine. The collection also includes and a banqueting & conference center, Chase Hill Events.

Targeted keywords…

• New England hotels
• Best New England restaurants
• New England Inns
• New England luxury hotels
• New England Five Star restaurants

For more info on these fabulous hotels, inns, spas & restaurants in Maine & Vermont, New England USA, contact US Hotels Group today….

SEO Works is proud to deliver SEO Services to US Hotels Group assisting them to raise their online profile and help them to grow their business.

How do you judge which is the best SEO company in Australia? By their very own SEO results of course…

Check out the table below…from the results it seems pretty clear that if you want at least twice as many keyword phrases on Page 1 and 2 or 3 times as many top 3 listings as your competitors, then SEO Works is the right SEO company for you…

Methodology

We started with the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool and picked the top keyword phrases searched for over the preceding 90 days related to either “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimisation.

We then added in some key geographic locations around Australia (generally used by searchers to refine their searches across most market segments) for the terms “SEO” and “Search Engine Optimisation”…

…also in reverse order giving a total of 50 keyword phrases targeted by SEO companies.

The next stage involved selecting every website that turned up in the first three pages of Google for these keyword phrases (there were 66 SEO-related websites that had at least one mention in the SERP’s). Then using independent SEO software – Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) by Caphyon – we recorded how many pages each SEO company had appearing in:

• first place
• the top three listings
• the top five listings
• on page one
• within the first two pages
• within the first three pages

AWR then calculates an SEO Visibility Score by first assigning a number of points to each of the first 30 positions, as follows:

• Position 1 = 30 points
• Position 2 = 29 points
• Position 30 = 1 point
• Positions below 30 have 0 points.

A Visibility Score is then determined by the sum of the points given to an URL by each search engine.

The Visibility Percentage is then determined by the sum of Visibility Scores from all the search engines divided by the maximum number of points that the search engines can provide.

* This data was last updated on 1 March 2010. Search engine results can and do vary over time.

Scribe SEO LLC have recently announced the launch of Scribe SEO – a plugin for WordPress that holds your hand through the optimisation process for your content, giving you a score out of 100, in your dashboard, before you publish…

Scribe SEO  is a new SEO product that is designed to make SEO copywriting and publishing simple. It runs a real time analysis of your page for things like a breakdown on keywords, suggestions for fine tuning your focus on keywords, a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) preview and an overall score.

So can you completely switch off and write on autopilot? Perhaps not but if you are outsourcing your content and want to give it the SEO once over before you hit the publish button this could be a plugin for you.

Scribe SEO was originally developed for the Thesis Theme for WordPress, however it also integrates well with the Hybrid theme, the Headway theme and the free All in One SEO plugin.

This SEO tool would be very handy for anyone who outsources their SEO copywriting. You could run this tool before you publish to optimise the content without comprising the creativity of your writer’s style, helping to preserve the natural and creative flow of your content.

The program gives you an analysis of what the Search Engines think your topic is all about and then advises of the changes you need to make to better reflect the language used by searchers. The remaining content elements can then be tweaked based on best SEO practices. These include:

• page title: keyword usage, keyword placement and word count
• description: keyword usage, keyword placement and word count
• body of the text: keyword usage, keyword placement and keyword density
• hyperlink: Scribe SEO tells you the number of hyperlinks and prominence

Want a quick preview? Find out more about Scribe SEO here:

There are some common sense rules that still need to be applied and the first one is this…don’t aim for a perfect score. Agonising over a perfect 100 points will turn your content into a robotic, boring piece that is likely to backfire and leave you with a newfound list of unsubscribed readers. Take the advice on board, make it fit where it keeps with the natural flow and make a compromise where it doesn’t in order to preserve the context and quality of your content.

Overall, is it worth the money? If you are pressed for time and have multiple posts, multiple blogs and you update your content regularly then yes, this is an innovative plugin that has much to offer. However, if you are already an SEO expert and you are familiar and conversant with SEO copywriting principles, keep your credit card in your pocket. Although plugins like Scribe SEO can be useful, nothing beats great, original content written by an SEO copywriter.

Download a free trial of Scribe SEO, find out more about the Scribe  SEO’s plans and prices or read about some other handy SEO plugins for WordPress to optimise your site and boost your website ranking in Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Contact us to find out about our SEO Packages and SEO Services including our professional SEO copywriting services.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – Melbourne Hotels

The ideal Melbourne CBD Hotel that gives easy access to all Melbourne events & attractions…

Hotel Lindrum offers Melbourne CBD hotel accommodation that ensures whether travelling for business or leisure, this hotel will make your trip much more enjoyable.

About Hotel Lindrum – Melbourne Hotel & Accommodation

Hotel Lindrum is undoubtedly the perfect Melbourne CBD Hotel, which not only provides you with easy access to all Melbourne’s happenings, but also invites you to experience the travellers style, luxury, first class accommodation & fine dining at one of Melbourne’s best restaurant, Felt.

Hotel Lindrum provides a 24 hour reception and room service, plus same day laundry & valet service. However, it’s the extras what makes the hotel standout from other Melbourne hotels. Coming with the fullsize billards table room where you can enjoy your ultimate snooker night, Hotel Lindrum also offers a back bar plus an elegant lounge with fireplace. With 59 beautifully appointed rooms to choose from:

• Studio Melbourne Hotel Rooms
• Superior Melbourne Hotel Rooms
• Deluxe Melbourne Hotel Rooms
• Junior Suites

Providing excellent conference boardrooms and meeting facilities, a fully licensed bar and fine dining, Hotel Lindrum offers you the ideal location to relax after a busy day exploring Melbourne attractions & events. The Melbourne hotel located in the heart of CBD, close to all Melbourne’s action, major transport and facilities makes it a convenient base for either business or leisure travelling.

SEO Works are proud to provide Search Engine Optimisation services to Hotel Lindrum, helping them to achieve their online goals.

So what’s the ‘buzz’ about Google buzz? Will ‘buzz’ become the new buzzword part of our daily vernacular like ‘tweet’ and ‘blogging’? Is Google Buzz the new ‘it’ social media networking tool or just much abuzz about nothing? And more importantly will Matt Cutts ever shave off that beard? We answer the important questions and some even about Google Buzz and how it can help your Google Search Engine Optimisation*.

What is Google Buzz?

Google Buzz is Google’s push into social media and integrates with your existing Gmail account. An autosuggest feature nominates people to follow who are already connected to your account. Buzz appears as an extra tab in your Gmail inbox and allows you to post content and share files from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader.

You can share updates, photos, videos, and more and post publicly via your Google profile or privately via your Gmail contacts and new features built into the Google Maps applications incorporate social interaction with Google Buzz.

Five features of Google Buzz include:

• Autosuggest lists – contacts you email frequently are highlighted as suggestions by Google Buzz that you can add to follow your status updates and share content.
• Public and private sharing – between family and friends or post publically with real-time updates on the Google Search Engine.
• Photo friendly - see thumbnails with each post, and browse full-screen photos from popular sites.
• Inbox integration – comments and updates are directly emailed to your Gmail account and you can respond directly from your account.
• Recommendations – Google Buzz adds content in your stream from your friend’s contacts and recommends content you may be interested in. You can nominate whether you are interested or not and Buzz will learn what you’re interested in by your feedback.
• Mobile phone interactivity – Google Buzz from your mobile phone and share your thoughts about nearby restaurants, tourist’s spots and local businesses. It is currently available for Android and iPhone, but Google is working on bringing it to other platforms.

Want a quick preview? Find out more about Google Buzz here:

How does Google Buzz for mobile work?

This is where it gets really interesting. With the incorporated Google Maps feature you can start a buzz about your location whether you’re in a busy restaurant, at a concert or hotel and start a rich conversation with your contacts. To start using Google Buzz for mobile go to http://www.buzz.google.com from the phone’s browser.

Key features of Google Buzz for mobile are as follows:

• Buzz from contacts- you can view Buzz from your friends as you do from your computer and interact with them while out and about around town.
• Tagging locations – you can use the suggested tag if it is correct or refine your location. This will allow your buzz to show up at that location tag for other users.
• ‘Nearby’ function – you can obtain the public buzz about your location including people outside your social networks and get reviews, comments and recommendations.
• Google Buzz layer feature – the Buzz layer can help you find hotspots at a glance on Google Maps and you post buzz directly from this screen.
• Voice Shortcut – the voice shortcut allows you to post buzz via spoken commands. Just say ‘post buzz,’ followed by whatever you’d like to post.

Want a quick preview? Find out more about Google Buzz for mobile here:

So how can Google Buzz help your Google SEO?

Now to the important stuff … what implications will Google Buzz have for your Google SEO and how will it help your Search Engine rankings? From our initial observations, this is the buzzdown on Google Buzz:

• Link building: You can use anchor text within your links and it is a dofollow link from Google at least for now. Remember that Google is indexing links that are publically posted so these links help build your link profile and Google SEO.
• Managing your online reputation: With the Google maps and mobile phone integration, users can use the ‘near me now’ function to find messages about restaurants, tourists spots and places of interest similar to Yelp or post using the ‘Buzz about this place’ function. Businesses in return can respond to these messages in real time and address their concerns and feedback.
• Google Local Centre Business Listing: It is yet to be confirmed whether public posts generated by Google Buzz about your business and indexed by Google’s Search Engine will affect your Google Local Business Centre Listing but we doubt Google will miss this opportunity to integrate the two.
• Real-time results: Your posts, tweets, images and so forth will likely to show up in real-time results and pages get indexed very quickly. This will encourage people to click to your website.
• Autosuggest network: The autosuggest option means your network will grow quickly. You can leverage Gmail to grow your social network more rapidly (compared with Twitter) since Google Buzz has a built-in viral feature by auto-suggesting contacts you can easily add to your follow list.

So is Google much abuzz about nothing or a progressive and important social networking tool? Post launch Gmail users thought the privacy concerns were a real buzz kill and Google has already responded to feedback replacing the automatic following of people you emailed or chatted to regularly on Gmail with an auto suggestion feature and made other changes. Google is a dynamic beast and it will be interesting to see if Google Buzz will make a loud roar or won’t actually generate much buzz at all.

Contact us to see how our Social Media Marketing Packages can help you with your social networking, enhancing your online brand, managing your online reputation and build an online community.

*Sometimes referred to as Search Engine Optimization

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – Plumbers

Highlander Sydney Plumbers has been offering the best Sydney Plumbing services for over 10 years…

The team of experts at Highlander Sydney Plumbers has been providing the best professional plumbing services and expert advice across Sydney for more than ten years.

About Highlander Sydney Plumbers – Plumbing Services & Blocked Drains Sydney

Highlander Sydney Plumbers is the new website portal for Sydney’s # 1 hot water system specialists and blocked drain cleaners.  If you are looking for an emergency plumber, then your search is over.

Here are just a few of the plumbing areas that Highlander Sydney Plumbers can help in:

• North Shore Plumbers
• Sydney CBD Plumbers
• Inner West Plumbers
• Eastern Sydney Plumbers
• Southern Sydney Plumbers
• Northern Sydney Plumbers

Operating across the Sydney Metro Area, Highlander Sydney Plumbers are your first choice for all your plumbing problems with their plumbing price guarantee and up front quotes, you can be sure there will be no surprises – and they will also clean up after the job is done.

SEO Works are proud to provide Search Engine Optimisation services to Highlander Sydney Plumbers, helping them to achieve their online goals.

SEO – Childcare Centres

Child Care Centres and Kindergartens

Guardian Childcare operates and manages around 40 child care centres across Australia, making them one of the biggest childcare centre franchises.

About Guardian Childcare – Kindergarten, Preschools & Day Care Centres

Guardian Childcare has been operating in Australia for over five years, and have become known as the #1 community childcare centres in almost every major city across Australia, with early learning centres, day care centres, kindergartens, preschools and

• child care centres Brisbane
• childcare centres Sydney
• child care centres Melbourne
• childcare centres Adelaide

As well as some new and upcoming child and day care centres been developed or that have opened their doors this year in your city:

• Mosman Childcare Centre
• Marouba Childcare Centre
• Richmond Childcare Centre

and with more childcare centres signing on to Guardian Childcare Alliance’s Learn-Life-Play philosophy, their numbers are growing every month… Visit Guardian Childcare for a comprehensive list of childcare centres in your community.

SEO Works is proud to deliver SEO Services to Guardian Childcare, assisting them to raise their online profile and contributing to their growth and development.

Now we are going to drill down further and explain how to use different market research techniques to find the right keywords, monitor your ongoing keyword strategy and improve your web SEO.

Google Analytics for keyword research

Google Analytics will be able to tell you what people are searching for to find your website. For keywords to be successful in appearing in keyword searches there needs to be an alignment between keywords and content such as page titles, headings and meta keyword and description tags.

Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing want to see a SEO consistency and that the keywords match the content. By examining your analytics and your bounce rate, you will gain additional insight into how visitors who come to your site through your targeted keywords actually perceive your page.

You may find that the keywords that you are using are not the problem but rather the associated content where is there is keyword inconsistency and a discrepancy between keywords and content.

Competitive analysis

It is always important to monitor the competition and find out what keywords they are ranking highly for. There are tools like KeywordSpy that you subscribe to help you analyse your competitor’s websites but you need to know how to use them to get a competitive SEO advantage.

There are many different factors that affect how well your site will rank for a given keyword such as the quality and quantity of your incoming links, onpage elements such as the page title, keyword meta and description tags, the content and so forth. You will need to take all of the data and examine how your competitors stack up in each of those various areas.

Social Networks

Social Networks are becoming increasingly important in keyword research and providing more clarification into:

• the language your target audience use
• the popularity of a particularly keyword and
• what search terms are used to look for a particular product or service.

There have been a few tools developed to measure keyword usage such as Tweet Volume which will show you: how much your keyword is discussed and also compare its results to similar terms and Twitscoop monitors specific keywords along with custom graphs that display the activity for any given word on Twitter.

Websites like Delicious will show your keyword related terms and most popular bookmarks about that particular keyword term and Facebook are also developing their own analytical tools.

Focus groups

Focus groups are a powerful tool to interview your target audience and ask them how they search online through direct questioning or better still, through observation. It is important to interview your target audience who are new to your website as well as internal stakeholders who are familiar with your website.

Directly asking your target audience and internal stakeholders about their user experience on your website can help to clear up inconsistencies in your keyword strategy and content, and uncover new keyword opportunities to improve your website.

Usability or landing page tests

Usability or landing page tests are important for keyword identification and monitoring and whether your content is engaging and converting your visitors into customers and/or clients.

Google has a handy little tool to help your Google SEO called Google’s Website Optimizer where you enter two URLs and a conversation page like a booking form or contact us page to see what page has the higher conversion rate.

It can also analyse content and design alternatives to your site visitors and monitor which pages have the highest conversion rate. Read more about how four companies used the tool to increase their website conversions and make their pages more engaging for their users.

Keyword tools play an important role in identifying keywords but use your marketing dollars wisely by taking a strategic approach to keyword research and engage with your audience in a more meaningful way. Watch, listen and learn about the language they are using and the search terms they are utilising and modify your keywords, website navigation and content in alignment with your keyword research results.

SEO – Commercial & Industrial Refrigeration

“Premier Rentals” are commercial refrigeration specialists. With over 30 years experience, in sales, service and rentals, we know what you want.

Premier Rentals, Australia’s #1 commercial refrigeration suppliers, offers several industry leading products to choose from. From fridges, to coolrooms, from deli displays, to ice cream freezers, they have them all.

About Premier Rentals – Commercial Refrigeration Specialists

Premier Rentals has the widest range of industrial refrigeration, deli and shop displays as well as ice machines and gas heaters.  Create an account and shop online to buy or rent.

If you are looking for:

• Commercial Refrigeration
• Deli Display Fridges
• Cake Display Cases
• Coolrooms
• Freezer Room Systems

Premier Rentals offers an easy to use website where registration is a simple matter of a few clicks. Register your account to day, and benefit from the best prices on refrigeration sales and rentals in Australia.

SEO Works is proud to deliver SEO Services to Premier Rentals, assisting them to raise their online profile and contributing to their growth and development.