Business Solutions

We are many times limited in our keyword selection simply due to the fact there are a few keywords with high search volume and traffic, while at the same time, these limited selections are the more competitive keywords that are hard to rank for. Fortunately for us, there is a practically unlimited supply of barely explored long tail keywords that have very little traffic to speak of, but for which you definitely have a better chance of ranking.

Understand that when we are faced with deciding which keywords to target, many webmasters decide to focus on the “big money” or “trophy” keyword phrases. Remember as mentioned previously, these are definitely the hardest ones to rank for, and you should also realize that many of these “trophy” keywords actually seem more important than they really are when you closely examine the revenues they ultimately drive.

Rest assured that many people who want SEO services will search terms like ‘search engine optimization’ or ‘SEO.’ But many webmasters underestimate and therefore overlook the value of the “keyword tail.” So for every person searching on a keyword like ‘SEO,’ there are in reality at least 10 or more people searching diligently for less common keywords including “How do I rank better in Google,” “improve Google placement,” “rank better in search engines,” and “search engine ranking.”

These are most often not the words that industry insiders use to describe their own business, but you have to think from a different perspective and understand the keywords are not about them, they are the words that their customers think of and type into search engines.

Now most search terms have many variations, so if you are narrowly focused on the most well known version, then you will find yourself up against the toughest competition (as the most popular keywords are in most cases certainly the most competitive) while you are leaving the chance to make money on the tail by neglecting other important keywords.

Trying to describe the mechanism of just how the market works is nowhere near as powerful as simple raw numbers. In 2007, Google’s Udi Manber stated that amazingly only 20% to 25% of the search queries Google sees each day are unique, while Demand Media operates a content mill that publishes hundreds of thousands of articles targeting “long tail keywords.” Their revenues are rumored to be north of $200 million, with the majority of that income coming from long tail search traffic.