I was having a chat with my MSN pal Dan (hello Dan!) the other morning, and our conversation made me realise that although new affiliates very quickly get the “target the long tail” message, this is often not matched by a rapid understanding of 1) what one of those is and 2) WHY they should be used. Although Dan has been involved in the wonderful world of affiliate marketing for 2 years, he confessed that his understanding of the concept has only recently crystalised.
When I realised this, a bit of a light came on in my head about this being one of those “buzz words” that a lot of people use, and only a percentage of them understand. It got me wondering….
What Exactly Might Someone Visualise The First Time They Hear About Long Tail Keywords?
Some kind of exotic reptile? Perchance a magic fairy who deposits cash in your affiliate account? I think the latter of those two is probably how I’d see it, for the long tail is often presented as a sort of holy grail of making money online and effectively channelling relevant traffic to your site.
So What is a Long Tail?
Well, the officially correct definition of a Long Tail keyword would be that it is a keyword phrase made up of 3 or more words that are more specific than a one word search term.
How Do We Use Them?
Well, the first way I think we should use them is to disregard any rigid definition about them. 
For me the key part of the definition is “more specific”. Getting the targeting of your words right will define whether or not your site sinks or swims so targeting outranks Long Tail in the Kirsty McCubbin book of affiliate priorities.
In conclusion – I think “target the long tail” is a bit of red herring and I apologise to everyone I’ve used it on. I think “Highly Targeted” keywords is what I should have been talking about.
Some Examples…
Here are some examples of pairs of non targeted and targeted keywords (I’ve made them seasonally relevant): -
Valentines Keepsake > Silver Last Rolo
Sexy Lingerie > Agent Provocateur Lingerie
Romantic Night Out > Thames Dinner Cruise
Naughty Game > Nookii
Romantic Weekend > Champneys Spa Weekend
As you can see, most are indeed 3 words but I’ve also used one that is a single word and also highly specific.
Why Target Them?
All of the above keyword pairs have one thing in common. I would never, ever target the non specific ones at the start of a new venture. Why? Because as an affiliate I want to put all of my energy into grabbing people when they are as far along the sales journey as possible. I’m not interested in visitors when they’re still researching which valentines keepsake they want to buy their significant other. It’s a waste of my energy and resources. However, once they’ve narrowed down the field to a very specific choice I really want to grab them and get them through to a merchant – I have a much higher chance of grabbing a conversion and the traffic is much easier and cheaper for me to get.
That’s not to say that more general keywords don’t have a space in my marketing mix, they do! However, by starting highly specific and then working my way backwards towards more general keywords I will be able to get a feel for when the more general stuff is not worth my effort. With PPC, I’ll also be able to use the highly targeted keywords that generate better revenue to help subsidise my more generic terms which might just get me onto a higher commission tier.
Keywords Are Well…. Key Really
There is absolutely no point at all to being top of the search engine or PPC pops for terms unless they actually earn you money. It’s vitally important to put yourself in the shoes of the buyer when coming up with your niche keywords and getting them as close to the end of their purchasing journey as possible.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Thanks for the mention Kirsty! It’s just a shame I didn’t understand this when I started my affiliate journey, I would have started down this road sooner.
However, since I tend to take what people say with a touch of salt, I still would have tested it myself rather than just take it at face value (I’m naturally suspicious).
I now finally understand that generic terms rarely convert based on my own statistical analysis.
Probably would have taken me *much* longer to realise my mistake if it wasn’t for your help. Thanks
Dan
January 19th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Thanks for the informative post Kirsty!
One thing that still confuses me (although perhaps I’m actually starting to not be confused whilst I’m writing this…), is how you’d drive traffic to those ‘targetted’ keyword pages. Would you create PPC ads for each keyword and then drive traffic directly to that page, or just wait and rely on google to find you and send the visitors??
Hope all is well with yourself and Duncan too!
Rich.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Thanks Kirtsy, very informative post. I was one of those guys that never clicked on the long tail keyword, took me about a year and a forum post clicked it off for me. Next post, how to grab that long tail traffic easily *hint* keyword research (I used Market Samurai, but the Google Adwords Tool is also great, and free)
January 20th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Hi Kirsty, just wondering your thoughts on Google base/product search. Im fairly sure Im starting to see more product boxes/merchants appearing for a greater number of long tail search terms, for example “ProductName Size Colour”.
As this is a direct merchant relationship and often appearing high in the results – have you found this much of an issue yet so far?
It’s interesting as I guess if every merchant used this well then as affiliates targeting products we might be back to more generic terms. Or perhaps there are enough long tail variations for all.
January 20th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I’m pretty new to this too but the google product boxes are someething I have noticed too, but I have discovered they are a good thing!
I have found is that the people whose stuff you sell as an affiliate are generally still very much focussed on their brand as a whole, not nesc their individual products.
As an example I very quickly managed to outrank a well know fashion brand for several of their product line names in the SERPS just through on-page SEO, ie I did not need to get any backlinks with the terms anchored to rank well.
So it seems to me that because Google does not think there are suitable pages for the long tail query, it essentially makes its own entries with the product boxes.
I have actually used those Google boxes as a barometer for areas to target – if I find a potentially good set of keywords and find that the boxes are near the top in the SERPs, I can be pretty certain it is not being targeted by anyone else and generally I can get in the SERPs pretty quickly.
Kirsty’s point that long tail keywords are good for conversions is also true as these pages have had my best conversion rates (although naturally the traffic levels are much lower)
Also, because I have pages targeted to these keywords my PPC CTR and bounce rates are good and the costs for each click has been dropping while keeping me around the top of the pile and profitable.
The one issue is that it does take a fair amount of work to target a page to something that may not get you a huge amount of traffic. So now all I have to do is work out how to tell which will be the best ones and scale this thing profitably and get more SERPs traffic to my best keywords…!!
Matt
January 21st, 2010 at 7:50 am
@Richard – I usually do both, but with PPC I create highly targeted adgroups around similar search term clusters to help with CTR which also reduces CPC quite nicely!
@Stew – I’ve not found it too much of an issue, still plenty traffic to go round.
@matt Wow, thanks for such an informative and useful response. A great contribution to this thread!