‘The Long Tail’ as it Relates to Search Engine Visibility
The Long Tail theory was coined by Chris Anderson in his Oct 2004 Wired Magazine article describing certain business & economic models. Anderson, Editor Wired Magazine, later authored his best selling book on the theory.
As it applies to blogging & search engine marketing [or SEM], the idea with the Long Tail is to be visible & discoverable for as many variations of one’s core subject focus as possible. The proven theory being that, while a business may generate less search discovery per variation [i.e. Condos in New York City] than it will for the most obvious OR highly targeted search phrases [i.e. New York City Real Estate], the collective impact can be much greater for those variations.
Not to suggest a business should disregard targeting the obvious search or Short Tail phrase [i.e. Connecticut Architect] with it’s web presence. On the contrary, the point is based more on a cost- effective approach to being visible & discoverable in the search engines. From an economic standpoint, pursuing rank for Short Tail search topic visibility may simply be cost- prohibitive. What’s more, people search much more specifically these days and we believe the cost- effective means to capture them is consistent on- topic Blogging.
To demonstrate, I’ll use information drawn from a Realtor client who is committed to blogging and who happens to have incredibly good key phrase indexing for both sought after and then also not sought after key phrases. The firm focuses on being indexed for everything going on in a community as it relates to Real Estate. For this example, I examined one month’s data [anonymous/ rounded/ 6 search engines tracked] to demonstrate the kind of Long Tail search discovery they are generating with an inexpensive commitment to Blog.
A. Total Short Tail search discovery equaled 190/ 1,015= 19%
Short Tail being the town’s name plus the words property, real estate, home or homes
B. Total Long Tail search discovery equaled 825/1,015= 81%
Long Tail being as many variations relating to obvious town searches as is possible
a.) different areas of the town were equal to 130 total search discovery variations
b.) condominium complexes equal to 299 total search discovery variations
c.) developments equal to 89 total search discovery variations
d.) clubs equal to 101 total search discovery variations
e.) restaurants and local business equal to 27 total search discovery variations
f.) listings or specific Street equal to 32 total search discovery variations
g.) developer equal to 56 total search discovery variations
h.) random/ miscellaneous equal to 91 total search discovery variations
This anonymous data focuses on actual search discovery, but it doesn’t represent all site traffic including repeat visitors, direct subscribers or anyone else who comes to the site directly. In this case, Long Tail success is proven based upon variations amounting to 81% of the overall search traffic. We’d argue, they’re not only cost- effective marketers but they’re also capturing the more qualified eyeballs.
Contributed by Chris Frereckschris@kineticknowledge.com
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