For those wondering of my SEO research: it's not over yet but I will keep you posted … don't worry.
Do look at this video as next comments focus on it.
Nancy Andrews is one of'em big shot link builders who featured the first StomperNET and seems to be taken into consideration by some. I'm not among them but this will be another story. So this lady has ninja link building skills (the expression always 'laughs' me to death) and she's made this video about longtail where she says exactly the opposite of everyone else.
I'm sure you made your own idea by listening to that video but I'll cut things short:
She thinks there's no point in optimizing for long tail as the tools for finding long-tail keyphrases are distorted and the results will not be those expected.
First I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's a a marketer and a good way to 'turn off' your competition is by feeding them FUD and telling them to aim high (for short keyphrases) get discouraged and drop out. Few can overcome failure. So it all might be mind games but I just don't want you, my readers, to fall for them.
She's half right. And she's right about tools for finding longtails and distortions in results and your expectations about the outcome. But she's so wrong about the optimizing for longtails side. But to understand where she goes wrong we need to understand what long tails mean.
Much more to come on longtails but this is the shorter version. The longtails SEO crash course.
Most call'em longtails but I prefer to call them smart searches. The long tails are used by smart people to actually find what they are looking for. If we split the keyphrases people use as search engine queries we could divide them into two categories:
Generics are very short keyphrases (1-3 words) and are so generic that if you were to see the conversion only based on them you will see they are way less profitable then the longer keyphrases which I call targeted. Targeted searches are searches more refined which, if they pull you out as a result, will have a much higher probability of conversion.
So a Generic is online casino but what does the visitor want? Play free, Gamble, Read News, Learn To Play, Start His Own? But if you compare to the targeted search : online casino free games country_name flash you will see the ones searching for the targeted keyphrase have something in mind: they wanna play but don't wanna pay … at least not for now ;)
This is the difference between long tails and short tails. Long tails have a larger probability to convert and are easier to achieve.
I get a lot of searches leading to global variables in php. And this is one of them: make variable available to php functions. This is a very good targeted search phrase with a very high probability of quickly bringing the right result. But do you think I ever optimized for it?
From Nancy's point of view optimizing for the long tails means link-building for the long tails. Which is not smart and usually not possible. Link building optimization means getting the keyphrase as anchor text. How would long tail searches look as anchor texts? Not great. So her mistake is thinking you need to optimize for the long tail.
No you don't. Each page you write (SEO writing not what I do here :)) aims for one or two shorter keyphrases: 2-3 words. So those keyphrases you aim for will have to be in you anchor text along with some 'fat' (words added just to variate but not alter meaning of anchor text). But long tail optimization is always an on-page factor. The better copy you write the more traffic you can get from long tails.
So don't aim to optimize your anchor text for long tails. Link build with shorter tails in mind but write rich copy that will include words that will form the long tail. Longtails are on page optimization and there's where they should be. Links with too many words in anchor don't smell natural at all.
How to find the longtails, optimize for them and more on gurus such as: Nancy Andrews … in future episodes.
