What is longtail SEO? And how can it aid your Internet marketing efforts?
The principle is really quite simple: it is better to appear on the first page of Google for a small number of searches than on the third, fourth or fifth page for a higher number of searches. After all, most people will never venture past the first page of Google’s search results, especially if it has returned an overwhelming number, such as 32,344,454, of matches.
So how exactly do you take advantage of the long tail?
The thing is, a large number of longtail searches can add up to more visitors than appearing on the first page for a single, highly competitive term. For example, a phrase like “ipod nano vs ipod classic” will not be searched for by nearly as many people as the term “iPod” itself, but then, you won’t be competing against the likes of Apple, Best Buy or Walmart either!
What’s more, longtail phrases are more likely to be “buyers” phrases, and someone who is interested in the difference between the ipod nano vs ipod classic may well be considering buying either one or the other. If you can clearly explain the differences between the two, and then provide a buying link to each one, you are more likely to make a sale.
Shifting away from competing with some of the biggest players in the field brings many benefits:
- The luxury of being chooseier about your advertising methods.
- The opportunity to minimize paid advertising.
- Tighter and more focused search engine optimization campaigns.
- The opportunity to add additional or upsell products through the use of a broader range of longtail keywords.
- Greater monetization of your site through the use of advertising such as Google’s AdSense.
In short, through the use of proper keywords, you can reduce your costs and maximize your profits.
Of course, you will need to create content to match those longtail keywords, but writing can often be easier when you have a tightly focused, clear-cut topic to write about. One of the greatest benefits of such an SEO campaign is on the search engines themselves. The use of longtail keywords are a purely “white hat” SEO strategy that is actually rewarded by the search engines, as long as you operate within their rules. After all, since the search engines are trying to provide their users with what they are looking for, tightly targeted, keyword-rich content that is on topic and satisfies the end-user is a win-win proposition for all.
Although a single longtail keyword may not lead to a huge amount of traffic, when the use of many longtail key phrases are multiplied together, it can add up to a significant amount of search volume. An effective SEO campaign is about making maximum use of the options available to you, and longtail search engine optimization is one of the best ways of achieving this.
Timothy Arends – Author
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