Chasing the Long Tail of Natural Search

[mandy]

If you are like most merchants, you've followed the advice of your natural-search optimization (NSO) firm and completed some basic site optimization projects. You routinely spot-check your Google indexation and your rankings on 100 or so “trophy” keywords to show your executive team. And a look at your Web analytics shows that sales driven by your natural-search efforts are growing. So what's wrong with this picture?

The problem is that you are looking only at the surface of the situation, oblivious to something gigantic that lies beneath. To explore deeper, you need more-sophisticated tools and methods to understand and diagnose the opportunity so that you can take appropriate action. In fact, chances are high that your natural-search channel is seriously underperforming.

As NSO best practices become commonplace among your competition, you need to look deeper to gain an advantage. Fortunately, by approaching natural search with an understanding of long-tail dynamics, new key performance indicators (KPIs), and yield management techniques, you can move beyond the traditional project-based mentality of NSO to a more-sophisticated approach to capture the enormous potential that lies beneath the surface...

full article: http://multichannelmerchant.com/webchann...index.html