Marketers - are you pulling your hair out trying to rank on general search terms? The fact is that some search terms are a waste of both your time and your resources. Think about keywords like "home loans," "cell phones," and "banking" --

-- they're nearly impossible to rank on organically, and too expensive to consider for a PPC campaign.

Certainly, the most popular search phrases get the densest volume of traffic—that's what makes them the most popular—but density is not the only thing you're after. Increasing your site visits, while exciting, is not the ultimate objective—increasing your bottom line is. And by accurately targeting the long tail, you can reap the benefit of engaged visitors and a solid conversion rate.

The Long Tail Brings Targeted Traffic

In the world of SEO, the phrase 'long tail' refers to searches that bring in significantly less traffic per term, but tend to bring in more targeted and higher converting visitors. The chart below illustrates the concept of the long tail of search. The head of the tail represents the most popular or broad search terms, where the long tail contains the more niche queries.

The Head

• 1-2 word search queries
• Broad search terms (home loans, banking, cell phones)
• Most difficult to rank on
• Most expensive PPC keywords
• Untargeted traffic

The Long Tail

• 2+ word search queries
• Specific search terms (California home loan application, Wells Fargo downtown San Francisco, Treo 360 cell phone)
• Easier to rank on
• More cost-effective PPC keywords
• Targeted traffic

Exploiting the long tail is easy with a few search engine marketing techniques and a few proven SEO tactics. With SEM, it's all about maximizing your campaign effectiveness and testing the results; with SEO, the long tail relies more on content and branding that gets picked up the robots.

Wagging the SEM Long Tail

With pay-per-click keywords skyrocketing to upwards of $50 per click for "home loans," you can't win. There are 86,000,000 other sites vying for the key phrase home loan on Google. What do you do when the best keywords are too expensive?

1. Geo target with keywords
2. Bid on more descriptive phrases
3. Track return on ad spend and adjust campaigns

1. Geo target using terms like "Sacramento Home Loans," and rank on specific terms that have smaller markets, which contribute substantially when scaled across many keywords.
   
   • Small Business Use Localized Keywords
     If you are a small mortgage firm in Wilmington, NC, you can use "Home Loans Wilmington NC" to reach clients that are looking for a mortgage company in the region.
   • Larger Company Use Localized Keywords and Branding
     As a large company with national locations, creating PPC ads for each location is a good idea. Try bidding on keywords scaling across all of your markets like "Country Home Loans Wilmington" and "Country Home Loans Portland."
     
2. Bid on more descriptive phrases > match the ad to the query > match the landing page to the ad.

   
   Instead of "Home Loans" try:

   • Home Loans Wilmington
   • Home Loan Foreclosure North Carolina
   • How to Buy a House on a Budget
   • Home Loans Bad Credit
   • Debt Consolidation Home Loan Application

   
   There are many free keyword suggestion tools than can be helpful in developing creative ideas for PPC campaigns (just remember to carry through those ideas into their subsequent landing pages.) And while keyword suggestion tools are useful, parsing your own log files in an application like ClickTracks will provide you with more detailed information.

3. Track conversions and adjust campaigns: This is where using web analytics will be significant to your success at search engine marketing. By using software like ClickTracks, you'll be able to not only gauge the overall "human relevance" but also see the ROI for each ad dollar spent for each search term, with the ability to compare both organic and paid search conversions for the same terms.

SEO Long Tail

1. Choose long tail search terms
2. Post original content
3. Write descriptive title tags for every page on your site

1. Choose long tail terms to rank on. To find out what your current organic search long tail is, use an analytics package like ClickTracks to look at your top 200 search terms. You can also use stand-alone keyword suggestion tools that suggest long tail search terms according to popularity.
2. Content really is king. It's not content unless it contains information you can't find anywhere else online. This means writing original articles, case studies, white papers, reports, etc. Content can also be user generated in the form of moderated forums, blogs comments, and user reviews.
3. Write descriptive <title> tags for every page of your site. The homepage does not rank any higher than any other directory level page of your site. Write title tags that match the page content, and you will begin to see long tail traffic flowing into your site.
   
   A Bad Example of a Long Tail Title:
   
   Categorical: Home Loans
   More people may type in this search term than any other in your market, but this traffic not very targeted and competing for search rank is futile.
   
   A Better Example of a Long Tail Title:
   
   Branding: Levin Mortgages Loans, Refinance, Real Estate Agents
   Since your marketing collateral, business cards, and other printed materials include your web address, people will begin to look for your site by name. Make sure they can find you by company name.
   
   The Best Examples of a Long Tail Title:
   
   Geographically Centered: Country Home Loans - Northern California
   
   Unique Content: How to Protect Yourself Against Foreclosure in California

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