I like to think of core SEO strategy as divided into two parts.

First, much of SEO strategy involves understanding the “long tail” and building your site(s) to rank highly for less competitive phrases like “coolest guy on the planet” — or even “coolest guy” or “seo expert.” None of these phrases are very competitive. Cool, heh, but certainly not competitive.

On the other hand, you want to go after the big hits, too. The best keywords that really drive the traffic in your category. You have to pick your battles in whatever niche you’re in, but if, for example, you sell wedding favors, you want to go after the #1 spot for your #1 phrase — but only while you’re targeting the long tail at the same time.

I usually think of the Big Target as two words, but here’s an example of a product niche where only one word will do. Say you sell “treadmills” online. You can call them exercise treadmills, or portable treadmills, but if somebody’s looking to buy a treadmill, they’re probably just going to search “treadmills.”

And that one word is going to be pretty darn competitive. StomperNet member, Jeff Knize, is the owner of Treadmill World. I had a chance to talk to him the other day and came to find out that he’s now #1 on Google for the one word phrase, “treadmills.” It’s always funny when the internet entrepreneur, working from a home office, crushes the competitors which include the big company manufacturers of the products he sells.

Way to go, Jeff!

Run a search for treadmills — and look at all the companies paying (probably a few bucks each) for clicks for that keyword. They’re probably paying much more than a million a year to run those PPC ads. Think one of them would give Jeff a million in cash to be #1 in the free results? Think he’d take it?

StomperNet faculty member, Ed Dale, well known for his Dominiche strategy of buying and selling web sites, would be proud of this one.

Me too. And if you’re looking for a good holiday present, think treadmills.