[Cheat Sheet] Chase the Long-tail, Not the Wrong-Tail
Running in circles while chasing the "long tail" of search? Read below and learn how to work it without over-working yourself!
In Volume 1, Issue 5 of "The Net Effect", Dan Thies wrote a great article where he talks about how you can pull in more free traffic from "long tail" search terms, page by page.
Today, I want to share with you some of Dan's points on what chasing the "long tail" is REALLY about, how some people get it COMPLETELY wrong, and why it gets an UNFAIR bad reputation.
Plus, you're going to learn the RIGHT way to go after the long tail traffic. If you follow this plan, it's impossible to fail.
The Argument Against…
Some SEO "experts" will tell you that targeting the long tail is a waste of effort, because it's "too hard" to target, or that it takes "too much work".
Of course, some of these same guys will tell you that you should use "broad match" in your PPC (which is a great way to LOSE MONEY, if you're into that). So what do they really know, anyway?
You may also hear that it's not worth it to pursue the long tail because the results fall off the deeper you go. And that's true, but the "shape" of the tail is different in every market.
The fall off rarely happens as fast as most people think, and there could be 20 or 30% more traffic just waiting to be scooped up from under your competitors noses.
The fact is, the long tail CAN be difficult to go after if you try the usual SEO tactics. (More on that below.) But if you use a slightly modified and smarter strategy, paired with a little extra effort up front, you can grab that extra chunk of traffic hiding in the tail with ease.
What You DO NOT Need To Do…
The reason some less experienced SEOs think this is hard is because they approach it like you would target your top-tier keywords. I'll show you why that won't work here.
FALSE: You need to create a ton of extra web pages…
FACT: The fastest and easiest way to go after the long tail is to broaden the "keyword profiles" on your pre-existing popular pages. Check your analytics and see what pages are getting search traffic already.
Then, fold in those long tail keywords to fatten up those pages. Don't go crazy over it – you can simply go through the existing copy and add them in where they make sense.
Now I said above you don't NEED to create a bunch of EXTRA pages just to target these keywords, and that's true. But you SHOULD add the long tail words in when you create new content as you normally would.
NOTE: There's no need to force them in. Just work them in naturally, wherever you can. Don't make the quality of the content suffer in service of the keywords. Remember, people might (hopefully) read this content and want to give you their money.
You'll probably begin seeing results faster than you think, even if you're doing all the work yourself. That's why we go after the pages that are already getting traffic first – so you can see results as you work.
Cool, right?
FALSE: You need to create a bunch of new backlinks with those keywords…
FACT: Just as with content, you don't need to create a lot of new links just to get this to work. You don't need MORE backlinks, just start using your long tail keywords in anchor text when the context allows.
That way you're simply folding your long tail linking efforts into your regular link-building activities. All you need to do is carry on as usual.
You may even find it easier to come up with creative copy and anchor text when you have so many word choices and variations available to you.
In fact, I often find the same thing to be true when I'm creating new content. Before you turn to a thesaurus for some copy spice, check your keyword list and see if you can't get a little bit of search love while you're at it.
FALSE: You need to do ROI analysis for all these long tail keywords even though they may only send 10 visitors a month…
If you've been paying attention, you should already know why this is false. When you have a sensible list of related long tail keywords, you don't need to do competitive analysis.
If a word MIGHT bring you some visitors, and it's easy to work into your mix, just do it. It's easier and faster than wasting time figuring out how much traffic this one phrase might bring in over another.
When you're in the long tail, it's about the quantity and variety. It's about a LOT of keywords contributing CUMULATIVELY to your traffic. There's not that much difference between one and the other.
It's very likely that as long as you've gathered your long tail keywords in a sensible way, they'll ALL help to some degree. Toss them in and if you see them in your analytics, you know they're working.
BONUS TIP: While you're looking at your analytics anyway, grab the keywords that people found you with ACCIDENTALLY, and start targeting those, too.
THOSE are the really valuable ones, because they're ones that your competitors have no way of discovering. They aren't going to be in any keyword tool anywhere, so target them when you find them, and keep them secret and safe.
Your Mileage WILL Vary…
In Dan's article, he says that in his experience, extraordinary results are not that extraordinary. But like I said earlier, the SHAPE of that long tail will be different in every market.
This means that it will be fatter in some markets, and some of you will make a TON more money from a TON more traffic. But also, some of you will simply see modest improvements.
But notice that it's IMPOSSIBLE for you to do any WORSE than you're doing now. And if you follow the advice above, you're really not even doing more work than you were already doing.
And in the cases where you DO put in a little extra work, you only need to do it once, and it's a pretty small project, all things considered.
The End of THIS Tail…
That's it for today's Cheat Sheet from the pages of "The Net Effect". We hope you enjoy these insights I'm sharing from the pages of our subscriber-only journal.
Well, enjoyment is GOOD, but I want you to PROFIT from these reports as well. If you follow the advice here you SHOULD, and I have good news.
I have many more of these "Cheat Sheet" reports in the works, so get ready, and stay tuned.
Until Next Time,
Keep Stomping
~Andy Jenkins and the
StomperNet Faculty and Staff
P.S. The preceding report is taken from only a small portion of a larger article by StomperNet Faculty Dan Thies. It's not even the whole article, and that issue comes with over a DOZEN MORE, all by StomperNet's Elite Expert Faculty.
You can find Dan's article "Go Wide" in Volume 1, Issue 5 of "The Net Effect", StomperNet's monthly "action journal" for online business. You can browse the full table of contents here, and find out how to get INSTANT ACCESS.
Learn More About This Issue of "The Net Effect"
"The Net Effect" isn't just a trade newsletter or thinly veiled product catalog – this is a REAL periodical, with exclusive content provided by some of the best minds in the internet marketing field.
You owe it to yourself to check it out – your business and your bottom line will BOTH thank you!
Comments
83 Responses to “[Cheat Sheet] Chase the Long-tail, Not the Wrong-Tail”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying about this post...-
[...] Go to the Source Page [...]
-
[...] This post was Twitted by microedge – Real-url.org [...]
-
[...] The Long Tail Keywords SEO Add comments // In an article at Stompernet, they talk about the long tail keywords, the easy, low hanging [...]
-
[...] [Cheat Sheet] Chase the Long-tail, Not the Wrong-Tail One of the FOUNDATIONAL bits of education that we built StomperNet around is the concept of the "long tail" of search. I've got a free report about it for you here on the StomperBlog. If you haven't been following along, "long tail" means we aren't just going after the top-tier, highly competitive keywords with our SEO. We're going [...] Original post by [Cheat Sheet] Chase the Long-tail, Not the Wrong-Tail [...]
Speak Your Mind
Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
The trick with long tails is getting enough of them, individually the search volume and therefore potential to convert but when you have lots of them working for you it can really transform your ppc campaign.
This is an awesome information. thanks for sharing. I will use follow the tip in the future. Keep up the good work
There are some famous coaches that implement noises upbringing techniques from Paul McKenna, libber Robbins to Phil politician NBA railcar metropolis Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers), Jimmy Connors tennis) and Jay Bronze Tiger Woods Mental Coach).
Good point about expanding the keyword profile of existing pages, why re-invent the wheel?
This is something that I will find very useful, thanks!
I always look for medium to long tail keywords for my homepage. The inner pages are for long tail keywords.
I'm also using long tail keywords for my campaigns, and it works fine. But some Norwegian words I optimize for is one or two word phrases. But the Norwegian market is very limited because we are only just above 4,5 million people here:-) Thanks to Frank and Stompernet!
You guys are the best in the SEO business. I'm a subscriber.
TV Show
US gold coin auctions
Affordable Dental Insurance
I like to check my google analytics for different long tails that I get a small amount of traffic on. Then I use their keyword tool too see how popular the term is. If it has a decent enough search volume then I'll work on SERP's for it.
Awesome post. I really need to re-evaluate my strategy with long-tail keywords. I think I have been leaving a lot of money on the table.
Thanks a lot for these awesome information. You make the complexities of SEO sound like child's play. You guys rock!
How To Deal With Panic Attacks
Great myths to discuss! Frankly, I can't tell you how many "experts" I have heard over the years support each of these. It's not about quantity. It's about quality. And, the quicker people figure that out, the better off they will be. There is definitely a lot of benefit to going after the long tail.
Thanks – this is going to help my clients and the way i work them! – Am a fan from stomping the search engine 1
Nice- and very true- less competition- I like having *some* focused pages……
Thanks for you very well needed information about the long tail. I completely agree with what you are saying and use it everyday. This will be more useful for all.
Thanks for the very informative post.Nice post. I have often thought about some of the points you bring up. The way you expressed it
really makes alot of sense. I'll bookmark this page and come back.
Thanks for explaining the opportunities that are available with long-tail keywords.
I like the way you put forward both sides of the story explaining why some people have objections, and then clearing up any false beliefs by presenting the facts.
I also like the tip you gave about capitalizing on the keywords people used to accidentally find your site.
Great stuff.
That is some great advice. I manage the seo for a couple sites that have over 30 million urls each, and those tips are spot on for advice.
Great points Andy and cumulatively, enough long tails can add up to a LOT of traffic.
I bought Stompers Formula 5 and am VERY happy to have done so! You guys give away such amazing stuff for free I know it has made a huge difference to my business.
Thomas
I still got to learn that analytics. But I have discovered a long tail that I got from webmaster tools. I was first in google with an indent in less than 2 weeks. Of course I wrote up a whole page using the long tail as my main Keyword and title tag. It was worth 10 clicks a day. I thought at the time that I had discovered some unknown secret. I`ll have to learn that analytics. Thanks!
Thank you Stompernet. Over recent weeks, you have helped me come to terms with keywords and now I finally understand how I can use long-tails to my benefit.
Stompernet, you're the greatest!
In this article you said "FALSE: You need to create a ton of extra web pages…"
However in 4 Rules for Making More Money with PageRank you said that "Rule #1: Make More Pages."
So am I right in my assumption that you do not NEED to create a ton of extra pages BUT it is still a good idea? It will both help in improving your PR and getting the long tail keywords. Of cause, the down side is the time needed.
Any comments?
Great article, well written, and very practical. Although I do well with the long tail, it never occurred to me to go back to articles after the fact and include variations for my main keywords in my dance poles business. I will definitely put this technique to use!
Nice article guys. I have taken some of your advice in the past on working with the long tail as well as the medium tail and the short tail and looking for gaps in the market. I have found it has really helped drive traffic from a lot of keyword phrases I never even thought that people were searching for.
Thanks,
Luke
Thanks guys for always keeping us on the edge. My "ass" was hanging out but now, I am feeling empowered and born-again. "My MK47 will start to tear the Internet soon". I have been stompered to the level where I am begining to crown myself as "Coming In From The Cold". More good days for the stomperguys and until then, I will see you guys one day soon.
Yours Sincerely
The Born Again Internet Marketer.
Another great review guys.A hell of a lot of people overlook the value of long tail keywords. Thanks for going over this point again.
Most of my profit comes from long tail keywords. Great article, can't wait for the next one.
Great advice on how to incorporate long tail keywords into you overall SEO strategy the sensible way.
Thanks, again, for a really useful article.
This stuff works and works fast. I did this for several "school fundraising" longtail keywords and actually "showed up" on the radar within days! In fact we've sold over $60k in one of our products that we didn't even rank for 5 months ago! Great Stuff!
Dan
Long tail results will get the phone to ring more than the popular generic keywords. I know this from expereince in selling condos. Someone who searches for the keyword condos in your city, is not as likely to pick up the phone and call as when they search on reviews of condo X in your city. I am a subscriber.
Andy,
I think you guys are absolutely right on! A large portion of our sales comes from long tail.. I think over 40% of sales come from no more than 3 – 5 long tail keywords. Even though we've been optimizing for our main keyword, that one brings in at a low 0.5-0.8% conversion, which in the end of the day results in less sales for that keyword than some of our other longer tail keywords!
Excellent advice! Now stop giving it out so much, or they'll start stealing MY easy long-tail keywords!
I have found a great way to search for long tail keywords (even short tails) that give me the number of times that term has been searched for.
Here is an example. Researching historic sailing ships, I typed the words 'poop deck' into google and immediately a drop-down box appeared with this term and many similar ones listed.
The best part is that it also shows HOW MANY SEARCHES have been done for these terms.
So in this example, typing in 'poop deck' revealed 287,000 searches, plus 'poop games' 3,510,000 searches, 'pooping blood' 1,020,000 searches, and more.
A similar word 'pool' brought up 46,600,000 searches, plus 'pool supplies' 11,900,000 searches, 'pool cleaners' 12,800,000 searches etc.
This works with google.com.au but not with google.com
So go try it. Go to http://www.google.com.au and have some fun researching highly-searched keywords.
Thanks for the heads up, very important topic
I love these short, to-the-point reports; Don't fill you up, yet very satisfying. Make you look forward to the next one…
Cheers –
Frank
Thanks a lot for these awesome tips. You make the complexities of SEO sound like child's play. You guys rock!
Thanks for the encouragement to continue the pursuit of the correct long-tail. In the market I'm in it is easy enough to obtain "long-tail" traffic that does not convert to revenue.
Nice – It's so easy to get wrapped up in what we ought to do – so I like the fact you tell us what we don't have to do. It shakes up the thinking.
joining the stomper family has proven to be a sound business decision and articles like this reveal why… great information that can be used in ones business…
http://LeaseToOwnBook.info
Long-tail keyword are a great way to expand our research of visitors, even if some hard work could be a constraint in a first step. I think we will be rewarded in the long run. Thanks by all your high quality content.
Guys You never cease to amaze with the quality of Info you provide free of charge thanks a lot and keep up the good work
I am a NetEffect member and must admit that you guys keep impressing me with useful tips and advice. This is another great tip I will surely put to effect. Thanks for the tip once again.
I was wondering about how to optimize for the longtail, as I have some clients who really need me to do this for them.
Thanks a bunch
Greg
Thanks for the great info
i believe seaching for the long tail money keywords will
pay off very well. Less competition also. why go up against
the millions of pages , just go get the long tail and convert buyers
Don
Maui,
I have found that some of my most profitable keywords are one's I didn't even think of, Most of my sales come from these keywords, Amazing!
Hi,
Thanks for the insight into long tail keywords. It makes me realize I have an alternative then going after the competive keywords, especially since I'm a newbie.
I was put in touch with StomperNet through the 30 day challenge. I find that the information given is overwhelming to the part time website owner. I don't have time to do all of these studies revisions and also read up on them. So what exactly am I doing here then. I have incorporated the ideas that take little time and here are my poor results. My number of visitors has gone from 200 to 5000 per month. I am on page one in only 5 key words I am number 1 on yahoo in my main key word among 28 mil other pages. I have gone from page 67 to page two on my latest keyword attack and will soon be on page one. Now please don't laugh but my affiliate commissions have gone from $50 in two year to now $50 per month. What is best is that when I write a new page I know it will be read by someone. It feels so much better to write a page on an informational website that you know will be read and not just buried in back pages of decent keywords
I have often gotten confused over the use of "long tail" and how to make it work the most effectively. I have been over thinking what looks to be much more simple than I thought. These tips have been very helpful. Thank you
Your discussion of Long Tail keywords used to make me go into a trance and I would ignore it completely. But this discussion of it made a lot more sense, because it does NOT involve the extra work that originally it made it sound like.
Sometimes being overworked makes you skip stuff that could have helped you.
So thanks for making it more mentally manageable.
Micheal
The long tail keywords IMHO are worthwhile using for SEO and yes it does take time to find the ones which work however, when traffic is driven through this research, it's satisfying to see results. Thanks for another great article!
I am starting to get lots of traffic from long tail keywords to my sites without having to create lots of extra pages or even do much extra work thanks to Stompernet.
The info you share is great and it works.
You're absolutely right. Recently I had a visitor from a 13 word keyword. It made sense and was something that could be duplicated in content.
Not likely to draw much traffic, but when someone does search it then I'll be right at the top of the results. Do this over and over and it just has to work.
There are quality long tail keywords in every market and these days we have to chase them to try and get an edge over the competition.
Andy
Greeeaat, can you please suggest some nice analytic checking software or script other then Google tools? by the way, that's a really nice to share. Thanks for the tip.
Jake Bryar
http://www.zielix.com
Excellent article and something that I've been following on my own projects for a while. I can tell you, it really works! The thing that I have been slacking off on is my off-page SEO for long tail but no longer. I'm closing this page and opening one at rentacoder.
Keep up the good work.
Long-tail works for me and generates alot of FREE traffic.
Another killer article.
You guys rock, keep up the good work.
I sell a sort of unique technical book, as an ebook, that I wrote (2nd book to come out soon). This book is very impossible to market using "book" or "ebook" as stand alone keywords. I found that by brainstorming for long tailed keywords from my past technical experiences, the book contents, and with a little reverse keyword research of these particular keywords, I began making sales. The more I brainstormed, the better my traffic & sales got in this area.
I began sort of using a variation of this strategy on the travel/vehicle accessories etc I also sell on this site. My traffic more than doubled and my sales increased there too.
Sure it's hard work, but hard work versus easy work pays off better in the end.
One must bear in mind that Google search is too targeted and will only search for about 3 words at a time, where sometimes 4-6 words are used by searchers in an attempt to narrow down search results. Using several different variations of these 4-6 words, in 3 word form, in your text will somewhat overcome this Google thing and frequently lands these searchers on my site (about half my traffic comes to my site this way & more than half of sales).
When I first started my site, using keyword research tools alone only netted me 100 or less non targeted visitors per month. The brainstorming with a little keyword research strategy mixed in increased my my visitor rate to the 1400-1700 per month range of better TARGETED visitors in only a few weeks. Now I am working to increase targeted traffic & sales thru increased PageRank & increased conversion rates while also keeping up my current keyword strategy.
StomperNet makes sense in these areas and just might help! I started using some of StomperNet's SEO technigues and my Google pagerank fell from 2 to 1. My traffic also fell by near half but quickly rebounded in a couple of days. Maybe my pagerank will rebound too, as soon Google gets over these sudden changes. We'll see.
Hello;
I'm pretty green – a newbie. But, I had a tendency to do phrases of keywords – that would be long tail… right?
Can I ask where and how to check analytics? And, using only AdWords and Google (no Adsense – don't know how that works), is it possible to come up with long tails that have any punch whatsoever?
I know I am way down you guys' level of knowledge and expertise. Still, a response will be greatly appreciated. I am writing articles (haven't for some time as though some have been picked up by Google, none have brought an amount of viewers worth mentionning and no sales. So, I had to study more to see what I was doing wrong.)
OK. Thank you for this insight. Really nice of you to share broadly.
BB
“BONUS TIP: While you’re looking at your analytics anyway, grab the keywords that people found you with ACCIDENTALLY, and start targeting those, too.” I loved this part – look at your analytics and see what people are ALREADY finding you under – these obscure, wierd little searched terms are ones that you ALREADY dominate! Now ADD to it, by reinforcing those terms, double them up, for instance, to get more traffic from terms that you already use successfully!
Andrew Larder
MarketingSharks.com
Hey it's Ok if they don't want to believe that there is any reason to go after the long tail, All the more conversions for those of us that get it. I've been going after long tail "buying" keywords for a long time with some great success and it's a piece of cake. In my marketing I really only go after the long tail
This has certainly opend up my eyes. Due to the complexity levels, and short concentartion levels of most, me included, we tend to ignore it.
Good advice, certainly gonna revisit this again
shaun
YOU GUYS ROCK!
I have been a Net Effect subscriber form day one and it is PACKED with more stuff than I can work on in a month.
This is a good thing because now I always have something to work on.
Thanks
Keith Copeland
http://www.ThoughtsToResults.com
Awesome article, Andy! When Chris Anderson published his book about the Long Tail, it was one of those "Duh!" moments for me, then Seth Godin summed it up beautifully in "The Dip", which also struck a chord with me.
But, this simple article has shed some light on something much more valuable to online business than a conceptual understanding of an abstract topic:
Capturing the Long Tail does NOT require extra effort!
I have been foolishly slipping into the category of the webmasters doing the things you listed in the "What You DO NOT Need to Do" section, and I'm glad you helped bring me back to reality.
In the end, we all witness the long tail in our analytics and from our sales on a daily basis, but doing a few simple tweaks to some key money pages is all it takes to capitalize on the wacky variations searchers type in.
All this is in stark contrast to creating pages for each variation and building anchor text backlinks for them, which is indeed not worth the resources.
Thanks again for an enlightening article!
Kyle
Hi,
I was reading your email regarding long tail keywords. I must say that the data and information available on StomperBlog about SEO for free is the best resource on internet about Search Engine Optimization.
thanks for posting such great info,
thanks,
Sandeep Singh Chouhan
Thanks for this tip. I have been wondering a looong time about exactly this, but I've also not been doing it, because I wasn't sure if that was a good idea. Now I'm going to fill in lots of long tail phrases on all my optimized pages. And I can't wait to see the results:-)
- Ray
I have been using Hittail for long tail intelligence. You place a snippet of code just before the closing tag on your index page and it gathers information on keyword terms that your visitors used to find your site.
I look for anomalies, search terms that are used repeatedly then develop the content for those keywords. This drives links deep into my site just where I want them to go.
very Powerful, indeed
Great article. But, you can test the impact of long tail with Google Analytics with advance segmentation and know the contribution of Long Tail in your ROI.
Reggards
The overall debate of keyword short/long is highly entangled depending on the form of site the developer is working upon. But as such, your views and tips are really worthwhile and are something to look forward to. Thank you.
Andy,
I have been applying your suggestions to long tail keywords like patron saint medals at our store — and the results have been great. Our traffic and conversions have resurrected! (pun intended)
Thank you so much for sharing.
Thomas
The Catholic Gift Shop
that's an excellent tip! I've noticed when checking my stat press that people 'find' my site with keywords i wouldn't have thought of. They are great keywords for me to then target.
thanks for very good post!
everything here is true!
once again thank you thank you thank you for all the STELLAR tips. This is the base foundation guts every marketer needs to know.
You guys are simply the best. You deserve all the success you've received because you've helped a lot of people get started on the internets. Thanks!
The nuances you share here are eye-opening. Thanks for making long-tale, SEO, and website optimization so clear.
Charlie Seymour Jr
http://bit.ly/24eYTO
What I've been doing is specifically looking for long-tail keywords that come up when I keyword research my 'main' terms.
Then I'll build a page specifically for a given term.
What I find is that there are almost *always* long-tail keywords that have *some* search volume with almost *no* competition.
It's essentially free traffic!
Kim
Thanks for you very well needed information about the long tail. I completely agree with what you are saying and use it everyday. Thanks guys
I have been using long tail keys words within my SEO for the last three years. All I have to say is it really works. My sales and analytics results has proven it each and every time. Thanks you Dan and Andy
Thanks for making things to do with the long tail much clearer. The long tail – I've heard of it here and there, but have found it confusing, so I've avoided working on it. Of course the long tail has sometimes wrapped itself around a page – gotten me traffic from words I wasn't aiming for.
But great – this makes things much clearer. Much better to be working with a light than kind of in the dark.
Thanks for revisting a hot topic from the past with new insights. You guys are the best in the SEO business. I'm a subscriber.