Optimizing Your Name with Long Tail Search Terms

I have found that when doing a organic search for name on Google and Bing, that Duane Sprague is a more popular name than I ever imagined. I also go by DJ Sprague, and found several of those all over the country.

Not wanting people get confused or lost when searching for me online, I decided to begin a long tail search term branding and search optimization campaign on Duane "DJ" Sprague. I wanted to own this search phrase in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

I started with buying all the domains that pertained to my name: duanesprague.com, djsprague.com, and duanddjsprague.com.

Next I created several blogs at several URL addresses using my name including DuaneSprague.com called "Advertising In Today's Economy" and at DJSprague.com called "Duane DJ Sprague Integrated Marketing Strategies" and at WebMarketingSprague.blogspot.com called "Internet Marketing and SEO."

I also created blogs on my agency web site at VortexPlan.com and my speaking web site at ProfitAcademy.net.

Five blogs in all. In addition, I established a Squidoo Lens at Squidoo.com/DuaneSprague, as well as social media channels on:

• YouTube
• Slideshare
• LinkedIn
• Plaxo
• Xing
• Spoke
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Facebook
• Insightory

All using my name in the the sub-domain for SEO purposes.

Next I started creating my unique long tail brand by using Duane "DJ" Sprague in all my articles, blog posts, signatures, etc.

On Slideshare I posted 18 slide shows, 5 on Insightory, and 13 professional and video portfolio videos on YouTube.

As of this writing the 3 multi-media channels alone have collectively received 5,108 views, not to mention 11,600 blog views and dozens of tweets and re-tweets about my blogs, mentions and links on other blogs, inbound links and quotes on national and international websites, international business magazine websites, corporate blogs and more.

When creating the slide titles on Slideshare, I placed my name into the slide title and at the end of each slide show, and into the keyword meta-tags. I also started signing my name "Duane 'DJ' Sprague" at the bottom of my blog posts as one more method of increasing the keyword density on the blog.

At this point my long tail name Duane "DJ" Sprague and my short tail names duane sprague and DJ sprague all dominate the top of the search engine results pages (SERPS) and they are all my sites, blogs, social media channels and content. I have now created a brand around my name, and own the SERPS for my name online.

It took about 2 months to get there, and another 2 months to really dominate the search, and it will require an ongoing effort to maintain it, but it can all be done by simply following the SEO plan of generating lots of quality content on the topics you are passionate about, distributing that content far and wide across the Web, and optimizing the long and short tail keyword names and/or phrases you want to own.

Obviously the more competitive the keyword phrases are that you want to own, the more effort, attention to detail, site structure and attention to meta-tag content and time it will take.

And by the way, I was reading David Meerman Scott's book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" last night, and he mentions that he uses his full name for the same reason that I mentioned here. He found many other prominent people that had the same name (David Scott), so by adding his unique middle name he was able to optimize his own long tail full name better and own the online search results. You absolutely must read his book if you are at all serious about online marketing, PR and SEO.

David's book covers everything from online promotion, PR, newsrooms, blogs, podcasts, social media, content creation, buyer personas and SEO.

Now, think about what we just talked about here in terms of owning and optimizing for a long tail phrase. In this example it was a persons name, but it could just as easily be a business, product, place or service.

In other words, let's say you have a women's boutique in Boca Raton Florida. There are several long tail phrases you can own that would give you a dominant space above the fold on the search engines. This would require some keyword research of course, but here is where I would start looking:

• Boca Raton women's boutique
• Boca Raton women's fine fashions
• Boca Raton designer fashions
• Boca Raton (brand label here)
• Boca Raton's fine clothes for women
• Finest women's fashions in Boca Raton
• Boca Raton designer women's clothing sizes 2-10 from (brand label here)

You get the picture. By adding more detailed and descriptive keywords you are narrowing the search criteria and lengthening the search terms into long-tail searches. This will generate more qualified traffic AND give you a better shot at top organic placement above the fold of page one.

By using the location or community you will automatically have a better chance in the local search results because you are only competing against boutiques in Boca Raton. And you will be listed in the Google local search results.

You will also need to build the proper long-tail keyword phrases into your website structure, navigation and content, such as the title-tags, meta-tags, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, alt-tags, H1through H9 tags, HTML navigation, hyperlink text, XML site map, and the HTML content or body text.

Not to mention your blog posts, email signature, online news releases, social media channels, white papers, and online customer testimonials (just add your community location to the customer testimonial).

This is the short version of optimizing your name or business using long-tail keyword phrases.

Good luck!

--Duane "DJ" Sprague