My tail looks fabulous!

Posted by Laura Bergells

November 2, 2006

The long tail is an economic concept that states the collective demand for less-popular items can exceed the most popular.

So look at your tail when you review your site’s stats. For example, I looked at the stats for one of my sites: and found that over 700 keyword phrases that led only ONE person each to my site. That is, each of these 700 visitors were looking for something very unique.

And boy, did they ever use some completely unique phrases!

So unique, I would have a devil of a time trying to brainstorm or target these phrases on my own!I wouldn’t even dream of optimizing my site for any of these phrases. But the site is very niched, so it tends to capture many onsie-twosie search phrases that people enter into the search engines.

Research is showing that long tail keyword phrases are more likely to convert to sales than the short tail keyword phrases. Short tail words are important for impressions and branding, but the long tail words are your bigger money-makers. Think about auto parts — when you want a specific part for your car, you don’t usually type in “auto parts” at Google — you type in the specific part you need “used 2003 Honda Civic Main Relay” .

And maybe you even type in the specific part number, just to be sure.

The point is, when you are THAT specific, you are in the mood to BUY, not merely browse.

So are most folks. So in short: look at your tail. For sales success, the sum of the 11-3000+ search phrases that people use to find your website should far exceed your top ten traffic generating search terms.

If it’s not happening, your site might not have a strong niche.

And remember, on the internet, you need niches for riches!