Gain visibility in Buyer and Seller markets by tapping the power of search engine optimized (SEO) web pages.

Here are three SEO Marketing tips: Use Site Search as a customer service tool; Use Buyer/Seller Key Words from web logs and analytics; and Tap Profit Power of the Long-Tail.

A Site Search Box is a must-have for your corporate web site. You never know how potential customers land at your site: Some click deep into a seller’s site from a listing on a SERP (search engine results page); some land on the Home Page after typing your web address into a browser; other prized visitors jump into ANY page on your site from a link at their favorite blog or recommendation from a trusted users site.

Every page of your web site needs a Search box in the same position. Then, no matter what product, search or link brought in a prospect, the visitor can navigate to exactly what they’re looking for. No going back through your product directories. No puzzling out how your web designer decided to label special product subcategories.

Let’s say, for example, your company logically placed special width shoes and heel styles in sub-pages under main category, Women’s Footwear. If buyers come searching for “narrow women shoes low stack heels,” what are the chances they get to the EXACT landing page for that item on a first click? And, how hard must buyers work to get to the right page?

Don’t expect a prospect to navigate through your directory structure, hunting in high-level product categories or directory trees. If, however, a buyer can refine the search in only one more step — from a Site Search box — then you still have their attention. Not a bounce out.

You can use Key Word tools to build lists for your web site products. Some KW tools offer the most popular requested terms indexed by major search engines during the previous 30 days. Most will suggest “stemmed” or “refined” key word groups, such as jewelry … gold jewelry … wedding jewelry … gold wedding rings … custom jewelry. But, what about typos? Misspellings? Slang?

Best way to gain visibility is use the search terms your own buyers and sellers actually use to source products. You won’t find customer-used terms in a general key word tool. You will find exactly how buyers search from your network administrator or web site manager. All search terms entered in Site Search Boxes (above), in queries from other sites, or in click-throughs from a pay-per-click search ad show up in Web Server Log Files or Web Analytics reports.

By scanning log files and key word analytics for the actual search terms buyers/sellers use, you refine lists for the most frequent words, misspellings and abbreviations in your product category. Then you know 400 searches for “prado” do not signal interest in a Spanish walk or public space … but a common misspelling for men’s and women’s fashion accessories from the Prada line. You’ll also see key word patterns, like entries for “urban clothes” in buyer searches for hoodies, hip-hop men’s sportswear, specific T-shirt styles and Accessories > Belts > Buckles OR Jewelry > Body Piercing. By using the key words that buyers and sellers actually use (misspellings and all), you can redirect and cross-reference to the right product pages, before a prospect asks or, worse, bails out of your site.

Long-tail key words are the string of narrow terms product searchers enter that do not show up on highest frequency key word reports. If you sell Footwear, the most requested – and most competitive or expensive – key word will be shoes. Maybe, womens shoes or mens shoes. However, serious buyer prospects are more likely to enter a string of words, such as narrow women shoes low stack heels, noted above under Site Search.

These less frequent searches are called Long-Tail Key Words from that old bell curve shape in statistics, showing how something measurable (grades, key words, IQ, sales) are distributed in the whole group. Most fall under the big bulge of the bell; predictable numbers fall under the shorter tails of the bell curve. Here is a distribution of the Top 100 financial search terms (total group is 14 million) from a Hitwise Internet search study.

This odd-looking bell curve has only one tail, the less frequent search terms at right side of the distribution. But that is exactly where buyers and sellers in the wholesale-to-retail merchandise sector gain visibility among their most serious customer prospects.

The bulge in the bell curve at the left edge is where highly competitive and more costly (for paid-ad marketing) search key words land; and that bulge is where very large eCommerce ops dominate profits. (Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo, Overstocks, Big Box Retailers, etc.) What you can’t tell from a simple chart like this is that the long-tail — longer and less frequent key words searches — goes on f..o..r..e..v..e..r. The long-tail covers over 89% of all 14,000,000 key word searches studied by Hitwise.