This is a great article if you are interested in search engine marketing. This is a good strategy. Read on:

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You have likely heard of the Long Tail approach to marketing if you are working the Pay Per Click (PPC) space or optimizing web pages. Even if you have not heard of the long tail approach, you’ve likely used it to some degree. In this post, we will explore a bit of the history behind the long tail approach and how the Long Tail approach can be applied to a business in different ways in order to build understanding on how you can use this approach to cash in as a PPC or organic ranking strategy.

A Short History of the Long Tail

The Long Tail approach to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) owes much of it’s concept to traditional business and economics concepts. If you were to say it another way, it is niche marketing. Like early importers and exporters, if you can find many small under served niches, you can often bolster sales, sign-ups, lead conversions, etc. while your competitors go after the obvious, the more general, often most competitive of keywords and markets.
In 2004, the idea of niche marketing was reinvigorated when the term “Long Tail” was coined by Wired.com writer Chris Anderson. Essentially if you were to examine various business models like bookselling at Amazon.com, the iTunes.com music store, etc. you would find that they have success because of their deep catalogs of both popular hits and niche items. For brick and mortar retailers there is a cost associated with shelf space, seats in a theater, etc. which often means that retailers choose to stock or carry only the most popular and mainstream movies, CDs, video games, books, etc. Online retailers like iTunes can often succeed where the brick and mortars can not because they carry a large variety of hits and niche items, while a “hit” pop music CD can sell X amount of copies in 1 month, you might have 20 “underground” niche bands that sell as much or more than the “hit” CD in the same period. Because the cost of housing the extra items has reached or closely approached zero, iTunes has the potential to make much more than a traditional music store.

The Long Tail Approach to SEO In a Nutshell

Usually when someone talks about the Long Tail, they pop up this graphic to conceptualize the idea with the graphic below. However this approach to can be applied in various contexts:

- PPC: Applied to PPC, keywords on the left side are more expensive and have a lot of traffic associated with them. On the other side, there are numerous low cost keywords that if taken together, are actually fairly equivalent in success as a few major/popular keywords.

In the graphic below, several low cost/low traffic keywords are equivalent to a very costly, high traffic keyword:

If you really want “Dinosaur Dung”, an eBay seller might have it. In terms of cost, only those that really want this product are likely to search for it using terms like “dinosaur dung”, “dinosaur fossils for sale”, and similar Long Tail phrases. Because these phrases do not appeal to the more casual searcher, you have lower click through than a general term would have. You also have lower competition for niche keyword terms, so cost is low. In comparison, when a searcher types in the term “dinosaur”… What are they looking for? They could click on you advertisement because they are looking for dinosaur books, dinosaur museums, dinosaur bones, dinosaur cups and saucers, and numerous other items.

Below, a PPC advertisement on Yahoo’s site for a long tail keyword:

- Normal rankings: Similar to PPC, in regards to normal, non-paid page rankings, the keywords in the green/left side often are the most difficult to rank on but have a lot of traffic. I.E. “Real Estate” as a keyword has a lot of traffic for organically ranked pages but it might take you any where from several months to years to actually rank on this keyword because it is highly competitive with thousands of companies/sites/pages working to actively rank on this general keyword, you have millions more web pages that aren’t trying to compete but if a popular blogger or even your next door neighbor writes about how real estate is overprices/underpriced in their neighborhood on craigslist, their MySpace profile, etc. that is just one more page that is now competing for this keyword, intentionally or not. As you start looking at niche keywords, traffic drops significantly but if you put several niche targeted web pages together, several well optimized and well ranked pages can have very decent traffic similar to having one really well optimized and well ranked web page. However it won’t take you nearly as long to optimize on these niche keyword. Additionally these searchers are more likely to be ready to convert to a sale, download, sign up, whatever it is that your site is promoting.

If you need another way to think of the Long Tail, conceptually, is has been described to me as something similar to a wine glass. There is a huge mass of generalized searches and traffic in the top/bulb of the glass. As you get to the stem and base of the glass, you find that people narrow in on what they actually are searching for and traffic starts to fall off. Near the base, they organize their thoughts a bit and eventually perform a few more very narrow, searches as the hone in on what they really were looking for.
Here is an example that one might use if they are looking for a home for sale in a specific area of Portland, Oregon:

- Overall Marketing Strategy: The Long Tail can also be applied to overall marketing strategies. Think of it as covering all of your bases beyond the most obvious ones like TV, news papers, billboards, and radio. There are many places niche markets or opportunities that are underutilized.

Online, some companies decide to open up virtual stores in online game worlds like Second Life. I’m not sure if the advertisements are always appropriate but there are always companies willing to give it a try.

There are even odd niche opportunities like building advertisements that mimic online advertising in real life.

Beyond just putting up a website, taking part in some of the social search sites can help you cover more niches if done right.

If you are trying to gain market share, it may not be a bad thing to advertise on a competitor’s website as Microsoft does on Google’s site:

And while it may seem a bit odd at first, that some one like Microsoft would advertise on Google… When you really think about it, it makes sense. They advertise on TV. They advertise in print. Many web browser, cell phones, etc. have built in tool bars and search engines that utilize Google’s search engine. Thus if I do put in “adcenter”, because I’m consider the use of their technology, it is best if I see Microsoft as one of the first results organically or in PPC rather than a search result such as a forum post like this one. Microsoft should attempt to have the first conversation with a searcher in any format or venue.

Researching the Long Tail Keywords

As I have described above, the Long Tail is a method to help you cover many bases beyond the obvious ones. It can be quite costly to pay for top words like MP3 player, iPod, and other similar words if you sell these products, it can also be a long and uphill battle to compete for these terms in the organic/normal search engine rankings. So you will need to step outside of your normal mode of thought and think like a searcher. There are always serial numbers, model numbers, part numbers, industry terminology, slang, obvious terms, similar but less obvious terms, and other various other places including keyword research services to glean new keywords to work with. If you are trying to think like a searcher, check for any keywords searches that visitors perform on your own site. Ask a friend or family member to describe a product. Work with a local high school or college career councelor to temporarily hire students to describe products or write a few reviews. Go fishing in forums that are topically related to your products to see how people are describing and working with similar products.

Long Tail Summary

The Long Tail approach helps you to extend your reach. When it comes to PPC and organic search rankings, you can market in such a way that you no longer have to rely solely on the most obvious and competitive of keywords and phrases. When it comes to the overall philosophy of your business, you can diversify your sights to hit niches that may be under utilized by your competition and gain a bit of mind share.
Source:  Marketposition.com

Author: Scott Goodyear

http://geoff-caplan.com, email: geoff@mail.org