 Most mentions of HitTail receive the honor of being mentioned on my Everyone Loves HitTail blog. But once in awhile, there's a mention that I feel compelled to call out here. We don't go calling HitTail an SEO service, because we like to avoid the confusion that exists in the field. Instead, we tell people just to use an already search-optimized publishing system (such as blogging software or SquareSpace). But every once in awhile an SEO top-tools list appears with us on it, which we just have to share, as is the case on Esoteric Lab's Search Engine Optimization 2.0 site. Labels: Free Tools, hittail, Mike Levin, search engine optimization, seo, SquareSpace
Work-at-Home Moms Discovering HitTail
At HitTail, we are big fans of eMom, Wendy Piersall. Perhaps it's because she promotes us so heavily. Perhaps it's that her story is just so engaging. Perhaps also, we're a mostly a women-owned and operated business. But we're also seeing a trend of work-from-home moms who are being freed from the decision of going to work and staying with the kids, by bringing their customers to them, in part, thanks to HitTail. That seems to be part of the lifestyle promise of HitTail. Here's another site, Butterflies are Free, which continues the trend. Thanks, all you eMoms out there! Labels: eMom, Mike Levin, Moms, Wendy Piersall, Work at Home
Ever wonder why some people seem to be immune to Google fluctuations? It's because they're not overly optimized on a small set of words. Instead, they're diversely optimized. We've seen this effect on Connors Clients for over 6 years now. The rest of the world is only just starting to discover that a diversity of carefully targeted content effectively hedges your bets against Google algorithm tweaks. Here's one person who saw a 40% GROWTH in traffic while a lot of his counterparts are falling out. Guess what he attributes his success to. Labels: Dropped By Google, Get Into Google, Google, Google Dance, Mike Levin
Greetings HitTailers! I'll be presenting at the Web2NewYork New York Web Entrepreneurs MeetUp tonight. I'll be one of 6 presenters. I'll spare everyone the PowerPoint, and just dive into the 30-second elevator pitch that I refined at SES, NY. That should take 5 minutes. Then, I'll open it up to questions, answers, ridicule and heckling. Give me your best shot, New York! If I can make it here... well, you know the rest. Labels: hittail, Meetup, Mike Levin, New York, Presentations, seo
Some people get it. Some people don't.
Anyone who follows HitTail's progress over Alexa knows that we've had considerable uptake over year 1, plateauing at about Alexa Rank #5000 top sites in the world, and have been creeping up ever so gradually. Meanwhile, some of our pseudo-competitors who stuck themselves in the analytics box got some early notoriety, spiked, then started to tank. We attribute our sustained success to our real-time data combined with our immediately actionable explicit instructions of what to do with the data. About half the people I talk with "get it" quickly, and about the other half just refuse to hear the message. I think those who don't get it actually do on some level, but reject that there are services that sit half-way between doing the work for you, and asking you to do the work. They either want to buy their keywords and get it all (Pay-Per-Click such as AdWords), or they have a very 1999 view of search engine optimization, where you have to worry about all the mechanics, such as title tags, URLs, link structure and the like. I was at the Web 2.0 NY Summit on Thursday, and spoke to many of the media elite about HitTail. One unnamed fellow came up after Connie spoke to ask me about HitTail's chicken-and-egg problem. If the search hits aren't leading to you today, how is HitTail going to help if it's not stealing data from other people? I tried explaining how you " prime the pump" with about 100 posts of your own, then how the perfectly optimized mechanics of most blogging software, plus the long-page versions (the index and archive pages) draws in visitors on unlimited word combinations you've never thought of. This occurs merely because words from posts early in the month combine with words from posts at the end of the month if there's no better match to be found on the Internet. Probably the best I ever stated it was in this 30-second elevator pitch about HitTail. Still, after all this, if someone refuses to understand that your own best competitive intelligence is to be gleaned from the activity on your own site, then they might be a lost cause. We can send them to the HitTail demo, or ask them to try the free service. Give it a try for a few months, and if they still don't get it, then they should leave it to their competitors. Picking up easy traffic in the long tail at a sufficient rate to achieve niche dominance is here to stay. It's the back door to success. If it were really easy to understand, it wouldn't have taken a best selling book by Chris Anderson to teach the world. It would have been kept as a secret weapon by the likes of Amazon.com. But a lot of people are going to be able to get it, and we want to make sure when they do, it's HitTail they discover fist. So, any of our fan-boys out there, be sure you're on our forum. And be ready for us to start reaching out to you to help you help us, so we can keep the free service free, and continue to revolutionize online marketing. Labels: Alexa, Elevator Pitch, hittail, Mike Levin, Online Marketing, seo, Web 2.0
Promoting Your Site on HitTail Blog
I'm going to make a habit of promoting interesting HitTailers on this blog who have publicly disclosed their use of HitTail through either the TypePad Widget or announcing it on their site. No worries. If you're using HitTail as a competitive advantage, and don't want your competitors knowing, we don't spill the beans. But for those who announce it on their own, I'd love to promote you, assuming it's an interesting site. Anyway, it turns out there's an entire market for businesses being put up for sale by retiring baby boomers. Think about that. Baby boomers are getting up in years, and many of the entrepreneurial companies they've started are going up for sale, making a viable alternative to starting your own business or buying a franchise. So, check out The Baby Boom Business Exit Phenomenon. Who would like to be mentioned on the HitTail blog next? Be sure you're using HitTail first, before you respond with comment links here. Labels: Baby Boomers, Babyboomers, Business Opportunies, Exit Strategies, Franchises, hittail
SEO Super Powers Meetup #1
We had a successful SEO Super Powers meetup yesterday, considering the rain kept all but 4 non-Connors people away. With myself, my Connors posse, and Marshall Sponder (Webmetricsguru), Pauli Price of Sindex Systems and Rupali Shah of 24/7 Real Media, we discussed a broad array of issues, veering far off the Ajax + SEO subject for the night, but always returning to the theme of how to make business more successful. The life-span of SEO as we know it was estimated from anywhere from 2 to 5 years, with much talk of social media. Time was spent discussing whether or not blogging is SEO, and what the process might look like from someone initially discovering you, to building trust, to some sort of relationship (customer). I feel that this meeting laid the foundation for future SEO Super Power meetups in NYC, where we will fully embrace, and perhaps even lead, what the field is becoming. Stay tuned for the information regarding the next meetup. And on a related note, I think I'll start getting out to some more of the meetups around New York. There's Technology, Entrepreneurship, Networking, Marketing, Programming, Graphic Design and the like. It's going to be a challenge pairing it down to a reasonable number to attend each month! Labels: Ajax, connors, hittail, Meetup, New York, seo
Neil Patel reports that the last referrer before a story gets buried on Digg is sometimes crawl3.digg.internal. If true, the folks at Digg need to get a little better about keeping us nerds from understanding their internal processes, because I too just saw crawl3.digg.internal, and with a little bit of quick research, I see that HitTailers who are trying to get the word out about our service have a unique little challenge before them. Notice this Digg search for HitTail that includes buried stories. There's one from 19 hours ago by HitTail user beautyofthelord. Now notice the same search without buried stories (this demonstration will only be valid for a short while while results churn). The purpose of this post is just to have a second case out there of seeing the crawl3.digg.internal referrer spin by before a story got buried. Anyway, HitTail is good enough for The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, TechCrunch, CNET, PCWorld, countless bloggers around the Internet, and most recently, The Ventura County Star. So not sure if we really need Digg. I don't get the idea that their readership cares much about developments in the field of marketing, anyway. Sighhhhhh Labels: Buried, Digg, hittail, Kevin Rose, Neil Patel
I know I need to get back to blogging on significant long tail marketing subject-matter (I've got my HitTail ToDo List), but I've been so busy. I could however not resist sharing this article with all of you, written by Conversation Agent, Valeria Maltoni. I met her a couple of times, first at Seth Godin's launch of The Dip, and second at Darren Rowse's (of ProBlogger) second Meetup here in NYC. It's sort of like a six degrees post, but tells a bit about who I am. SEO is Sexy, Ask Mike Levin at HitTailLabels: hittail, Mike Levin, seo, Seth Godin, Sexy, Valeria Maltoni
Just a reminder to everyone in the NYC area that HitTail is hosting a SEO SuperPowers Meetup tonight. The topic is the effect of Ajax and other Web development technologies, such as Silverlight, Apollo, Java, Mobile and others on SEO today and in the future. Anyone in the neigborhood is welcome to stop by. It starts at 6:30PM tonight at the Connors Communications office in New York City on 7 West 22nd Streeet, between 5th and 6th Avenues. It's the "Spinning Wheel" building--a small entrance. We're on the 7th floor. Free drinks. Labels: Ajax, Apollo, connors, Connors Communications, Google, hittail, Java, Meetup, New York, NY, NYC, PR Firm, SEM, seo, Silverlight, SuperPowers
Today, there was a major mention of HitTail in the Ventura County Star. Be sure to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt: Fred Simanek, chief executive officer of MyNextDeal.com in Thousand Oaks, uses both for his commercial real estate Web site. Simanek said an important part of launching a new site is driving traffic to it. He found a product called HitTail, which gives Web site owners, whether casual bloggers or large businesses, a piece of code that tracks how people find their Web site. It uses that information what keywords people used in which search engines to create a report for the site operator. That allows a business to incorporate the search terms into its Web site content so people using similar keyword searches in the future can find the company more easily. It even creates a "to do" list. Gaining intelligence Simanek said he liked that it was so simple to use. "Who doesn't want to have a to do list telling you, Here's some improvements you can make on your site,'" he said. Simanek said he checks the report every day.
Labels: AdWords, analytics, Blogging, business, Business Intelligence, Google, hittail, Profitable, seo, Ventura County
Next Tuesday, June 12th, HitTail will be sponsoring a Meetup discussion here in New York about the AJAX Enabled Web and its Effects on SEO. If you're a HitTail user, fan or friend, and are in the New York area, feel free to click on the link above to register and attend. Will there be drinks? Yes. Will there be steaks? Not so much. But Mike will be there moderating what will be a great dialogue about search engines, super powers and SEO strategies.
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