What is the Long Tail of Search?
First we need to understand what the “Tail of Search� is. Then, I’ll attempt to discuss strategies to take advantage of the tail of search from a SEO and PPC perspective.
I can explain it like this: Let’s say you have a website of 100,000 pages. If you are optimizing 20 pages for 20 keywords, and all of them are in the top positions in the Search Engines, you still will get more traffic from the search queries from your un-optimized keywords. A great analogy is quoted from a Microsoft manager: “He eventually found a way to explain the curve using stacks of pennies, which ends up with a few high stacks followed by a trail of single pennies extending out the door, down the hall and, if you have enough pennies, as far as the eye can see.�
A graphically representation looks like this:
To quote Danny Sullivan: “Tap into the tail, and you’ve got sizable traffic, as well as traffic that often is reported to convert better than less general terms.”
Okay, now that we understand what the long tail of search is, let’s try to figure out some ways to reduce PPC spend, and increase ROI.
Paid Search:
1) Use Paid Inclusion
2) Matching options like Broad Match on Google, or Advanced Match on Yahoo.
3) Mine your web logs, and add these newly found converting keywords into your PPC campaign.
Search Engine Optimization:
1) Make sure you create webpages with quality, unique, keyword-rich content.
2) If you have a blog, possibly install a forum. The forum will build content, and attract visitors from less frequent keyword searches and similar topics.
3) Mine your web logs, and optimize pages for the “tail keywords� by the pages that converted.
Conclusion:
Since the top ranking keywords fluctuate up & down in the SERP’s, regardless of whether it’s SEO or PPC, it behooves all search marketers to go after the tail of search. We generally will find a highly qualified visitor at the tail end of search. And, the online conversion metrics offer a lower cost per acquisition, reducing click fraud, and a higher ROI.
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An example, from head to tail.
shoes
mens shoes
mens running shoes
nike mens running shoes
nike air jordan mens running shoes
black nike air jordan mens running shoes
black nike air jordan mens running shoes size 9
there are an infinate number of possible search queries people use
I laugh when I see SEO firms selling their services, priced on a per keyword basis. It shows that the firm doesn’t understand the basic concepts of search.
Thanks, Shimon. This post is extremely helpful. It’s basic. I get it. And I appreciate it.
Avi – further to your comment. It amazes me when I see an SEO firm saying how they get people at the top of Google and demonstrate with a niche keyword phrase. At first glance – that’s smart. BUT look deeper and when you realize no one searches for that term – then you realize they are borderline fraudulent. I disclose this to my prospects, that we find Niche’ where people actually search.
And that a well constructed web site will achieve benefits far beyond the identified keywords… as Shim has well pointed out! sph
So, now there’s a tool to mine your long tail keywords without even needing access to your log files. Worth taking a look at.
Shimon,
Years ago I had created a system to take advantage of the long tail concept, but to this date I have been unable to really benefit by it. Realizing the value of the longtail concept I created a keyword generator that would output approximately 1.1 million keywords. I was hoping that this concept would generate not only all of the high traffic keywords, but also all combinations of the lowcost keywords that no one is bidding on. At first my plan seemed to be working great, I had more doubled my traffic while only increasing my cost by 10%. Though, after a few months past I found out that Google will delete your non-performing keywords after a few months of receiving no impressions. Unfortunately, 99% of my keywords would only receive maybe 1 impression per month or even per year. So, this eliminated the majority of the keywords that I was really benefiting from. Do you know if there is a way around this?
Best,
Ali Amirrezvani
Hi Ali, just keep track of which Keywords get inactivated, and then re-enter them back into your Search campaign.
The longtail of so many online areas, whether its organic search, or PPC keywords, is such a massive potential gold mine for those who take advantage of it.
I would considered long tail keyword as one of the biggest discovery in keyword research. This will be hitting people who just bid and go for high paying keyword.
Since there is no competition and making keyword bidding irrelevant. Have you read the book called “Blue Ocean Strategy”. This is excatly the same strategy we, marketers should be tapping into.
Red ocean is the highly paid keywords while blue ocean is completely infinte. Making competition 100% irrelevant. Everyday there are thousand of long tail keyword. Some might be totally unrelated to what you are selling.
I think the greatest challenge lies in how are you going to find them. I would like to highlight a few methods if you don’t mind. If the method proven to be too powerful please remove my posting.
#1. Article title. Yes, search for article title which you are in niche of. People search for these long tail keyword which makes it valuable.
#2. Offline. Newspaper headline. What makes you think people who read news offline will not search online for such keyphase?
#4. Classified ads title. Just the title alone will rock you.
Just some though which I can come up with. By the way, you can forget about keyword research tools for awhile.
Sorry method 3 which is most powerful will be posted on my blog.
Thank you.
OK I have question. I just started my own website and all of this SEO language and concepts are new and in most cases greek to me. When I built my site there was a optimization tool that helped you with things like keywords and meta tags ect. Its suggestions on keywords was not to have too many and pick the ones that were most relevent to your site. If you picked too many keywords it could hurt your rankings or even get you band for keyword stuffing with Google. So if you are going to try to take advantage long tail search were are entering all of these possible hundreds of different key word phrases. Is this on the websites optimization tool asking you for the keywords you want thus doing the opposite of what my optimization tool told me or is this more in the PPC area were you can pick any and as many keywords as you want.
Thanks
Hi Lori552,
The long tail applies to both SEO and Paid Search (PPC).
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