Let me explain.

Blogs and News Organizations were excluding certain specific content positions from their websites in comparison to other sites  which are viewed as its competition and this is allowing them to develop an identity.

For instance, ProfitBaron does not pump out posts which are telling you that there is a new version of Wordpress, or there’s a new employee at Facebook because, there are thousands and thousands of other sites out there that will tell you exactly the same thing.

Whilst, its virtually impossible to be completely original in every single piece of content you write because, every good blogger repeats themselves – even on purpose sometimes – because, repeating ourselves is a natural part of how our minds work with and remember ideas. However, by controlling what is content is being published then you are allowing yourself to influence how you want to be perceived.

For instance, Robert Scoble loves to post content on Silicon Valley Startups such as FlipBoard because, he’s interested in them and likes to help them out by telling everyone about them and Louis Gray loves to post content on startups as well such as Supertrackr because like Robert he’s really interested in Startups and they are both early adopters.

The above examples do not really mention who Louis and Robert are in full detail and I recommend you finding more about them but for all intended purposes of this post, that is a small part of who they are.

Remember, if you avoid publishing certain content then you are influencing how you want to be perceived and this makes huge strives in how you are perceived in your niche/industry.

There are four methods which I have tried to find long tail keywords each having their advantages and disadvantages and I will explain each of these methods along with some advantages and disadvantages so you can decide which one is the best method for you.

Method 1. Keyword Analytic and Tracking Programs

I order to use a keyword analytic/tracking programme you will need to place a few lines of code into your site, so they can recommended long-tail keywords specifically related to your website.

Having tried a few keyword analytic/tracking programmes for myself, I found several problems with the ones I used. Firstly, if the website is new they are useless as they won’t be able to provide any long tail keyword suggestions due to you not getting any traffic from the search engines. Moreover, if you are getting some search engine traffic and the site is new then you will also receive the suggestions slowly which is annoying as you can’t plan to develop content in advance which match these keywords.  Secondly, on the other side of the spectrum if you have a website which receives a considerable amount of search traffic, they give you too many suggestions and on several occasions provided far too many to implement. Moreover,  if you decide you would like to filter and select specific keywords off the lists provided be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time with these programmes as the user interface is poor which makes it really hard to group, sort and tag keywords according to your priorities. Finally, they don’t provide a search volume measure for the long tail keywords they suggest which again means you will have to spend time using a search volume analyzer to find out which long tail keywords you should prioritize.

Method 2. Monitor Internal Searches

I haven’t tracked them on Profit Baron yet to create content maybe I should although, I have used this method on other websites I own/have owned and by monitoring what keyword phrases users are searching for on your website this allows you to create create content directly related to what they are searching for.

Method 3. Analyse Your Competition

This is an awesome method because, the competitor has already done the hard part for you – finding the long tail keywords and all you need to do is discover what those are. I believe that there are only two ways they’re the only ones I know to find what your competitors keywords are which is by visiting their website and analysing it by viewing their page source to find their title, meta tags and back links. However, this approach can take a significant amount of time but the benefit is that the research is detailed and you will understand your competition in much greater detail. The other method is a faster approach and this is by using a keyword parsing tool.

Note: This method depends on your websites rank in search engines, its link profile, on-site optimisation etc to ensure that you have a better chance of ranking better than your competition in the search engines.

Method 4.  Develop Natural Long Tail Keywords

This is the easiest and simplest way to develop long tail keywords as it requires little to no research at all. This is because, all you have to do is update your website with new content regularly or more frequently by adding new pages and core keyword-friendly content. The key is frequency because, being more frequent allows you to increase your visibility in the search engines and in turn will help to increase search engine traffic.

In order to discover how to bring more search engine traffic to your website you need to understand the Long Tail theory and how to apply this theory.  If you’re not interested too lazy to read the Wikipedia link then basically long tail keywords are multi-phrase search queries which are far more targeted than a main keyword topic as they specifically are targeted to information a user is looking for. In order words, by targeting low-volume search queries rather then dominating the major ones you will receive more traffic to your website!

For instance let’s say that the main keyword is “Business” then you would have the following long tail keywords:

• How to start a business
• How to write a business plan
• The benefits of getting a business mentor

The examples listed above are what real users are searching for and by optimising your website to target these long tail keywords by creating content for them then you are likely to get far more traffic then if you ranked for “Business”.

Firstly by adopting this method, you will receive higher conversions as visitors are already likely to purchase or convert on affiliate programs or recommendations as their search was more specific to the offer you are offering.

Secondly, the monetization potential is increased because, these visitors are highly targeted which means they are more likely to click an ads or subscribe to your site etc which means your audience size has increased and allows additional product sales in the long run.

Moreover, long tail keywords are easier to rank as you are likely to face ‘weaker’ competition as the larger sites are keener on targeting the main keywords.

Finally you are going to receive more website visitors as you will have more pages indexed by the search engines and this results in increased visibility which equals search engine traffic.

In the next post I will explain how to find long tail keywords.

Update: The second part can be read here – How To Find Long Tail Keywords

The problem with on Facebook it requires users to do the hard work. That is because, they encourage users to “deactivate” their account and the only way to be certain that your account along with all the data is removed from Facebook is to delete every single picture, comment and personal information from your profile and save the changes, and then email their customer service (who unlike Twitter actually get back to you) and ask for your account to be removed – then just in case they have disabled it, wait a couple of days and try to login, if a message pops up offering to reactive your account then you should email them again – if the message doesn’t pop up your Facebook account has been successfully removed.

However, I believe that the way Facebook are approaching user deletion is wrong, they should be able to delete effortlessly.

Update: Facebook have since changed the way the delete your account.

Let me explain from a generic perspective.

I believe that any company requires clear cut signals to tell them if they’re going in the right direction. Which is why I believe a company along with trying to generate revenue from its users (or even trying to get them to pay for services/features) needs to get the things which users don’t like about their product or service so they can learn faster.

Which means that the company is going to acquire more data and we all know what data means value. The value in this sense is to the company because, these failures (which is essentially what they are since users don’t like X or Y about their service) can teach them something about the market and can be corrected by the company either by terminating the particular feature, improving it etc.

This then creates a continuous loop as there is more data which facilitates the company to learn more about the market so they can make better decisions which of course leads to a better product or service. As a result the option to allow quitting on your service/product is important as it collects data and if you don’t allow quitting on your product or service then you are only going to be collecting positive data and ignoring negative data or to put a value on it 50% of the data.

Remember by collecting only half of the data then you’ll only be able to paint half the picture. Personally I’d rather be able to paint the full picture so I can assess the situation and ensure my company is heading in the right direction which is why allowing effortless quitting of your service is vital as you can collect data which facilitates you to meet the needs of the market and allows you to develop products which the market require which generates more revenue in the long-run.

2 Short.Url (2su.de), 2Zeus, 3.ly, 9mp, a.gd, abbr, arm.in, a.nf, bit.ly, bloat.me, Buk.me, BurnURL, Chilp.it, cli.gs, clk.my, Clop.in, DiggBar, ff.im, Fly2.ws, fon.gs, Foxy URL, FWD4.me, g4.ms, gl.am, Good.ly, Gurl.es, hex.io, Hurl.no, idek.net, irt.me, is.gd, J2j.de, kissa.be!, Kisa.Ch, kl.am, krz.ch, Kore.us, Kots.Nu, ktzros, Lincr, LinksPreadeR (l.pr), LinxFix, LNK.by, lt.tl, lurl.no, Metamark (xrl.us), migre.me, micURL, min2me, MinURL, Moourl, MyURL.in, nd url, Pendek.in, Pic.gd, PiURL, Plurl, pnt.me, POPrl, pt2.me, Puke.It, qr.cx, Qurl, qux.in, r.im, RDE.me, redir.ec, RIMS, rnk.me, RubyURL, Safe.mn, Sai.ly, SFU.ca, shorl, Short.ie, short.to, shortn.me, Shrtn, Shw.me, Smallr.net, SMFU, Snipie, SnipURL (sn.im), snkr.me, song.ly, srnk.net, StumbleUpon (su.pr), TightURL, TimesURL, tini.us, Tiny.cc, TinyURL, to.ly, to.vg, tr.im, tra.kz, tsort.us, tweet.me, Tweetburner (twurl.nl), Twip.us, Twirl.at, twtr.us (tw6.us), u.nu, UiopMe, ur.ly, URL.AG, URL.ie, URL (un)faker, urlBorg, urlShort (ooqx.com), urlShort (u.mavrev.com), urlzen, Virl, vl.am, VTC, XORTR (xrt.me), XR.com, xrl.in, X.vu, xxsurl.deZ.PE, Zi.pe, ZipMyURL, ZZ.GD

…and those are only the one’s which I have recently interacted with.

I hate the fact that I am forced to use them – with the main ones that I am forced to use being ff.im and bit.ly although ff.im links are only generated when sending FriendFeed data to Twitter so that doesn’t really bother me.

For example, if I go to Twitter and post a link it is automatically converted to a bit.ly link don’t get me wrong bit.ly is a really cool service especially the  “+” feature and the same happens when I click on a link from Twitter it is generally a bit.ly link (unless someone created it manually or used a service such as awe.sm like Techcrunch do) which means that we are basically adding an extra layer to the system.

However this isn’t the major problem with URL Shorteners.

Let me explain.

The Internet was designed in a way which meant that there wasn’t a single point of failure which could easily break large parts of the web. URL shorteners can cause this single point of failure because, a regular hyperlink implicates a browser, its DNS resolver and the publisher’s DNS server and website whilst a URL shortener adds an additional layer which acts like a third DNS resolver and if a problem occurs with the URL shortener then you can’t access the ‘real’ hyperlink which causes a single point of failure.

Additionally this extra layer means that it’s going to take time to get you to the link due to additional DNS lookups and server hits.

Expanding on this single point of failure theme, URL shorteners become middlemen sitting between the link and its original destination. This is one of my biggest concerns which I have previously expressed and which has been highlighted recently by the media with the fact that Tr.im decided it was going to close down although it has since decided to go “open-source” and remain open as the third-party could decide that a link which you shorten violates its Terms Of Service and delete it. Moreover, the URL shortener which is now the key to getting to the original link could experience downtime,  accidentally erase the database, forget to renew its domain, get hacked, disappear or change the way its url shortener works which means instead of sending you directly to the original link it sends you to a page on their site which contains the original link on.

Consequently, there is the usability aspect of using a URL Shortener which is highlighted on Twitter.com itself as you can’t tell where the link will take you (although you can tell on Twitter Search). However, FriendFeed does expand the url which helps to prevent phishing but many sites are like Twitter and do not expand the shortened URL.

However this led me to think recently if another blogger is your competitor? After all you may be posting great content which in your opinion is better then your competitors yet they may have more readers, comments and attention.

As most of you are aware blogs create content which they hope will draw an attention to produce revenue in the form of advertisements. Thus, readers subscribe to these blogs as they are provided with the content they require due to the fact that it is easily available and that there are little resources involved in subscribing to blogs or multiple blogs for that matter.

Although, you may consider this a problem when there is ‘niche saturation’ something which is present in the “Make Money Online” type blogs due to several blogs being created and developed in 30 days which then went on to sell for $x,xxx+ or when there are numerous blogs which are  writing about similar topics.

Nevertheless the problem is attention. This is because each reader has a finite amount of resources, something which Paul Buchheit highlighted over on FriendFeed regarding RSS Readership which led Louis Gray amongst other users to their Google Reader statistics.

Let’s continue with the Google Reader theme. When I’m using Google Reader, I keep pressing ‘j’ (although their is a pause in between each press to see the title of the content) until I see something which grabs my attention (headline, image etc) and I will then go onto read the post where I may share or star the item. Otherwise, if I see nothing attention grabbing, I’ll keep on pressing that ‘j’ key.

Thus, the real competition isn’t other blogs but the relevancy of content to the individual.

On the other hand being relevant itself isn’t enough because, whilst the content may be relevant to my interests (which is why I subscribed to those feeds in my Google Reader anyway) the content has to be interesting to provide value.

Thus attention is the something which you require in order to gain comments, readers etc. This is why you need to take advantage of other bloggers assets specifically their attention assets by becoming friends with them rather then being their competition. After all, this provides benefits for both of you as you both have attention which sharing each others attention can build both of your brands.

By having blog participation it encourages new visitors to stay because, the blog looks ‘alive’ – which allows you to build a loyal readership base and this is what the actually difference between a successful blog and an unsuccessful one actually is. This is because, those blogs which are earning their owners a lot of money per month and have a high readership base are the ones which are encouraging blog participation from their readers who leave comments on posts, take polls and tell people about the blog.

Remember when you are getting someone to participate with your blog – they are spending their time in doing so. This means they’re likely to come back to see if anyone has responded to their comments, to see what the poll results were etc. This means that they are connected to your blog (and you) and thus this creates a community which encourages new users to stay!

So how can you encourage people to increase their blog participation on your blog?

#1. Ask Them To Participate

This might sound too simple but most importantly it works. By asking your readers a question and asking them to post their responses in the comments section encourages your readers to participate.

Tip: Some of your readers initially may feel shy in doing this – especially if they haven’t commented before – so you should do this regularly in your blog posts to encourage the users to participate.

#2. Be Consistent

Again this is another really simple tip but again, most importantly it works. By having a consistent writing style i.e. asking your readers a question during your post, posting on regular intervals, posting on consistently similar topics – e.g. If you’ve got a Sports blog don’t throw in random Tech news this means that users are encouraged to participate naturally due to human nature. You may not agree with me on this, but if you’re regularly posting on certain days/times, having a consistent writing style and keeping to the same topics you are encouraging people to throw in their 2 cents by doing what you are doing (although if you’ve not already done so you should adopt #1).

#3. Hold A Contest

Some of you might think this is ‘bribing’ people to participate but, I hold the opinion that it isn’t because, when people have the chance to get something for nothing its human nature to participate!

Even a $10 gift card or an advertising spot of your blog will encourage your readers to participate. In fact you can increase your readership by holding a contest (I’ll discuss this in a later post) and you can select a winner by selecting a random comment, a random rss reader or a combination etc.

Tip: If you’re going to hold a contest actually follow through with it and have a specific time frame and give the prize to the winner.

#4. Streamline The Participation Process

So many people make it hard for people to participate it is unbelievable. After all you want them to participate. Whilst you don’t want to attract spammers, you want to streamline the process of participation by taking the bare minimum of information in order to participate.

Tip: I highly recommended that you allow for ‘anonymous’ comments.  This is because some people are more willing to participate – especially if it is on something controversial – if they’re personal identity can be kept a secret.

#5. Have A Top Commentators List

This is something that I will be integrating into the new blog design and many of the blogging platforms being used have plugins available to have a Top Commentators List on your blog. This then allows them to gain a ‘reward’ for commenting (aka. participating) on your blog especially if they’re linking to their site in the process as they can get some traffic and/or SEO juice.

#6. Hold A Poll!

This is another simple way to increase blog participation but it works! By holding a poll you encourage users to interact by casting their vote (use a poll plugin for this) and it also encourages them to come back and find out the result of the poll. Consequently, the may also express their comments in the poll results if the result is what they voted for or not.

Tip: Have a specific deadline for the poll and a specific date that the results will be released. This will encourage users to remember the date and revisit the blog when the information is posted.

#7. Have Commenting Guidelines With Are Simple & Importantly Enforced

Not that you don’t want to encourage participation but you need to have a comment guideline to risk offending or loosing your readership base. Simply saying that you won’t accept abusive comments, comments that are hateful or will result in violence and spam will ensure that your readership base remains intact and facilitates its growth.

Whilst you may think that these are too simplistic and won’t work, I can assure you that they do. This is because, not only have I seen them work on other blogs, I have used the methods myself and encouraged others to do so and seen them work. As a result, this will provide you with a regular readership base to your blog and this can help you create a foundation for the blog to continue to grow – as once you make people feel part of the ‘community’ they are more likely to return to your blog and participate.

P.S. If you have used any of these methods and/or have any ways that you think can increase blog participation you can leave them in the comments below