The Relationship Between the Two
HitTailing is Not SEO
HitTailing is like search engine optimization without the trouble. Blogging software is used to accomplish this feat. It does not "fix" your overall, potentially broken site. All it does is defer the greater "SEO" discussion to a later date, and let you start getting the benefit of natural search optimization today.
Get Started Using Blogging Software
HitTailing relies on using website publishing techniques that are already optimized according to what are coming to be known as search engine optimization best practices. For you to achieve success with HitTail in reasonable timeframes, we ask that you get started with blogging software, such as Blogger, Movable Type or WordPress.
Blogger is easiest, because it lets you plant your blog in a subdirectory of an already existing website. There are other fine blogging packages out there. If you choose one of the recommended packages, you don't need to understand right away why they follow SEO best practices. But for the curious, the key factors that go into an effective blogging system for HitTailing include the title tag, URL, headline, and anchor text.
HitTailing is NOT Tweaked Out Super-SEO
HitTailing is NOT tweaked-out Super SEO of the kind you will often encounter in the professional SEO circles. Rather, HitTailing follows the 80/20 rule, striving to bestow on you 80% of the benefit from the first 20% of your efforts, making it more appropriate for the mainstream marketing departments of the world. HitTailing does not try to guide you in terms of keyword densities or precisely which HTML tags are most favored today, and as such, HitTail is not your path to achieving the top positions on the most competitive terms. Rather, HitTailing is about living in the fringes, where natural uncompromised writing stands a very good chance of seizing the top positions on a relentlessly growing list of meaningful terms that drive qualified traffic. HitTailing encourages you to win battles while they are still easy.
HitTail Helps AdWords Campaigns
It was not our intent, but HitTailing apparently offers a major boon for PPC campaign managers and paid inclusion. It's a counter-intuitive point, but Google lowers the cost-per-click as your click-through ratio improves, and perhaps even your conversions. This is in an apparent attempt to reward the most effective campaigns, and to weed out the "broad match" spam campaigns. It was GaryTheScubaGuy who made the discovery. But it basically amounts to the fact that running an AdWords campaign using the HitTail list doubled the click-through rate over the previously top-performing campaign, bringing it from 3% to 6%. The cost per click correspondingly dropped, and is saving the client what amounts to $100K/year. Thanks for the discovery, Gary.
HitTailing Co-Exists Happily with Professional SEO
A large discovery was the reaction of the professional SEO community, where we chose to launch the beta. Reactions have been across-the-board, including seasoned Pro's who appreciate the time-saving aspect of the Suggestions tab. Others feel it's of little value where "hyper-optimization" is the goal, and we can't argue. We've never measured a keyword density in developing the app, yet regularly score top-10 positions on important keywords that convert. But HitTailing is no threat to that special brand of hyper-competitive, popular keyword SEO that thrives on tweaking densities and HTML tags. HitTailing works best where tweaks matter least.
And finally, there is the greater issue of what HitTailing means for the worldwide SEO industry. We are definitely positioning it as SEO for the masses of mainstream marketing departments who have yet to venture into the natural search arena. Yet, we are completely disclosing that HitTailing doesn't solve the greater SEO problems that may plague your site. It only defers the discussion while you get some of the benefit in the short term through blogging, which you should be doing anyway. In short, we are attempting to precondition the marketing departments of the world to be receptive to the greater SEO "fix", because they will be in a better position to see the value.
Our original intent was to disclose everything we know about SEO, and have dubbed the "Connors Magic Bullet," so that the mechanical best practices aspect of the discussion becomes assumed and fades into the background. But we have since thought better of this, because this is the role of the Professional SEO Industry. These factors are in constant, slow "continental drift" and it is not a wise use of our resources to keep the documentation up to date. We'd rather improve the HitTailing process, and let the SEO profession and search-savvy blog software deal with SEO drift.