Long Tail SEO Pages Yield Better Results

I knew of a man, who for sake of anonymity I’m using a different keyphrase for this illustration, ranked number 1 for the search term, “home theater systems”. ‘Impressive.’ you may say, however, would you venture to guess how many sales that term benefited him? Would you believe the answer is zero? That’s right, none, zilch, nada… ‘Why?’ you maybe wondering; the answer is quite simple.

The typical web searcher, for educational reasons, frequently uses high level, general search terms like “home theater systems” only to learn. Boiled down, the goal of this search term is to find out what systems are out there, and what the latest innovation of this technology is. This is a far cry from someone who is searching, to purchase, a home theater system.

Once a web searcher has found, or learned the ‘essentials’ of the technology, or product, they move from a learning mode to a comparison mode. This is where the searcher will typically compares and contrasts brands, in the case of our home theater system, e.g. – Sony vs. Samsung vs. Bose vs. Panasonic, etc. to see which exact features the person wants.

Now we’ve narrowed things down, the web searcher (customer or buyer) is educated and knows precisely what they after, and are probably at this point shopping for the best combination of price, service and warranty. This narrowed search, with a lengthy search term, such as, “Bose Lifestyle 28 series III home theater system” is what’s called the ‘long tail’. The results will be far less in numbers of competing site pages, but whoever dominates the results for this ‘buying term’ will likely win the sale or purchase of the searcher.

Here’s the take away, if you optimize your site additionally for long tail terms, those specific pages may have significantly less traffic, however, in exchange, folks landing on those site pages will very likely be extremely qualified buyers/users.

Considering your own website, are you targeting the right visitors with the right keyphrases, or are you so generic that, even though you’re getting traffic, you’re seeing little to no goal results from your site, e.g. – sales conversions, sign-ups, click-thrus, etc.? Simply put, it’s not just traffic volume that counts, it’s quality, or qualified, traffic volume that counts.

So what if you have the bragging rights of being number one for a generic search term phrase if that search yields you nothing in return for all your efforts? No matter how you multiply or divide zero, the answer always remains zero.

SEO Blog Source: SEO for High Ranking – A Long Tail Tale
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