The Importance of Keyword Research and the Long Tail

So what, exactly, is the “long tail” and why is it important to search marketing? The concept was coined by Chris Anderson in a 2004 Wired magazine article and applied to merchandising, but this concept is particularly well suited for the world of search marketing.

You’ve got a few keywords that you know you want to rank for. They’re the ones you know bring in lots of traffic and the ones that you have to work hard to keep your rankings for. When we talk about the long tail for keywords, we’re talking about the hundreds or thousands of other keywords that people type into search engines every single day to find products and services just like yours.

Take a look at the graph above. This is a typical representation of the kind of daily traffic you might see that results from your keyword research, with the keywords broken out into tiers. It’s obvious that our Tier 1 keywords have the ability to generate the most traffic on our site, right? While it is true that individually, those keywords can bring in the most potential traffic, you also have to realize that you’re probably not the only one who knows about them. Competition is going to be fierce for these keywords…and take a look at your Tier 2 set. While none of these keywords alone has the ability to stack up to a Tier 1 keyword, collectively you can attract TWICE as much traffic from the Tier 2 set!

Now have a look at Tier 3. As the line moves rightward, it drops off steeply with a nearly flat long tail - hence, the term “long tail”. But these keywords hardly attract any traffic at all, why would we bother targeting them? Individually, that may be true, but collectively, these keywords represent 55% of the traffic available to your website. And your competitors probably don’t know about these or aren’t focusing on them, so they won’t be nearly as competitive to rank your pages for. An additional benefit is that these keywords are likely much more specific to your products and services, and have a high probability of generating extremely qualified, targeted traffic.

How an organization targets long tail keywords depends on the type of business, search marketing strategy and budget, but the important thing is that you do the research to find your long tail keywords and you actively target them. Webshare provides a variety of keyword research solutions to help you identify and harness the power of the long tail keywords in your industry.

And keep in mind that there are a number of attractive qualities in long tail keywords for paid search marketing campaigns as well as your organic efforts. Long tail keywords tend to be available for lower bid prices on the pay per click markets, and can often comprise a significant portion of an organization’s search marketing sales. Long tail keywords are a fantastic way to get a big “bang for the buck”, and are a great place to start when developing your search marketing strategy.

Nielsen / Netratings company reported that Google continues to lead the way as the search engine of choice for many users. The market research company also reported that Google has the highest retention of users. For at-home users, Google sees 79% of its users return, followed by Yahoo! at 69%, and MSN/Windows Live with 65%. The trend was similar for at-work users with slightly higher retention numbers. However, Nielsen / Netratings in the same article reported that search engine users are choosing more than one search engine for their search providing needs. In the big three, 84% of the MSN/Windows Live Search visitors went to either Google or Yahoo! or both as well as their usual MSN/Windows Live. 78% of Yahoo! and 63% of Google visitors went to the other engines as well.

What we should take from this data is that Google is clearly important to your search marketing plan – this is your classic 900 pound gorilla. But you should not forget about the other search engines unless you’re happy leaving potential traffic on the table. For example, when starting a pay per click campaign, there is nothing wrong with choosing Google’s Adwords to get a proof of concept. Since it has the highest amount of users, Google can give you an idea of whether or not your ad campaigns will be profitable. However, after your campaigns are proven, remember to consider expanding into Yahoo! Search Marketing and potentially Microsoft’s adCenter for access to more traffic. Spreading out to more than one search engine can often put you in a less competitive arena and will also help cover your business in the event users choose a different search engine from their typical choice. As the Nielsen / Netrating report shows, more users are searching more than one search engine these days.

It is important to pay attention to market research done by companies like Nielsen / Netratings to understand how to appropriately divide your search marketing efforts amongst the search providers. In the search marketing programs that we offer, we monitor and work towards results in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN / Windows Live, as well as a host of other paid and organic traffic sources. We work with our clients to help them understand the importance of diversity in supplying targeted visitors and how to appropriately budget to the different search engines, because as the Nielsen / Netratings report points out, the internet is becoming a very competitive place, and more of your potential customers are finding you from a more diverse range of sources than ever before.

For details of the Nielsen / Netratings report please see Top U.S. Web Sites Enjoy High Visitor Retention Rates, but Face Significant Audience Overlap with Competitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Google announced that within the next few days, it will begin including ads on the Google Mobile Search pages as an extension to its Adwords program. Google is promoting this new service to its advertisers on the premise that it will help advertisers reach additional qualified customers. The ads will be displayed to users searching Google on their cell phones free of charge until November 18th, 2007. Beginning November 19th, however, Google will begin charging its advertisers for clicks on the mobile ads unless you tell them otherwise. The trial period is available to all Adwords account holders, which will allow them time to experiment with the mobile platform by reaching actual qualified customers.

We highly suggest that you take an extra close look at your Adwords metrics to see just how profitable these ads are for your business and then make an informed, data-driven decision on how to proceed with your campaigns come November 19th. If you’re taking advantage of our Google Adwords management services, rest assured we’ll be doing this with your accounts.

Google is using this opt-out approach versus an opt-in approach, making this an opportune time to review your Adwords accounts. All Adwords account holders should review their ads campaigns to ensure that the campaigns not benefiting from the new mobile ads are excluded from that network. Additionally, if you plan to use mobile results then you should ensure that your ads are targeted towards mobile users.

Adwords account holders should also be advised that their mobile ads should reflect a landing page that can viewed in a mobile browser. Google is reporting that they have seen an upward trend in mobile usage this past summer, making this an opportune time for Adwords account holders to reach a new section of potential consumers. As wireless internet becomes more widespread and mobile devices (such as the Apple iPhone) become more user-friendly for the internet, this is going to be an exciting area to watch.

Read more in Google’s Adwords Help Center…