I am a big proponent on targeting long tail keywords. Sure a single long tail phrase may bring in less traffic than a single short phrase, but long tail keywords are so much easier to convert. The screenshot below shows just how powerful long tail SEO is. This is long tail "organic search" traffic that came into one of our sites for a campaign we did for a client. As you can see from this screenshot, this campaign drew in 8,424 visits from 8,186 different search phrases in 1 month. Yes you read that right - 8,186 different search phrases all from long tail.
Following are a few reasons why I am such a big fan of long tail >>
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Go Smart Solutions, LLC |
Misty: Those are powerful statistics. I’m curious how much business was converted from leads to sales. I do understand the power of key words and long tail … do you have any stats on leads and conversions?
Hello Kathleen,
This was from a campaign we did for a client. The purpose of it was to drive targeted traffic back to their website for foreclosure and bank owned type searches. These 8424 visits to our pages resulted in 3192 clicks to their website. Clicks back to their website was the goal here so that averages to about a 38% conversion for this case.
We have a particualr long tail phrase (won't share here due to competitors) that brings in 20+ member signups per day. We have a ton of other long tail phrases that bring in 1 to 3 signups per day. We are bringing in over 40+ new signups per day due to our long tail seo efforts. This is not including signups from our other advertising methods (PPC, blogging, social networks, etc.), these 40+ are from organic long tail stuff.
So I guess what I am trying to say is the conversion is there :)
Misty thanks for the blog. Good information for sure. When I review my Google analytics, I also look at the new traffic and bounce rates as these are good indicators of the strength of your website to convert searchers into bookmaker's.
Good points David. Bounce rates can be evaluated differently though for different circumstances. For example in this situation our goal was to drive traffic (clicks) back to our clients website. All links, buttons, etc on these targeted landing pages directed the visitor from our pages to our clients. This of course makes for a high bounce rate, which is actually a good thing in this case. Now for pages we want to capture signups on, we try to keep the bounce rate low (under 30%).
Hi Misty,
Sounds good but I am in the dark. What are long tail key words? Bounce rate, etc. Can you explain? I will pay for the call (916) 640-3131.
Linda
Hi Linda,
Long tail key words are search phrases that are more specific and contain more words such as...
3 bedroom Sacramento home for sale
Creating a landing page optimizing around "3 bedroom Sacramento homes for sale" will bring you buyers who are looking for these specifics. If your landing page fully focuses on 3 bedrooms homes in Sacramento, you will have a better chance of landing that lead.
Few other long tail examples
There are tons of possibilities here.
Bounce rate is the % of people who leave your site after landing on your page. For example if 50 people landed on your page and 25 left that page without clicking to another page on your site, your bounce rate would be 50%.
Hope that helps. If you would like to discuss further please email me through my ActiveRain profile and I will setup a call with you.
Misty - I too am a huge fan of long tail keywords. Now I hope one day we'll see these kinds of numbers for traffic - very nice! ~Rita
Hi Misty,
Keyword research is the key to all good marketing campaigns. As long as the longtail keywords have traffic and are pertinent, by all means they should be used.
The long tail works but usually only for a site that will do well for the short tail as well. When you can do well with the short tail you know your site has the "authority" to do well with the long tail.
Misty - Great blog and super comments ! I need to come back here more often to stay abreat of all the current information. The long tail has worked with us a little bit as well as some our clients have told us how they found us via Google such as "top producing RE/MAX agent in Philadelphia" and the like. Recently, we have had a number of people contact us regarding short sales as we rank pretty high in "Philadelphia Short Sales". I love it ! We learn more and more every day through the likes of AR and tech gurus like yourself : )
Hi Bill- I usually don't dis-agree with you but this time I do :). We have used long tail SEO on many sites with a high ROI (signups, purchases, click thrus) without ranking for the short tail comparable. Don't get me wrong, ranking for the short tail is great too but so many ignore the long tail.
Hi Rebecca- Pertinent is key but oftentimes people get discouraged because the keyword tools will show little traffic (under 20 visits). What they don't understand is those 10 to 20 visits distributed among many long tail targets can add up to a whole lot of traffic. My screen shot above demonstrates that. Over 8000 total visits for long tail keywords that each received under 20 visits.
When I am not sure about a long tail to target, I will run some low cost pay-per-click campaigns on it and variations of it. The traffic, click thrus and conversions received from the pay-per-clicks tell you a lot. You even end up discovering keywords you would never have thought about before. Running pay-per-click on a short tail can also show what related long tail phrases people use around that short tail. The pay-per-click tests help determine conversion and ROI. You can run a low cost pay-per-click test for under $30 and it's worth the cost to determine what to target. Of course you need to have Google Analytics or other tracking software installed before you run a PPC so you can truly see how the traffic is coming in.
Chris and Stephanie - Wow "top producing RE/MAX agent in Philadelphia" is very targeted (long tail). Traffic may be low on that but I bet your conversion is good. Even a few conversions (clients) from that per year would make it worthwhile.
The biggest thing for me is conversion. Long tail traffic is so much easier to convert to a signup, lead, purchase, etc. because they find your page searching for something very specific.
As long as the "long tail" converts, I am happy.
I love the Loooooong Tail! right down to the blade of grass in front of a particular house!