First of all, it’s important to define a long tail keyword. It is typically a search phrase consisting of at least 3 words, usually more. It receives very few searches individually but will also attract very targeted traffic, generate excellent conversion rates, and when all long tail keywords are combined they can actually generate a huge amount of traffic, conversions, and profits for your website.

The problem is that with nominal searches conducted for these phrases, most keyword research tools won’t display them so how do you find out what they are?

The simple answer is that you write naturally about the topic of a page, provide valuable information, and let the words do the rest. In reality, though, it doesn’t hurt to give the words a helping hand.

Look through your site logs and your site analytics in order to find keywords that are generating traffic. Don’t ignore those that have only generated two or three hits in the last month and consider whether there are any other related long tail keywords you can work into your content.

Here’s Matt Cutts talking about the MayDay update and giving a little insight into long tail keyword optimisation.

Model Defamed

The video just goes to show that anyone can be subject to online defamation. Whether you are famous or obscure, nice or mean, tall or short. The malcontents who commonly do this will spare no one.

This is precisely why search engine reputation management is so popular these days. People do not like being defamed and want to fight back against such injustices.

This video is from a guy who discusses Insurance Agents and Online Reputation Management. It’s pretty good, if a little too specific.

The Google I/O Conference is an annual conference that is geared almost solely towards developers and website owners rather than searchers and daily Google users. In this year’s I/O Conference there were more than 90 displays and talks that spanned a range of development topics.

The video is actually taken from the site review session. Apparently Matt put up a request for websites on his blog and received hundreds of websites to be reviewed. Although they made a pretty good stab at it, the team didn’t quite manage to get through the lot.

Some of the topics are the usual kind of stuff covered by SEO conferences. Relevancy has always been a popular topic of SEO for many years and one that Matt undoubtedly gets questioned about on a regular basis but it is one worth noting. He also talks about the importance of on page content, benefiting from breadcrumbs, and much much more.

The second part of the video can be found here. This video shows why search engine reputation management is so important–to combat online defamation when the law cannot.

On the other hand, recruiters and employers all around the world are using social networks for professionals (like LinkedIn) to fill some of their most important positions. According to this video from one US recruiter, it is considerably cheaper than using resume databases and carries a numbe of other distinct advantages to both sides.

LinkedIn profiles are also more visible. Search engines like Google do not index every single page of resume databases and your resume could be stored privately so it will never show in search results. In contrast, LinkedIn profile pages are indexed and they are crawled regularly so can help with managing your online reputation before, during, and after your hunt for a career.

By increasing the size of your network, you are increasing your potential to find employment. Look through your friends’ contact lists and if you find somebody that you would like an introduction to, then ask that person if they’d be willing to make the introduction.

By building your reputation on LinkedIn it is possible to land your dream job and once you’ve filled it, the contacts that you’ve made during this time can prove useful in your everyday work too. LinkedIn is a powerful professional social network and because employers and recruiters are using it, then you as a job seeker should be on there as well.

Many top executives (like the rest of the world) Google their names in order to check the results that are returned (it is, after all, an effective start to online reputation management) and copywriter Alec used this knowledge to his advantage creating PPC ads for 5 of the advertising industry’s top executives.

When executives including Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal of Young & Rubicam they were met with a brief sponsored ad at the top of the results page that read “Hey x; Googling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too.” Having bought top positions for five of the leading executives in the industry, he received 4 calls back and two interviews ultimately culminating in a senior copywriter’s position with Young & Rubicam.

Doing things differently and getting noticed is how many websites and online businesses have made their reputation and fortunes, and for Alec Brownstein it is how he landed himself a dream job and became one of the most famous job hunters on the Internet while bypassing the major job sites.