SEO Blog Malta

The long tail is a phrase that was first coined in 2004 by Chris Anderson. It refers, in the case of search and search engines, to the fact that a collection of less popular keywords can collectively create more traffic than a single, high power keyword. This can prove especially useful for the webmaster of a site in a highly competitive industry. However, it can also prove effective for any website in any industry.

Long Tail Search Phrases

In general terms, the fewer words that a search phrase has, the more popular it is likely to be. This is a sweeping generalization, but the principle holds in most cases. For instance, the keyword "SEO" is a very generic keyword and generates a lot of searches on a regular basis. "SEO service" would generate fewer searches, but would theoretically be easier to rank well for. Taking it further, "ethical SEO service" or "Malta SEO service" would produce even fewer searches but be even easier to outrank other sites for.

More Content Equals More Visitors

Looking at your own website statistics, and in particular at the statistics related to your search engine traffic, long tail searches are those that only generate one or two hits over a long period of time even though you rank at or very near the top of the results. These simply aren't very popular in terms of keyword competitiveness. However, if you were to take all of the long tail search terms that have generated traffic for your website and add them together then they are likely to have yielded a good percentage of your overall search engine traffic.

Long Tail Optimisation

Optimizing for long tail searches isn't feasible. There are many millions of different possible permutations for most searches that are likely to generate one or two hits over time. However, using the long tail searches that have already led to website hits you can generate more pages. These pages can include the relevant long tail search terms and will naturally include more content that will drive traffic to your site.

Being Popular With Search Engines

Adding regular content to a website is good practice anyway. The search engines love regularly updated websites and they will crawl your site more and more, as you begin to frequently add new pages. Powerful intra-linking will also help you rank well and cluster in the search engine results.