Keywords are words in the content of your website that are relevant to what prospects would be searching for in Google and Bing queries, leading them to your site.

What are long tailed keywords?

Long tailed keywords are three and four-word keyword phrases which are very specific to whatever product or service you’re selling. I prefer to call them keywords, then keyword phrases, and finally, extended keyword phrases.

When I first saw the term “long tailed,” it threw me momentarily, but then I figured it was simply a buzzword some SEO analyst threw out there and it stuck.

Why are long tailed keywords or extended keyword phrases important?

When prospects use extended keyword phrases in search queries, they tend to know exactly what they’re looking for, which makes it so much more likely that they’ll buy whatever you’re selling once they find your site.

An example – if your business sells exclusive hair products not found in the major chain stores, search queries for shampoo would lead prospects to millions of results, but probably none of them yours.

The search query is simply too general. And the catch here is that if that prospect is searching for shampoo, they’re probably not a good prospect for your product anyway.

Using shampoo as a keyword in online advertisements will probably cost you a ton in advertising dollars, with little return on your investment. But if you sell Brocato hair products, a search query for Brocato Volumizing Tonic will rank much higher in the search engines, improving your visibility to the world, which in turn should increase your sales. And isn’t that what the end game is for any marketing or SEO strategy?

Ranking higher organically

Ranking higher organically in the search engines certainly leads to increased traffic on your website, but conversions should always be what you’re looking for. Those same keywords that led prospects to your site should also be attached to value add content on your website that intuitively ends with a call-to-action.

All too often, I see search queries lead me to homepages of websites, forcing me to delve deeper for what I was interested in, rather than taking me directly there.

On one hand, that could lower bounce rates, but as well it may cause prospects to move on to other search results rather than get quagmired navigating your site.

Taking extended keyword phrases one step further

To capture discriminating shoppers, you should be creating pages based on extended keyword phrases.

If you’re a Salon, Car Repair Shop or Web Hosting Provider, there are hundreds of variations of extended keyword phrases that you could use to create unique pages. Each of these pages should have its own title, description meta tag, H1 header tag and value add content that emphasizes your product or service.

I’m not necessarily talking about eCommerce sites here, as there are very specific strategies that address how these types of sites should be optimized for SEO and conversions.

A word of caution

Don’t go overboard on extended keyword phrases or you may “narrow” yourself out of business. Of course, if you have 500 visitors to your site looking for shampoo versus 100 visitors searching for Brocato products, which would you prefer? Site analytics should be matched to conversion ratios.

In the web hosting industry, a prime example would be services that are either unmanaged or managed, such as VPS or dedicated servers. Some prospects are capable of managing their own servers, but many others find that especially intimidating.

If you’re hosting mission critical data, there should be no gray area in terms of how your server is hardened for security. Once a server is hacked, or infected with malware, or held for ransom, you become reactive instead of proactive.

In terms of keyword phrases, some examples could be; VPS essential managed services, VPS basic managed services and dedicated server full management services. Or you could simply use; managed VPS or managed dedicated server.

How do you know what extended keyword phrases to focus on?

The key here, really, is how to determine which extended keyword phrases have sufficient traffic for you to target. Research is paramount. Fortunately, there are tons of programs available. A simple Google or Bing search will reveal a plethora of free and premium programs designed specifically to address this.

One of those programs is keywordtool.io. This programs purports to help you find keywords that are hidden in Google’s keyword planner. In any event, I would not limit yourself to just one analytic program. Try two or three and compare your results, and tweak as necessary.

Brought to you by ProlimeHost

We’ve been in the web hosting industry for over a decade, helping hundreds of clients succeed in what they do best and that’s running their business. We specialize in Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, with data centers in Los Angeles, Denver & Singapore.

VPS Services: Lightning Fast SSD Virtual Servers

Our Virtual Private Servers all feature high performance Xeon processors and SSD storage in a RAID10 configuration to optimize your server’s performance, which dramatically enhances visitor experiences on your site.

That speed is backed by unparalleled 24/7 support, featuring both outstanding response AND resolution times to maximize your uptime.

Now is the time to join the ProlimeHost virtual private server revolution.

Dedicated Servers: Backed by a 99.9% SLA network uptime guarantee

We only use enterprise-class hardware in our dedicated servers and offer a four (4) hour hardware replacement. Throw in IPMI for remote management, support for public and private networks, free operating system (OS) re-installs, and SATA, SAS & SSD (including NVMe) storage. Call +1 877 477 9454 or email us at Sales@ProlimeHost.com. We’re here to help.

Apparently, my one of my blog’s has attracted a huge Russian following with some thoughtful comments, but more so with comments like these. I have my doubts about the accuracy of the translation. The link is here.

Вот что-то подобное у меня уже неделю из головы не выходит!
Here something similar at me a week from a head does not leave!

очень занимательно было почитать
It was very entertaining to esteem

Лучшая инфа которую я прочел за последние несколько дней. Очень актуально. Спасибо
The best инфа which I прочел for the last some days. Very actually. Thanks

подкупила искренность поста
Has bribed sincerity of a post

Вера в успех – это движущая сила и грех ей не воспользоваться для своих личных целей.
The belief in success is a motive power and a sin to it to not take advantage for the personal purposes.

Вы правы, в этом что-то есть. Благодарю за информацию, может, я тоже могу Вам чем-то помочь?
You are right, in it something is. I thank for the information, can, I too can something help you?

Ты как обычно радуешь нас своими лучшими фразами спасибо, беру!
You as usually please us with the best phrases of thanks, I take!

И правда креатив…супер!
And the truth a creative … супер!

мило ждем еще…
Lovely we wait ещеЕ

подробнее, плиз. Что за ошибка?
More in detail, плиз. What for a mistake?

пытаемся читать между строк..
We try to read between lines..

В этом что-то есть и я думаю, что это хорошая идея.
In it something is also I think, that it is good idea.

Я бы сказала о монументальности, грандиозности некоторых сюжетов. А назвала бы – “нефильтрованный реал”. На мой взгляд, красота – это все-таки другое: лучшее, чистое, избранное, заставляющее трепетать и поражаться. Можно найти красоту во всем, но всё скопом – не есть красота. Имхо.
I would tell about monumentalism, grandness of some plots. And would name – “ not filtered real ”. In my opinion, the beauty is all the same another: the best, pure, selected, forcing to tremble and be amazed. It is possible to find beauty in everything, but all in a crowd – not is beauty. Имхо.

Довольно забавная статья, скажу чесно – удивил. Если не секрет откуда вообще блоггеры черпают материалы для статей? Я понимаю что написаны они собственноручно, но ведь “сюжет” нада найти где-то.
Amusing enough clause, I shall tell чесно – has surprised. If not the secret whence in general блоггеры is scooped with materials for clauses? I understand that they are written with own hand, but in fact “plot” нада to find somewhere.

Очень интересно.
Very interestingly.

Искренне благодарен.
It is sincerely grateful.

Спасибо огромное!
Thanks huge!

The big question is why?

Obviously, these comments aren’t worth the characters it took to write them, so why write them at all? Maybe they’re a test to determine if they could spam my blog with advertisements instead? I’ve seen plenty of those for everything from dental implants and window replacements to advertisements for porn related services.

Comment spamming protection

For users running WordPress sites, Askimet does a fairly good job at weeding out spam, but I still moderate all comments to make sure nothing gets through that shouldn’t – and so should you.

Security cannot be overlooked

As if comment spamming wasn’t bad enough, my blogs are constantly bombarded with cybercriminals attempting to brute force login their way to either deface my site or add malicious content. Fortunately, I use various security measures to stop them in their tracks, and you should too. It’s a dangerous world on the Internet as we know it today.

When we start seeing web hosting providers and security journalists get hit with massive DDoS attacks, it’s no longer a small matter. Neither are the latest security breaches reported recently. You can never be too safe. And always, always backup your sites remotely.

Please update every one of your passwords regularly

Even though I warn everyone I know to change their passwords at least once every six months, I know some of them haven’t done that in years. Please don’t let Murphy’s Law catch up to you as it will at the most inopportune time.

Comments are very welcome

It’s one thing to write content which you believe is value add, but it’s very rewarding when your readers acknowledge that you’ve touched at least one subject that inspired them to action, or gave them reason to ponder, or answered a question about something that they were unsure of or had just never considered before. Unfortunately, we all lead very busy lives and don’t always find the time for commentary. When you do read an article or blog that enriches you in some way, it can’t hurt to reach out and share your experience.

Brought to you by ProlimeHost

We’ve been in the web hosting industry for over a decade, helping hundreds of clients succeed in what they do best and that’s running their business. We specialize in Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, with data centers in Los Angeles, Denver & Singapore.

VPS Services: Lightning Fast SSD Virtual Servers

Our Virtual Private Servers all feature high performance Xeon processors and SSD storage in a RAID10 configuration to optimize your server’s performance, which dramatically enhances visitor experiences on your site.

That speed is backed by unparalleled 24/7 support, featuring both outstanding response AND resolution times to maximize your uptime.

Now is the time to join the ProlimeHost virtual private server revolution.

Dedicated Servers: Backed by a 99.9% SLA network uptime guarantee

We only use enterprise-class hardware in our dedicated servers and offer a four (4) hour hardware replacement. Throw in IPMI for remote management, support for public and private networks, free operating system (OS) re-installs, and SATA, SAS & SSD (including NVMe) storage. Call +1 877 477 9454 or email us at Sales@ProlimeHost.com. We’re here to help.

First, what are dedicated servers and how do they compare to shared hosting and virtual private server services?

Essentially, a dedicated server is a very much like your personal computer, only engineered and manufactured to enterprise hosting standards, meaning they’re built to operate non-stop 24/7/365. They’re racked in a data center that employs 24/7 monitoring for temperature, humidity, fire and so on. Plus they’re connected to the Internet over a BGP network utilizing multiple broadband carriers, so should any one carrier fail, your site will not go down.

In contrast to shared hosting and VPS services

In contrast to shared hosting, a dedicated server’s resources are entirely yours, meaning that your IP isn’t shared with 1000 other users with websites on the same server as yours. Why is that important? Any one or any combination of other sites on the same server as your site is on can degrade the responsiveness of that server, adversely affecting the performance of your site.

VPS services are only slight different as they operate in virtualized containers, separating one account from the other. There are also appreciably fewer accounts on the same server. Even so, this is a shared environment whereas when leasing a dedicated server, the resources of that server are entirely yours.

You have the freedom to run whatever applications you need

You run whatever applications are applicable to your operations within the specifications of that specific server. Your web hosting provider is responsible for the hardware itself, and should a power supply fail or a hard drive crash, they would be responsible for replacing it.

They would not however, be responsible for any data or software applications on that server, unless of course you’ve contracted for that, and that’s normally out of the norm for dedicated server hosting providers.

Your dedicated server provider would also be responsible for supplying power to your server and for routine scheduled maintenance tasks.

Some providers will custom build a dedicated server for you

The advantages?

You’ll be able to select the type of CPU, the amount of RAM, the type and size of hard drives, whether or not to utilize RAID, how much bandwidth you’ll need and the typically the port speed. Most dedicated server providers have pre-configured servers that they offer in packages, but a good number of providers will custom-build a server to your specific specifications.

Service level agreements

Service level agreements between the provider and your organization typically outline uptime guarantees and resolution remedies should you experience down times outside of maintenance windows. Don’t be confused though when reading SLA’s. 100% uptime guarantees don’t mean your server will be online 100% of the time, only that you’ll typically receive hosting credits should downtime occur.

Versus in-house

Versus housing a server in-house, there are substantial savings and operational advantages to leasing a dedicated server from a data center. First, you don’t own the server, so the cost of replacing faulty hardware is undertaken by the provider. Secondly, you don’t have to build out a server room with redundant power sources, environmental monitors, or pay high priced IT personnel to be on-call 24/7.

You also don’t have to run multiple broadband carrier connections to your DMARK, which can get very costly. Data centers have that all in place because they use economy of scale. Their savings are passed on to you.

Cost for a 1Gbps connection to your DMARK

How much would it cost to run a 1Gbps connection to your organization? Yipes! Check it out sometime – its’ expensive. Clearly, having 1Gbps port speeds included in the lease of a dedicated server at a data center makes your choice much easier.

With the advent of increased cyber-criminal activities, many providers now offer DDoS protection, some for free at certain levels and others paid depending on the type of DDoS protection and levels. Don’t think your site is not susceptible to attacks. Once that occurs, what typically happens is that your IP address is null routed which takes your site offline. This is especially crucial for businesses running e-commerce sites.

Keeping your server secure

Security

Do you really want your cleaning lady having access to your server room? Trust me, I’ve seen this at quite a few businesses. Bump into one cable and all heck ensues. Better that you lease a server housed in a secure data center as this will not only give you peace of mind, but will shield you from preventable disasters.

Brought to you by ProlimeHost

We’ve been in the web hosting industry for over a decade, helping hundreds of clients succeed in what they do best and that’s running their business. We specialize in Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, with data centers in Los Angeles, Denver & Singapore.

VPS Services: Lightning Fast SSD Virtual Servers

Our Virtual Private Servers all feature high performance Xeon processors and SSD storage in a RAID10 configuration to optimize your server’s performance, which dramatically enhances visitor experiences on your site.

That speed is backed by unparalleled 24/7 support, featuring both outstanding response AND resolution times to maximize your uptime.

Now is the time to join the ProlimeHost virtual private server revolution.

Dedicated Servers: Backed by a 99.9% SLA network uptime guarantee

We only use enterprise-class hardware in our dedicated servers and offer a four (4) hour hardware replacement. Throw in IPMI for remote management, support for public and private networks, free operating system (OS) re-installs, and SATA, SAS & SSD (including NVMe) storage. Call +1 877 477 9454 or email us at Sales@ProlimeHost.com. We’re here to help.

What I mean by value-add is your company’s unique blend of products and services, and how those are perceived by your prospects and clients. You may be the absolute best at what you offer, yet aren’t growing as expected. This often happens when you don’t effectively communicate your expertise.

Communication is key

What’s behind your value-add? If you don’t spell out everything you do, starting with your estimates and proposals – to invoices, your value-add could be overlooked.

What does it take to provide your business solution? Infrastructure, research, surveys, reports, travel time, understanding the competition, proof reading, editing, revisions, design work, interviews, phone calls, industry schooling and licensing?

The list goes on and on, but are these communicated to your prospects and clients? If not, your value-add will be negatively impacted.

Expertise is a business value-add

Why do I pay my automotive dealer $115+/hour for labor? When I was repairing typesetters, our first hour labor rate was $180.00, and that was 25 years ago. Hair coloring and styling can run $100.00+.

And these rates are invoiced and paid routinely because there’s a perception of value associated with each service.

The perception of your value can be elevated via marketing campaigns, blogs, case studies, testimonials and so on.

You need a business plan that leads to a lot of YES’s

Web hosting value-adds

Among the value-adds I envision as important for a web hosting provider, infrastructure, 24×7 support and hands-on expertise rank high.

Every provider, it seems, has bronze, silver and gold plans. For providers, if your value-add is eCommerce, disaster recovery or managed services, how do you communicate what makes your service unique, and worth the price you advertise?

If you offer collocation, how do your plans differ from your competition? Would two 20 AMP circuits per rack be a value-add, or simply norm?

If you offer business class shared web hosting plans, would that be a value-add? Certainly, value-adds are competition driven. What is your unique selling proposition?

Do your prospects and clients know how you differ from your competition? Telling them, or not, will impact your business.

Clearly, a few very popular methods to get the word out about your products or services would be via social media portals like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business, Facebook and Twitter. This is a long term strategy, so persistency is paramount.

As you grow your followers, your business value-add products and services will begin to brand your company, setting up consistency in the growth of your company.

Brought to you by ProlimeHost

We’ve been in the web hosting industry for over a decade, helping hundreds of clients succeed in what they do best and that’s running their business. We specialize in Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, with data centers in Los Angeles, Denver & Singapore.

VPS Services: Lightning Fast SSD Virtual Servers

Our Virtual Private Servers all feature high performance Xeon processors and SSD storage in a RAID10 configuration to optimize your server’s performance, which dramatically enhances visitor experiences on your site.

That speed is backed by unparalleled 24/7 support, featuring both outstanding response AND resolution times to maximize your uptime.

Now is the time to join the ProlimeHost virtual private server revolution.

Dedicated Servers: Backed by a 99.9% SLA network uptime guarantee

We only use enterprise-class hardware in our dedicated servers and offer a four (4) hour hardware replacement. Throw in IPMI for remote management, support for public and private networks, free operating system (OS) re-installs, and SATA, SAS & SSD (including NVMe) storage. Call +1 877 477 9454 or email us at Sales@ProlimeHost.com. We’re here to help.

Everywhere you look, there’s advice on what works and what doesn’t work in web design (including coding for SEO). While the intent of websites is to convey information, the design of your site weighs heavily whether anyone will actually read your content. If you’re running e-commerce, design becomes critical.

Users spend most of their time on OTHER websites

Their experiences on other websites form their expectations for YOUR website. Take some time to research what others in your industry are posting. Your competitor may market inferior products and services, but still outsell you online. Why? The perceived value of their products and services may be enhanced because of the way they’re presented online.

What turns users OFF?

• Flash – anytime I see flash on a website, my first thought is that the site hasn’t been updated in a while because flash went out of favor years ago. Why? Flash isn’t supported on iPhones or iPads, so that’s a huge negative. Plus sites built with flash don’t index well with Google.
• Poor navigation – There are just some sites where it’s not intuitive at all getting from point A to point B and so on. This can be especially irritating on e-commerce sites.
• Unreadable font and background color combinations – this has got to be one of my pet peeves. What are these web developers thinking using font and background color combinations like red on yellow or light grey on a slightly darker grey background? If I have to struggle to read the text on a page, I’m very quick to move on, and I suspect that I’m not alone.
• Long page load times – who has the time anymore to wait forever for a website to load? We’re not in dial up mode anymore. Get with broadband. Seriously, if a site takes longer than 2 minutes to load, your bounce rate is going to skyrocket.
• Clutter – and yes, we’re talking about so much unorganized stuff on website pages that it’s hard to focus on why you’re there in the first place.
• Irrelevant content based on their search query – if I’m searching for furniture, I don’t want my search query leading me to a coffee shop. That’s an extreme example, but this happens quite frequently.
• Broken links – this happens a lot and it just demonstrates lack of attention to detail. While that link may have been valid when the site was built, links often become broken for a myriad of reasons beyond your control. What you can control though is assuring that links on your site are always functional.
• No way back to the previous page – I see this a lot on web hosting sites where once a visitor goes to their support page, there’s no way back to their home page or the page they just left.
• For e-commerce – NO PRICING – what happened to impulse buying? If I’m shopping for a product or service and find something that I want to purchase, I don’t want to email the vendor for a price.
• Poor grammar – prospects do pay attention to grammar. Look at the comments section on nearly any article. Just let someone misspell a word or use your instead of you’re, and the grammar police come crawling out of the woodwork to smack them down.
• Audio with no OFF option – or even worse, videos that auto-play somewhere on the site, and often never where you can easily find them because there are 15 other videos in the sidebar.
• Loooooooooooong unbroken paragraphs – another pet peeve of mine. My gosh, how long does it to break up paragraphs so your visitors will be able to scan sentences without using a straightedge?

What turns users ON?

This ties directly to what users become accustomed to on other sites. You don’t have to spend thousands on design work – just enough to give you an edge or a niche. Of course, these help:

• Fast page load times – the faster, the better.
• Appropriate amount of white space. You can actually lead visitors to your site from one section to another via optimized use of white space.
• Relevant value-add content based on search query. We touched on this earlier, but it deserves to be reinforced because it’s extremely important.
• For e-commerce – PRICING. We touched on this as well. Most visitors have a budget in mind when they’re shopping around, so not showing pricing simply encourages those prospects to move on to e-commerce sites with pricing.
• Intuitive navigation – if you’re selling a product or service, why wouldn’t you want your prospects to get from Point Query to Point Purchase as easy as possible?
• Unique theme with READABLE font and background color combinations. A unique theme is important for branding, but readable font and background color combinations will keep your prospects on site, and isn’t that where you want them?
• Professionally written content – visitors to your site will perceive you to be an expert in your field if your content is professionally written and value-add. This adds to the trust factor in know, like and trust which are the three critical elements for selling anything.

Brought to you by ProlimeHost

We’ve been in the web hosting industry for over a decade, helping hundreds of clients succeed in what they do best and that’s running their business. We specialize in Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, with data centers in Los Angeles, Denver & Singapore.

VPS Services: Lightning Fast SSD Virtual Servers

Our Virtual Private Servers all feature high performance Xeon processors and SSD storage in a RAID10 configuration to optimize your server’s performance, which dramatically enhances visitor experiences on your site.

That speed is backed by unparalleled 24/7 support, featuring both outstanding response AND resolution times to maximize your uptime.

Now is the time to join the ProlimeHost virtual private server revolution.

Dedicated Servers: Backed by a 99.9% SLA network uptime guarantee

We only use enterprise-class hardware in our dedicated servers and offer a four (4) hour hardware replacement. Throw in IPMI for remote management, support for public and private networks, free operating system (OS) re-installs, and SATA, SAS & SSD (including NVMe) storage. Call +1 877 477 9454 or email us at Sales@ProlimeHost.com. We’re here to help.