I stumbled on a neat new web tool today (I would provide the source, but I can’t find it now, sorry). The new tool is HitTail. They track the ways readers find your website. Specifically, they track the keyword phrases that the reader typed into the search engine that lead them to your page.
I added the little piece of JavaScript onto my websites and waited for people to find me. I don’t get much traffic, so it took a little while. I was shocked to learn that I was in the top 10 on Google for the phrase on the keyword “monetize” yesterday. As I am writing this, I am equally shocked to find that I can’t find myself anywhere for that same phrase today. You fickle beast, Google.
I also learned that I am the third hit on msn.search.com for the keyword phrase “waffle recipe”. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more proud of myself in my life.
Anyway, it is interesting to note how people are finding you. In stats software like Sitemeter and Statcounter it is often easy to lose track of that amidst all the clutter of page hits and visit lengths. HitTail is all about keywords and that’s pretty much all they keep track of.
Right now, they focus on the traditional search engines. I suggested in their forum that they might want to start thinking about tracking the phrases people use to find you from Technorati and del.icio.us and the other bookmarking sites.
In addition to just showing you the keyword phrases, they let you save some of those phrases as ToDo action items that you can check off when you write about them. I think this process could be streamlined, but enjoy the concept. One of my requests is that in addition to including the search phrase that led to your site, they do a lookup in one of the services that track how often related keywords are searched and provide suggestions of popular related keywords you might want to pursue.
The service is free for everybody under certain traffic levels. I couldn’t find the number, but I’m sure a quick question on their forum would get a reply. They seem to answer all questions very quickly.
Here is a link to the HitTail blog where they discuss their opinions on SEO, how to optimize your website, and how they think search engines work now and what kind of changes might be coming up.
Go check out their site. It is a really useful tool for days when you have trouble thinking up something to write about.