Digg Breaking News Stories (And Break Some Of Your Own!) With HitTail

Quite by accident I found an extra use for HitTail that’s pretty killer in terms of generating content for my blog. And I’m going to spill the beans so you can try it for yourself.

Basically, you can use HitTail to discover leads, breaking stories, and gossip.

Yes, gossip!

First, a brief recap on how HitTail works.

You install it on your site and get real-time scrolled keyword results on the searches used to find your site. Then the service points out to you which keywords have the potential to be capitalized by you for best hits on your next post.

So for example, HitTail might point out that somebody used the phrase “green ipod nano” to find your site – even though you didn’t specifically use that phrase in a post. But now you know that there is a relatively untapped interest out there in content on green ipod nanos – and that if you write about them, your hits will increase.

That said, I’m talking about a completely different use for the service. Well, not “completely different” – you’ll still get a lot of hits for your site. It’s just that this service is a whole lot more…edgy. Let me explain what I mean.

While using HitTail last week to monitor my personal niche blog, I notice that the service highlighted a very strange phrase. It was the name of a couple of important people who work in that niche field plus the word “feud.”

Now, as far as I know, those two people, who had a working relationship, were the best of friends. So I thought it odd that someone would have type in their names in relation to a dispute.

So I asked around. And guess what? They did have a recent falling-out.

Now, had I been an Internet gossip columnist, or some hard-core niche reporter – or simply wanted to write a hit-garnering post – this lead on a yet-to-be-discovered story would have been pure gold.

But, just for the pleasure of finding out what hot topics people are typing into search engines AS IT HAPPENS – HitTail is a must for my blogging.

The Keyword Longtailing Process Illustrated

This is a graphic that needs to be featured a bit more on the HitTail site. What do we mean when we refer to HitTailing? This. What do we mean when we say that HitTailing is only part of a balanced marketing campaign? This. What do we mean when we say that you can't just start out HitTailing and expect it to work without "seed" content on a brand new domain? This. So, whether you call it HitTailing or keyword longtailing, this diagram is for you. Whether you do your own keyword mining from your web log files, or use HitTail as a time-saver, this illustration is for you. We ought to somehow work it into our navigational site graphics as our next step, so that it becomes totally pervasive knowledge to HitTailers.