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SEO Article: Long Tailed SEO Heaven
Instead of looking at Long-Tailed Search Terms and Short-Tailed search terms, try thinking Easy-to-achieve SEO vs. Tough-to-achieve SEO.
When ranking your website, it is easy to get obsessed with the major & highly desirable keyword you want to be found on. Lets use an imaginary example of an emerging online auction website.
The Search Terms “Auctions” or “Online Auctions” would fit the category of a short-tailed search term, being that the search terms are short, but also this is a highly competitive search term. The “Auctions” yields 136,000,000 results and the search term “Online Auctions” yields about 36,000,000 results. Compare that with “Mazda 323” and you’ll see the number of pages drops to just 2,670,000 pages. As a rough yardstick you can fairly assume that the more pages you need to beat, the more costly the exercise is going to be.
Look at the search traffic (provided courtesy of Google Traffic Estimator) and all of a sudden you have a business case to look at “Mazda 323” over the other 2 search terms. Take a look here:
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Search Term
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Number of Pages
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Cost to SEO
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Est. Visitors / day
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Auctions
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136,000,000
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Very High
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2663
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Online Auctions
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36,000,000
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High
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148
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Mazda 323
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2,670,000
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Low – Medium
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63
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Assuming you could optimise for a 5 models of Mazda e.g. Mazda 626, Mazda 323, Mazda Familia for the cost of engaging in “Online Auctions”, You could be looking at double the clicks for the same effort.
Conversion Rate is the kicker.
The best part about targeting long tails is that the traffic converts best. The Mazda 323 is a deprecated model, a perfect example for an online auction website. Let’s further examine the type of users who are searching for “Mazda 323” vs. traffic for people searching “Online Auctions”.
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Online Auctions
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Mazda 323
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Looking for an auction site.
May not know exactly what they are looking for (to buy).
May get lost on the site. May not get served properly. Might just browse a bit then quit.
Could be someone who wants to advertise.
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Either wants to buy a mazda 323, or wants to research the Mazda 323 such as prices, resell value, parts, availability.
OR
Is looking for tech support or tech details for the mazda 323.
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If the intention is to sell products, the long tail here would return a better conversion rate; and by servicing the user’s needs, it creates brand awareness. The short tail on the other hand serves better for branding and recapturing forgotten traffic.
Contact MessageForce today if you are interested in pursuing long tailed search terms.
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