Have you heard of the 80-20 rule? Well, an Italian
economist called Pareto noticed that 80% of land in Italy
was owned by 20% of the population. His work was taken up
by others until it entered mainstream thinking. You've
probably heard variations of what's now become known as the
80-20 rule, or the Pareto principle. They go like this: we
spend 80% of our time with 20% of our friends, or we wear
20% of our favorite clothes 80% of the time.
More generally, of course, it is a common rule of thumb in
business: e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your
clients." In business, for example, Microsoft noted that by
fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% percent
of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.
So far, so good. But what if you found out that - where
your website is concerned - the Pareto principle didn't
hold up so well? That 80% of your major keywords only
account for 20% of your sales? In other words, by focusing
on a handful of major keywords you may be missing out on
the 'real' keywords that prospective customers are actually
using to find your product or service.
Most webmasters apply the 80-20 rule: that the top keywords
provide 80% of the business, but in practice, this has
proved to be the opposite. In other words, the keywords
that are most sought after are actually rarely those that
provide the most business.
Let me put it another way: your website is far more likely
to receive most of its search engine visitors through an
assortment of low-volume search queries instead of a small
group of keywords. And this means that by focusing on
identifying the keywords which receive a lower volume of
search queries you will increase in the overall amount of
prospective customers from, say, Google, to your website.
What are these keywords? And how will they increase my
visitor traffic?
Well, these keywords have become known as Long Tail
Keywords. "Long Tail" because they are phrases that are
usually made up of more than three words. For instance:
"Paint" is not long tail, but "Outdoor paint for wooden
shed" is long tail. Or, take "shoes": "Adidas running
shoes" is almost there. But "Adidas running shoes for
women" is a long tail keyword.
Can you see the difference between "horse training" and
"quarter horse training products"? Here is another example:
'Credit Cards' is the general keyword but effective long
tail keywords within this niche could include: 'good low
cost credit cards for nurses', 'credit cards for people
with bad credit', 'credit cards with low interest',
'benefits of corporate credit cards', and so on.
The core ideas about long tail keywords is that there is
less competition for them, so it's easier to get good
search engine rankings, and also the fact that people who
search certain long tail keywords are much more likely to
be potential purchasers. By optimizing your website and
delivering content to match these search queries you will
be attracting visitors who are searching for specific
product information using these and other related search
phrases.
And there's no doubt that long tail keywords are highly
effective at attracting traffic. What's more important,
there are thousands and thousands of long tail keywords
which no one or very few people are pinpointing and so can
easily be utilised.
So here are four key reasons why you should consider using
long tail keywords to optimize your website for search
engines:
First, focusing on long tail keywords will slowly but
surely lead to more search engine traffic because you will
have many, many web pages indexed and ranked for specific
phrases related to your products or services. This means
higher visibility and so a greater volume of search engine
traffic.
Next, long tail keywords lead to higher purchase ratios.
Visitors who come to your site via long tail search queries
are more likely to purchase or take up on affiliate
programs. By focusing on these long tail phrases, you are
actually zeroing in on a vast market of potential buyers.
Third, long tail keywords lead to higher page ranking
because there is generally far less competition. There
is so much more scope for variation when you start digging
for the phrases that people actually use when they enter
search terms.
Finally, using long tail keywords means that your sites
have the potential for greater monetization. People who
find your site because they used a search engine such as
Google or Yahoo are high value for this reason: they are
people who are looking for specific information. So they
are highly likely to follow relevant advertisements or
subscribe to your blog feed or ezine.
So here's the nutshell: more long tail keywords equals more
potential customers equals more likely sales. Good luck!
About The Author
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