Search engines such as Google provide the majority of traffic to a lot of websites so its important to know what queries bring in most of the traffic to your site. There’s plenty of different analytic services that provide detailed analysis of your site’s traffic – allowing you to visualize what content is most popular and where your traffic comes from.
Making sense of this knowledge is hard work though, and requires some skill. It’s this problem that HitTail aims to solve, and I must agree I believe their claims are founded – HitTail makes easy to understand sense of your keywords, something that’s important for any site hoping to succeed. HitTail analyzes your traffic and then after using their algorithm, it provides you with a tailored list of keywords for you to focus on.
I guess I should write something about Minecraft!
HitTail helps you decide on your important keywords
The main difference between HitTail and other analytic software is that HitTail narrows down your search for what keywords you need to work on, while having choice of a few hundred keywords that you’re performing well for is useful, HitTail uses the reckoning that having a smaller more manageable list is more useful to you. The other keywords are still all recorded, and easily available though the emphasis is placed on the top performing keywords. (Note that the HitTail site is limited to showing 350 keywords, anything after that and you’ll have to view the excel file) HitTail divides keywords into two categories – long tail, and short tail keywords. Advertised as
“HitTail tells you, in real-time, the most promising organic keywords you should target based on your existing traffic.”
It uses its own tweaked algorithm to tell you exactly what keywords are performing well for you, along with the long tail keywords which usually provide the bulk of your traffic. This algorithm has been honed after being used on over 1 billion keywords so you can be confident it works. It does so in a tidy, simple manner – with helps from its new interface and layout. And if the analysis HitTail provides you isn’t in-depth enough you’re able to easily download this data in excel form for your own analysis.
Using HitTail
After installing the HitTail tracking code on your site, you’re all set up. HitTail starts tracking the keywords people searched in the various search engines to find your site. These search hits are displayed in realtime, and are then analyised and the more popular terms are added to the suggestions section. It took a few days for HitTail to gather a relatively comprehensive list of keyword suggestions for my test site.
It’s here in the suggestions section where you can order articles based on any given keyword. These suggests keywords which HitTail finds for you, are a great starting point to to write about. This is really useful for article ideas if you’re finding it hard to come up with new article ideas. You can also order articles on these suggested keywords from right there in the HitTail site. Articles are outsourced to third-party professionals, who will provide the finished articles within 1 -2 days.
HitTail’s suggestion section
You can also choose to move suggested keywords to a To do section, allowing for a smaller, but higher quality list of keywords for you to work on. Again you can order articles here, with the added option of checking off keywords.
A Newly Designed Interface
I’ve written about HitTail’s recent revival, and one of the many new changes I approved of was the new design. HitTail looks great, and the right information is easily available, being displayed in the prime locations across the app. There’s really only 5 main pages that you need when using HitTail, and these pages are easily available from the main navigation bar on any page, once you’re logged in. Help sections are readily available across the site providing well documented instructions which is something I think is a great asset for any app.
The new, easy to use interface
HitTail WordPress plugin coming soon
HitTail will be releasing a new WordPress plugin soon, the first two versions will be simple, with version one merely installing the tracking code. Version 2 will show suggestions right there in your WordPress Dashboard. I think this second version will be useful in bringing HitTail right there, into where most content creators spend their writing time. This added feature may well be a god send for a lot of people making content for their sites, as coming up with post ideas is something many people find tough.
Conclusion
HitTail is an extremely easy to use service, a few days after embedding the HitTail tracking code on your site HitTail will begin suggesting keywords it recommends you work on. You can even order articles from right there in the HitTail admin panel. There are different pricing plans which start at $9.99. If you run a site, then I definitively recommend HitTail. It may seem expensive but I believe HitTail will help you get more in tune with your keywords, and how your site performs for different keywords – something which could very well help you earn substantially more money from your site.