Search marketing...
Success has a long tail
By Jon Fletcher - Managing Director
When investing in a search marketing project there is a powerful temptation to focus both time and budget on those "must have" phrases. The one or two word terms that are just perfect for your business and that vast numbers of potential clients are looking for. Of course, your competitors know these phrases too, and, as a result, you face an uphill struggle to get ranked well for those phrases no matter how good your web site and its optimisation.
The interesting thing is that the majority of people looking for your products or services are not using those competitive phrases; they are looking for you with a wide range of related phrases appropriate to their specific requirement. Search engines are not a new phenomena and most web users are experienced "searchers". They know that the more specific their enquiry the more likely it is that the results will match their needs. To you, specific enquiries mean a massive variety of different word combinations.
As I write this, a colleague is talking to the owner of a large office furniture retail company. He will currently be explaining that while "office furniture" and "office chairs" would be great to feature for in Google, the budget required to achieve results for these phrases may make a return on investment highly unlikely. More effective strategies would concentrate on phrases such as "moving office", "office furniture location", "jigsaw office desks" and "office furniture care". These phrases, and others like them, are not only more attainable they, in combination, will attract more visitors than the highly competitive ones.
Building content centred on such phrases is not only good for search engines; it also presents visitors with a wealth of relevant information. As a result, your site will both attract and then engage with its audience.
We have used this approach on many occasions and in every case the results have been excellent with superb returns on investment. On a note of caution however, this is not a technique well suited to small budgets or tight time frames. It relies on the development, organisation and updating of large quantities of information which does take significant time and resource.
Fortunately for companies on a restricted budget, the approach works as well for pay per click (PPC) campaigns as it does for the main search listings. In Google Adwords, for example, a competitive phrase will be very expensive with competition pushing up the price of each click. Secondary, more specific, phrases are typically much less expensive and there are many more of them. If the cost per click of your main phrase is 1, but by bidding on lower value terms you can generate clicks at 20p each then you are getting 5 times more for your money. You will also typically get a better conversion ratio, as specific phrases target the specific requirements that searchers have.
The catch is that proportionately fewer people click on each individual specific phrase than click on the more sought after general phrases. In order to redress the balance, a large number of specific phrases need to be researched, trialled and implemented. This can take time and research to get right but becomes more and more effective with each new phrase you test. As with all things, the harder it is to do, the fewer will be prepared to do it. Less real competition is always a bonus.
Neither of the above long tail search and PPC marketing approaches stand any chance at all, however, unless you have an accurate picture of what is really happening with the visitors to your site. Are they popping in for a quick look and leaving? Are they phoning in as a result of what they see, or buying online? Which search phrases are giving the best results? Take a look at "In the country of the blind", our article on web site analytics, for a look at why this field is key to your online success.
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