Search Engine Optimization: Strategies to Increase Traffic for Long-tail Keywords

Though much has been written, little is understood about the “long tail” of natural search. This is the long-term value of keywords that send shoppers to your Web site -- but do so infrequently. These are the 80 of the 20/80 rule: the 80 percent of your keywords that drive just 20 percent of your traffic. But the value of these keywords can be greatly underestimated, according to a new whitepaper from Web marketing firm Netconcepts.

Total market potential for unbranded keyword traffic exceeds 7 million searches per month, -- roughly 100 searches for every unique page, 38 times greater than total brand searches, the paper’s authors write.

Below are a few tactics Netconcepts recommends to optimize your site to capitalize on these long-tail keywords:

Mass optimization: One of the simplest means of increasing search traffic throughout your site, according to Netconcepts, is to rewrite URLs from complex and dynamic to simple and static. Although dynamically produced Web pages often make content more relevant to the user, these pages are harder for search engines to index.

Copy optimization: Although copy optimization often is considered tedious, it’s effective. Netconcepts suggests a scalable alternative to rewriting copy on every page of your site. Lightly touch key elements, such as title tags, on thousands of pages in short amounts of time, then check for changes in search traffic to those pages. Expand and rework the copy on pages that have achieved little change in search traffic, unless the estimated ROI for those changes exceeds the worth of those changes. This, Netconcepts writes, eliminates the need to arbitrarily write new copy without informed selection criteria or test results.

For more information about search’s “long tail,” visit www.netconcepts.com/longtail.htm