The Blog on Branding

Use the long tail for a short leap to successful SEO

Here’s a test question for you: give me a number, any number, that you think represents the number of keywords searched every day on the Internet.

Before you start to overheat your brain, I should tell you this is a trick question. Who can count that high?

Whatever the number, the largest percentage of these terms make up what SEO enthusiasts call the long tail of search demand.

This article will guide you to understand what the long tail is, tell you why you should use it, and give you some best practice examples.

Read on to find out:

• What is the long tail of search?
• How to get the long tail wagging
• Who is wagging it right?

“… the largest percentage of these terms make up the long tail.”

What is the long tail of search?

As you continue reading, I will impress you with colorful charts and stats about the long tail to persuade you of its awesome-ness. But first I will step back and explain this potentially foreign SEO concept.

The concept of a long tail of search really generated buzz in WIRED magazine. In it, Chris Anderson wrote about this concept and even titled his blog, The Long Tail.

Anderson explains, “The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.”

What does this mean for SEO? Replace “niches” with “unique keywords,” and the concept is working for you.

Next test question: What percentage of all search traffic do the top 10,000 search terms make up?

If you’ve guessed anything more than 18.5 percent, guess again.

3 quick long tail facts:

1. The top 10,000 search terms make up only 18.5 percent of all search traffic.
2. According to Hitwise, if search were illustrated as a lizard with a one-inch head, its tail would stretch 221 miles.
3. The head and body of search equal only 3.25 percent of Hitwise’s total data.

Let’s put this into pictures:

The above chart is an excellent illustration of the long tail of search concept. It breaks up the top keywords by how often they are searched each month. The gray portion represents the long tail of lonely keywords waiting for a nice person to adopt them.

But I’ve always been more of a bar graph person myself.

Here is that same information with each bar representing a chuck of keywords:

These charts show that using the “top” keywords isn’t the best strategy. Sure, you can make sure to include some of the top 500 keywords. But there are over 70 percent of all searches you are ignoring; don’t forget about them.

How to get the long tail wagging

Now that you’ve seen the pictures and numbers, how are you going to start using the long tail?

Matt Bailey, founder of SiteLogic, a web marketing consulting company, encourages clients to focus their attention outside of their top 10 to 20 most popular search terms: “Add up the terms that refer 1-3 visits during the month, and chances are, they will add up to more total visitors than the top terms. On closer examination, most sites will have the majority of their business (sales and leads) generated from these terms that are rarely tracked.”

Next test question: Write down your top 10 search terms.

Now throw that paper out and start a new, more creative list and start following your tail like a 3-month-old puppy.

Who is wagging it right?

Before you go into this last test question, you should do some Google-ing of your own and find some companies already using the long tail of search successfully. Think of this as the equivalent to cheating off of the brainiest kid in the class, only more ethical.

Here’s a list of sites that are waggin’ it right:

• Amazon.com: 57 percent of their sales are from keywords not considered “popular.”
• UK blogger and PR/Media guru, Mark Pack: his top 10 blog posts each month are responsible for only 1/4 to 1/3 of his blog’s total traffic.
• QueroMedia (international marketing agency): this highly successful, European-based agency uses numerous search terms for clients’ campaigns.

You now know what the long tail of search is, the steps to start using long tail searchs, and who you can “cheat” off to use the long tail of search effectively.

Armed with a full understanding of the long tail, you can now answer the last test question: Why haven’t you started using the long tail sooner?

By Megan Ahern Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.