A Successful Long Tail Marketing Case Study
April 30, 2008 | Barry Wise | Search Engine Optimization
5 Comments
One of the best SEO tricks an online marketer can use today is targeting long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are those rarely used 3 and 4 word phrases which your site comes up for in search engine results.
For example, if you type “windows” into Google you’re going to see Microsoft.com ranks first in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). But if you type in “double pane glass windows” you’re going to find something different altogether. The one term keyword “windows” is going to be extremely competitive to rank for since it returns 1.6 billion results in Google (and I doubt you’re going to outrank Microsoft.com anytime soon). It’s going to be easier to have your website show up in the results for “double pane glass windows,” which is a long tail keyword.
One term keywords are so competitive because lots of people are searching for them. “Windows” gets about 5,000 daily searches – “double pane glass windows” gets about 5. So while it may be easier for you to rank first in the long tail search results, you’re not going to get rich quick with 5 visitors a day. But what if instead of targeting 3 or 4 one term keywords you targeted about 1 or 2 hundred long tail keywords. Ah, now you’re starting to see the light. All of a sudden the 5 visitors finding you via each long tail keyword total about 500 to 1,000 visitors in daily traffic.
In order to demonstrate successful long tail keyword marketing, take a look at some marketing/ad copy I wrote last week for a client of ITCN NJ Web Design and Marketing, Greets And Treats Unique Gifts. Titled Switch Flops: The answer to cheap, personalized flip flops, the ad copy specifically targets long tail keywords. We threw in some targeted links and an embedded YouTube video, and we made a successful landing page for sales. How many sales? Just five days after I launched the article they sold $200 in one day from long tail results alone. By the next week they had increased sales $1,000/week.
Some keywords (these are only three of about three dozen so far) which have shown up in the logs from actual visitors include:
“switch changeable flip flops” – #1 on Google
“flip flops with changeable straps” – #1 on Google
“switch flops” – #3 on Google
The next page I will be applying some of these ITCN SEO techniques to is about Baggallini bags and Baggallini handbags.
Tags: ad copy, greets and treats, keywords, long tail, marketing, seo
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5 Responses to “A Successful Long Tail Marketing Case Study”
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Long tail search optimization is a wonderful way to drive traffic to your site. I use HitTail quite often to track my longtail, and its great for suggesting keywords to put in my blog posts. I saw my traffic almost double when I started using it.
Thank you for this post.
When researching long tail keyword phrases I use the tool provided at freekeywords.wordtracker.com. Im not sure how accurate it is for number of visits per keyword phrase, but it does provide a pretty nice list out some possible keyword phrases to target. I enjoyed the reading.
Very interesting.
Can you post some more case study?
Brooke
Long tail keyword research particularly comes in handy for affiliate marketers. Because those that focus on the top 10-20 terms may be missing the majority of their market.
I completely agree with this post regarding long tail keywords. Even if this article was posted more than two years ago, this technique is still applicable even until today.