Long Tail Keywords For Dummies

Posted on September 28, 2018May 5, 2022

Most SEO articles and tips focus solely on “keywords”. However, we will focus on long tail keywords which actually may have more opportunity to attract your target audience at a low cost.

Long tail keywords are generally comprised of three or more words in order to make the search much more specific. Even though short term keywords make for larger search volumes, much of their search results get taken away by large websites of the niche. Long tail keywords lead to more specific searches, which means that those who encounter your content through a long tail search will be truly interested in what your website is offering specifically to them.

For example, if your website specializes in selling music instruments in Raleigh, North Carolina, using the short term keyword “electric guitar” won’t be enough because typing those words into Google will generate thousands of results, of which the first few pages may be full of top niche and big established retailer websites.

Someone actually looking to buy an electric guitar may not just type in that short keyword. Wanting to be more specific, this person may use terms such as “electric guitar with flames in raleigh nc”. Right there at the top of those search results is where you want your website to be.

When it comes to long tail keywords, it’s all about quality over quantity.

Why You Should Focus On Long Term Keywords

If you’re still not convinced, here’s a wider list of benefits to using long term keywords.

Get higher rankings on search engines. Since the top websites for your niche may get the first spots of searches, you need to get more specific and target those in the less searched terms category. You will face less competition by not having to fight with more established/big box retailer websites. Using long tail keywords strategically allows you to aim for higher rankings in a shorter period of time while attracting and building the audience you’re aiming for.
Get better SEO benefits. Long tail keywords help search engines recommend your content to the right audience.
Improve CRO for your e-commerce. Long tail keywords are a great strategy for e-commerce websites to improve their conversion rates. Like the example we made earlier, people who search for “electric guitar with flames in raleigh nc” may be much more likely to make a purchase than those simply searching for “electric guitars”.
Long tail keywords are easier to include naturally into your content which makes it look less like you’re trying to sell something and more like you’re actually handing out useful information to your audience.

How To Use Long Tail Keywords:

The first thing you want to do is find the right long term keywords for you. This process consists of in depth keyword research over long periods of time. There are many paid & free tools in the SEO world, some from Google and other sources.

Once you have your long tail keywords, you can start creating content and including them in your existing content, starting with your URL and page/post titles. They can also be included in your paragraph leadings, body, as well as any internal links to your own related content and external links. You can even include them in images and meta descriptions!

Finally, don’t forget to track your long tail keywords performance so you can be certain you’re on the right track and are getting the most benefit out of your efforts.

Differences Between the Internet vs. World Wide Web (www)

Posted on May 24, 2018May 5, 2022

They’re so intertwined with each other in our daily lives, it’s easy to think they’re the exact same thing, however, there are major differences between the Internet and the World Wide Web.

The Internet, a Network of Networks

The first difference is that the Internet is a hardware infrastructure, that means a gigantic network made up of billions of connected hardware such as computers, mobile phones and even satellites and all kinds of other devices. A network of networks.

Connected via cables and wireless signals this massive network was born in the 1960s as a military experiment in the U.S., trying to find a way to maintain communications in the case of a nuclear strike.

As time passed, academics got a hold of it and started using it to connect university mainframe computers. In the 80s and 90s, as personal computers became mainstream, more and more users plugged their devices into this massive network and it hasn’t stopped growing since.

Internet therefore is decentralized. No single entity owns it, no government or authority controls it.

The World Wide Web, a.k.a. The Information on the Internet

In order to access the World Wide Web you’ll need to log into the Internet, given that the web is simply the information-sharing portion of it, the name we give to all of the HTML pages we can find on the Internet.

The web consists of billions of digital pages viewable through a web browser – Google Chrome, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Safari… – all of them connected using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP, a coding language which allows us to access any public web site by clicking on a link or typing a URL, the unique address for each page on the internet.

Through the World Wide Web people everywhere in the world are able to access and share all sorts of information.

One cannot work to its full potential without the other, and although the web is one of the ways information can be disseminated over the internet, it is only a portion of it, meaning they are neither synonymous nor something to be confused. Now, can you tell the difference between them?

Looking for New Revenue for Content? Be Brave!

Posted on September 19, 2016May 11, 2022

If you’re like most people, then you love browsing the internet. What you probably don’t love, however, is seeing lots of low quality ads crowding your screen, at the bottom of every news story, or, even worse yet, clicking on an innocent looking link only to get transferred to a totally different website full of even more low quality ads.

It may soon be time to make a “Brave” choice and switch to the Brave browser. This promising new browser is designed to automatically block any ads, trackers, and ad transfers.

That means that, not only do you get a better/faster browsing experience, for both for yourself and your prospects if you own a website of your own, you may receive compensation for your high quality editorial content.

The Miracle of Micropayments

If you are a person who consumes a lot of info on the internet regularly, one planned feature you will love that is exclusive to the Brave browser is that you can automatically and PRIVATELY pay your favorite websites using it. You can make payments to any site without being tracked and without facing countless low quality ads and borderline harassment as a result of your patronage. To make this happen, you simply download the Brave browser and then enable the Brave payments feature. From there, you can make payments using your Brave wallet, which you can fund via cryptocurrency or bitcoin.

Not only is this feature awesome for those who consume a lot of content, but could also be good for businesses that promote Brave since they can offer a simple and easy way to fund their sites without any worries or fears attached.

The C0MPLÉX1 Connection

You may be wondering why we, as an advertising-based company, are so fond of the Brave Browser. Well, it’s simple really. As advertisers, we understand new technology that doesn’t allow site owners to know more information about their visitors, traffic etc. can be concerning; however, C0MPLÉX1 sees a future where technology like this may evolve into being an asset retailers/publishers/site owners can leverage even more than current technology to create more sales and customer/client relationships.

The bottom line is that if your customers are going to continue being your customers, they need to be able to put their faith in you, and you can make that happen by consistently providing them with safe, trustworthy ways to fund and patronize your site. Thus, when you promote secure browsing, you also promote your own business, which is why we found it a worthwhile topic to broach.

How Do I Pick an SEO Company? (from the Owner)

Posted on April 7, 2016October 5, 2020

Okay, there are lots of stories out there about SEO. I got the idea to write this long form (for me at least) exposé after reading Alistair Barr’s great article, “Mobile Devices Upend Google Search”. There were many references from professionals who are at bigger companies than my own – even WPP.

What I want to do is give the SEO prospect a better understanding of SEO as a topic, including why there are so many different directives, and how to move forward in enacting better SEO for their company.

SEO is a big topic. SEO is both simple and also highly technical. SEO can start with something as easy as writing on your site to something more complex, like schema data & CDN’s.

Web-wise, every business has its own complex individual position (not rank), which can be broken down into: Content, Design, Technical, Competition, Vertical, Unique Sales Proposition (USP), and Human Capital, Relationships. Though there may be others, these are the most influential I can name at this moment, in general terms.

Web-wise, most executives and managers don’t know (or can’t Identify) how all of this affects their current “SEO”/individual position. Some larger companies may have internal people who work on their website at varying roles and technical abilities.

The reason people and companies should use an SEO consultant or an SEO agency. is because these consultants and agencies have the ability to understand a large majority of your business’ complex individual position as well as an ability to work with your business to achieve more success. Usually, that means more sales; and what most executives are interested in is Market Growth/Profitable Growth.

What happens when “SEO” doesn’t work? Here are the raw reasons:

An Unqualified SEO’er, Lack of communication, Misunderstanding of SEO’ers abilities OR focus areas, Budget not sufficient enough to compete with competitors in vertical, No long-term outlook, Non-Transparent SEO’er.

What the Prospect should/could do to identify who to work with:

Phone conversation: This could be the first call, or a call scheduled for later. Get a general over-the-phone feel for the Consultant/Agency, knowledge level, skill level, SEO Areas of focus/skill. Most executives can hear weakness of hesitation in conversation. However, don’t hold it against them if they take a moment to mindfully respond to questions/examples.
In person meeting: Ths can take place at a place of your choise or at the agency. During the meeting, you’ll have an in-depth talk about the Consultant/Agency’s knowledge, skills, areas of focus as well as your specific goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), reporting you need to see, and on what schedule. Ask questions knowing that to answer, they may have to do specific research on the current position.
Hire them: Confirm you want to work with them, and commit.
Pay them: Pay on time, every time. A lot of Consultants/ Agencies go the extra mile for great clients. This usually means they put in more time than they get paid for. Don’t leave them hanging; they might have to stop their work until they get payment, which could delay goals and milestones.
Talk Often: This can occur once every two weeks or weekly, depending on the budget. The reasons to do this are too numerous to list.

SEO – An All Encompassing Phrase

Again, SEO is really an all-encompassing phrase with the level of complexity being very high and different for every company. Hopefully, this helps you understand the complexity and vastness of it. Don’t take all the short “quotes” you read in articles about SEO as truth. Instead, work with your internal team and your SEO Consultant/Agency to execute a winning plan.

Cutting the Cable Cord; The Future is Video Advertising

Posted on December 28, 2015December 2, 2020

It is becoming increasingly difficult to reach younger audiences via television advertising, and soon from now – it may be nearly impossible. Forrester Research predicts that 50% of all TV viewers under age 32 will not subscribe to a traditional pay TV service by the time 2025 rolls around. Currently, “cord-nevers” (people who have never subscribed to a paid cable TV service) comprise 18% of the U.S. population. And while the majority of cord-nevers are ages 32 and older, roughly 7% of cord-nevers are people ages 18-31. [source]

Increasing Engagement with Video Advertising

Cable TV subscriptions may be on the decline, but perhaps not surprisingly, time on YouTube jumped [source] 44% according to Nielsen’s Google-commissioned analysis, primarily due to mobile viewership. [source] With this information, brands and ad agencies are being forced to re-think their media strategies. The following are some of the things that they need to take into consideration.

#1 – Combine TV & YouTube

Google performed a study of 3,000 U.S. campaigns and looked at how total reach of millennials would be impacted if campaigns had replaced some of their TV advertising with YouTube ads. They found that without spending an extra dollar, 46% of campaigns would have benefited from a TV and YouTube combo, with an average increase in millennials reached of 42% compared to TV alone.

#2 – Use YouTube to Grow Engagement for Your Brand

Studies show that including “TrueView” ads on your YouTube videos can increase the likelihood of the viewer taking action. In fact, of those who watch at least 30 seconds or more of a TrueView ad are 23X more likely to visit and/or subscribe to that brand channel, watch additional videos by that brand and/or share the video(s). Marketers should pay attention to what their target audience’s needs are, and engage them in the micro-moments that matter.

#3 – Boost ROI by Increasing Views of Past Video Content

According to Google, viral content on sites like YouTube have a longer shelf life than the 15-30-second commercials you see on TV. Branded videos on YouTube have a long shelf-life, earning views for months, if not years. Those who employ the use of TrueView on newly posted videos see significant upticks in views for past content – by up to 500%!

17 Interesting YouTube Statistics

There are at least 400 hours worth of video uploaded to YouTube every single minute. [via]
Only 5% of the videos posted to YouTube are driving most of the views. [via]
58M videos (5%) of YouTube videos are responsible for 95% of views on the site. [via]
YouTube was founded in February 2005. [via]
Slogan from 2005 – 2012 was “Broadcast Yourself”. [via]
YouTube’s founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, were all early employees of PayPal. [via]
The first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site. [via]
In 2014 YouTube said that 300 hours of new videos were uploaded to the site every minute,[20] three times more than one year earlier and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the U.S. [via]
The site has 800 million unique users a month. [via]
In October 2006, Google Inc. bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. The deal was finalized in November 2006. [via]
Once users are on YouTube, they are spending more time per session watching videos. [via]
On mobile, the average viewing session is now more than 40 minutes, up more than 50% y/y. [via]
The number of hours people spent watching videos on mobile is up 100% y/y. [via]
More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices. [via]
YouTube’s mobile revenue is up 2x y/y. [via]
YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. [via]
YouTube overall, and even YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S. [via]

Cutting the Cord, Prepping for a Cable-Free Future

While we can’t predict the future outright, all signs seem to point to one in which we access video content from multi-channel mobile devices. What has your business done to prepare? If you need help putting together a comprehensive Viral marketing campaign that gets RESULTS, contact C0MPLÉX1 today: (919) 926-8733.

5 Steps to a Faster Website

Posted on December 18, 2015August 17, 2022

Today, the average adult has an attention span comparable to a goldfish. So, when it comes to your website, you’d better be sure you have everything in order. The first key to making your website faster: page load speed.

Faster Page Load = Better

The amount of time it takes a web user to load your website is critical. This is especially true if you operate a retail or e-commerce business. Each second lost in page load time may be dollars lost in revenue. Take the following for example:

For e-commerce sites, web loading times are even more crucial than other sites. It has been found that a delay of microseconds can potentially cause a significant loss of revenue. Tests at Amazon revealed similar results: every 100 ms increase in load time of Amazon.com decreased sales by 1% (Kohavi and Longbotham 2007). Google discovered that a change in a 10-result page loading in 0.4 seconds to a 30-result page loading in 0.9 seconds decreased traffic and ad revenues by 20% (Linden 2006). [source]

One percent may not sound like a lot; however, when you consider how much business Amazon does every hour, every day, a one percent revenue loss is significant. The same can be said for smaller businesses or ‘mom n’ pop’ shops.

Building Customer Loyalty & Trust

According to Kissmetrics, nearly 50% of consumers expect a webpage to load in two seconds or less. Putting this into perspective, if an e-commerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year. [source]

In the time it takes your website to load (slowly), your would-be customer has already clicked off and found another online retailer to do business with. The impact of slow page load times that fail to meet customer expectations is far reaching. Not only can it create a lack of trust and loyalty; it can actually sully your brand and brandish your business as being unreliable.

Anatomy of a Webpage

Figuring out why your webpage/website isn’t loading as fast as you’d like is a matter of thinking through the different components that make up your website. Each webpage is made up of the following:

63% images
16% javascripts
3% HTML
3% CSS
16% other

If your website is loading slowly, it’s likely due to the fact that there is a large amount of content on the site, and that content isn’t structured properly. This is an important point to note as there are countless websites made up of thousands of webpages that function smoothly and load without issues.

How do you make a website faster? 5 Steps

So, how do you go about making your website faster? Consider the following tips [source]:

Make Your Website Faster By:

#1 – Optimizing Images

At 63 percent, images take up a huge chunk of room on most websites. Make sure you reduce the image file size before saving it or uploading it to your website. Photoshop, for example, has a “save for web” option to help you automatically reduce the file size. Otherwise, if you upload an image at its regular full size, the browser has to work hard to resize that image (hence the delays in page load time). There are also other online programs out there to help you reduce image file sizes.

#2 – Minifying Your Assets

Minifying your assets refers to the act of condensing the CSS code, which makes it quicker for web browsers to read the data on your website. This is a great thing as browsers will read the code with less gaps, which will help speed up the page load time. There are also plugins available to help you do this.

#3 – Combining Assets

Combining assets refers to the act of combining multiple files with a single file for CSS & JavaScript. Doing this will reduce the amount of times your computer needs to request and send data to from your a server to other devices.

#4 – Updating Your Web Browser

Technology moves fast, and it is important to keep up! One of the simplest things you can do is make sure that your web browser is up to date. There are various plugin available to help you out with this, and it is recommended that you let an experienced web developer handle this sort of update. On the plus side, an updated web browser can significantly improve site performance, and more.

#5 – Caching Your Website

When an individual web user visits your website, “caching” is what allows the visitor’s web browser to remember what files were used, and it will pull these files locally onto the user’s screen (versus having to make individual trips to the web server).

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