JEM Consulting - Help For Self Employed and Small Business Web Site Owners

I refer a lot to Matt Cutts of Google.  This new interesting video talks about Google’s new emphasis on long tailed keyword searches.  This was put into effect in one of Google’s upgrades made this past May.  Upgrades are made regularly throughout the year.  If you see something Webmasters refer to as May Day, it is because it happened on or over the time period stretching from the last few days of April through the first days of May.

My understanding of the event is in essence Google changed its algorithms, or indexing formulas.  The process is simple yet extremely detailed and fast.  Google indexes all the content it can read (important concept) you put on your site.  They place that information in high speed servers throughout the world.  When someone types a query into a search engine box, the servers try to match those words with what it has on file.

Up until now it would match words in no precise order, just the words themselves. You could tell because sometimes in a search the displayed results did not lead to what you were looking for.

What is happening now is Google will try to match the sequence of words (long tailed words) more closely.  In Matts’ words:  “Some sites are a better match for some queries that other sites.“  He continued: “…we’re trying to access the quality of sites, we’re trying to find the best sites that match up to long-tailed queries….how we assess which sites are best…”

That is information I have tried to convey to all my class and presentation attendees as well as clients.  Search is based on keywords entered into a search engine query box.  Search no longer concentrates on single words, that’s in the past.  Look to potential keyword strings, or long tailed, for your marketing efforts. I read recently that the average search on Google has 3.2 words in it.

Determine if their is opportunity with those keywords by assessing the competition.  Do not battle the giants, go where there is no path and leave a trail.  Write or amend the content of your pages based on those targeted keywords.  Then market the heck out of the keywords using free social media tools.  Don’t be afraid to pull the plug if it fails.  SEO work is both a science and as art.  Just be prepared to do again until your find the right fit.

Shift out of neutral and get going.  The love train is leaving the station….