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The Basics of Non-Profit SEO, Part 4: Good Content and the Long Tail

Submitted by laryn on

Continuing our series of SEO tips, we come to what is probably the most important of all: add good content to the site, and add it regularly. You are developing this site for people, not for search engine robots, so make sure that the content will draw people in. (Luckily, good content is also helpful for those search engine robots.)

Search engines love text

The more relevant text you can provide, the more they will gobble it up. (You can include images and illustrations and photos, but make sure that there is plenty of good text on the page).

Users love good content

The more interesting/informative/educational/other content you provide, the greater the chance that someone will link to it (see also: external links), send it on to their friends/coworkers/family/others, or help your page go viral via social networks. (The other key is that the content should be original -- or at least include a lot that is original -- for maximum impact.) Offer something valuable from your particular area of expertise.

Keep the content coming

Don't just create a site and leave it sitting there. Keep new content coming to keep your readers engaged and keep the search engines coming back for more. In general, the larger the site is, the more "authority" you will have with the search engines, and the more chances you'll have of getting hits from more specific strings of words and phrases. (More on that below.) Examples of ways to keep the site growing with good and relevant content are to keep an updated "news" section, add your press releases to the site, start a blog on your site, or even begin a forum or discussion area if you have an active user base -- who can do some of the work of generating content for you.

Long Tail SEO Illustration via "LeftClick"Remember the long tail

You will begin to get search hits that are for phrases and terms you may not have suspected and likely haven't optimized for. Embrace this. Certainly you can focus on the most important keywords and phrases that you identified at the beginning, but make sure to prepare your content with the long tail in mind. In short: a good portion of your search hits will be for the "short tail" keywords and phrases that you optimized for, but a significantly larger portion will probably come from more specific keywords (or collections of keywords) that may or may not be related to the ones that you were targetting. Create your content with these users in mind by developing content for real people, not just for search engines. The more relevant content you create, the greater the chance of attracting this type of "long tail" traffic.

Conclusion: "Don’t try to fight the big players with your own generic ‘everything for everyone’ bland offering. Instead, actively position your business in hundreds of niches." (quote from LeftClick, as is the illustration. Click through to their site to read an in-depth example. More on the "long tail" theory is at Wikipedia).

search rank update

To continue to use ourselves as an example, while we are specifically targetting certain keywords and aiming to increase our google rank on phrases such as "non profit web design", we are also aiming to be a genuine and freely accessible resource for non-profits in relation to design in general (and in the case of this SEO series, optimizing non-profit sites in particular). So let's take a look at some "long tail" keyphrases that are a result of the content we've added in the last few weeks and which are not among the keyphrases we are primarily focusing on.

If I type "non profit SEO" into Google, I currently get 8.7 million results. We started writing our SEO series two weeks ago, and we're already 33rd out of 8,700,000. Not bad. Similarly, if I type "non profit search engine optimization" we get 3,470,000 results and we are near the top of the second page in 13th place. As we continue to add to the series as a service to non-profits (and anyone else who happens to visit our site), you can imagine that more specific searches for specific techniques will give us even better results.

Comments

More on the long tail in SEO

From Boomity:

"Long tail keywords have been used in many search engine optimization campaigns to maximize results. They are key phrases that consist of several words instead of just one or two. A short tail keyword, for example, is “roses” or “English roses” while a long tail phrase could be “how to grow English roses without pesticide.”

The reason why a lot of people use long tail keywords is because this strategy filters out the information they don’t want to see. When people search for information online, they often type one or two keywords in the search box to find what they are looking for, but more informed online users type in a longer string of words to get the results they want quicker.

For SEO specialists, getting good search engine rankings using long tail terms would mean that the traffic that they get would be more focused and specific. It also means that the conversion rate would be higher. Users are more likely to try your product or service if they were directed to your site because they were looking for it specifically.

This is the reason why it is important for website owners to use long tail keywords in their search engine optimization campaign. It improves the number of visitors that actually land on your page and also improves the quality of your traffic.

Long tail keywordsalso lessen competition for search engine rankings. These days, the common practice is to use short terms that are very popular keywords. By using long tail phrases, you have an edge over your competitors because you target your audience instead of casting a wide net, praying that you catch something. However, it is still better if you do your homework: look for good phrases before finally deciding to use long tail terms.

Creating a search engine optimization campaign by using long tail terms is definitely worth the effort. You will be able to get the audience you are aiming for, instead of getting a lot of traffic but a low conversion rate. When you shift from short tail keywords to long tail, you’ll notice that the number of people who visit your site may decrease slightly, but you can be sure that there will be more people who will actually try your product or service. As long as you properly integrate those terms with the content in your website, you should be fine. "

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