On-Page optimization for the Long-Tail

[JesseCWalker]

Does anyone have any thoughts about on-page optimization for the long-tail of keywords?

I know, I know, the way you capture long-tail searches is by having lots of content.  The problem is that I can't convince some of my clients to do anything with content marketing.

Even so, I'm noting that as much as half the leads for some small business clients comes from long-tail searches.  Meanwhile I spend all my time trying to get their pages to rank for a one or two terms.

It seems like there must a scientific way to approach increasing long-tail traffic on pre-existing pages.  I'm now experimenting with looking at the frequency of words that appear in searches that the client only receives 1 visit from.  Together these one-offs amount to about half the traffic.

For instance if I have data like this:

Visits           Search

1                    Training help for my German Shepard

1                   German Shepard resources in St. Paul

1                   German Shepard clubs

etc. etc.

Then it makes sense to add some language about German shepards, and perhaps try for anchor text with the 'german shepard'  match.   Perhaps add a photo with alt text of German Shepard etc.

The trouble with this technique is that my main target term for the page might be something like "Dog Training Twin Cities".   If I try to increase my long-tail traffic about german shepards I risk creating a frankenpage!

I'd love to know if any one else has tried to approach this problem of maximizing long-tail traffic on existing pages without hurting UX.

Thanks!

[CleverPhD]

I think you answered your own question.  You have to compare search traffic potential for "dog training twin cities" vs "training german shepard".   If you see enough traffic on the german shepard stuff, create a new page and link to it.  Maybe focus on the top 5 types of dogs and have that as a section.

You are talking about stealing from Peter to pay Paul, but it looks like you are being smart and using analytics to try and answer your question.  There is your science.  You have to look at the long tail of search terms from analytics, and you should see some patterns there.  That will guide you on where to build content over time.

There are some cool regular expressions you can use in Google Analytics to built keyword reports around 2 and 3 word queries.  One example:

http://secretswede.net/seo/measure-longtail-traffic-google-analytics-mayday-update/

Take this and setup a segmentation to see as a whole if this type of traffic is really driving conversions.  It may be that you get traffic, but less conversions.  This adds another layer to how you look at this and if it is worth spending time building out content.

Good luck!

[JesseCWalker]

Thanks for the reply.

Love the regex tools.  Going to devote some time to experimenting with them.

Generally I don't make it a practice to steal from poor old Peter.

But in situations where you have a client opposed to making new pages, or in situations where you have a very high PA page that you want milk for all its worth I wonder about pushing the boundaries.

If you can't just borrow from Peter a little bit, do your best to make everything relevant, and optimize for a few extra keywords/phrases rather than the customary 1 or 2 keyword phrases per page.