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Joe Ward

A Long Tail Lesson: Why Does Every Webmaster Insist on Ranking #1 for "Widget"? Why Are They Dead Wrong?

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Joe Ward
, 05-27-2008 at 11:54 PM (5251 Views)
[FONT=Arial]Most likely, [B][COLOR=Blue]YOU[/COLOR][/B], like many of us at one time or another, [B]are guilty[/B] of this:

You build a forum about cars, and you want to rank #1 for the term "cars", right? Or a forum about computers, and you want to be #1 for "PC", sound familiar?

There was a time (over 10 years ago now) when you would have a better shot at competing for top terms on the Internet. Search engines were much easier to manipulate, and the content explosion was just beginning.

[B]That time is over.[/B] Search engine algorithms are getting tighter, and it would require a top blackhat SEO expert and a *WHOLE LOT* of resources to even get close to the top of the results for the Web's top search terms. Nowadays, hundreds of thousands of webmasters have realized that [B][COLOR=Blue]a new business model[/COLOR][/B] was emerging, and jumped into the [B]forum industry[/B].

They now start and manage communities that continue [B]self-perpetuating[/B], that is, building themselves up with new activity and content like armies of rapidly reproducing ants... albeit really smart ants with computers and Internet connections. We refer to this as[B] user generated content[/B].

However, given what we now know about [B]the long tail[/B], would you be surprised to know that most forum admins are still taking a 10 year old approach and targeting traffic for their top, highly competitive terms?

In fact, let's not even call them [B]highly competitive terms [/B]anymore. Let's call them [COLOR=Blue][B]dead terms [/B][/COLOR]!

That is, they might as well be dead to you, disowned from your interest. Why? Because if you are a mere mortal on the Internet, you are not going to get even near page #1 of the SERPs for the Web's most highly searched, highly sought after, and most lucrative terms! Forget them. They're [B]dead terms[/B].

Correct formula? [COLOR=Blue][B]Focus on the search long tail[/B][/COLOR], and choose terms to target in your link building campaigns in which you have more reasonable expectations of moderate success.
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  1. mdvaldosta's Avatar
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    In most cases, I find the best approach is to target around a 50% mix of your top keywords and keyphrases. Inbound links with the anchor "apples" will still help the page rank for "red apples" as well... even if the competition is too stiff to reasonably reach near the top of the first page it's still helpful for other key phrases containing "apples." A reasonably good mix of various key terms to the homepage / inner pages is the most natural way to obtain and maintain strong serps, so as you say most webmasters neglect the long tail but even though the single keyword rankings may be out of reach targetting them can have a flowing effect on all pages of the site for long terms containing that keyword as well. That's my experience anyways.
  2. Joe Ward's Avatar
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    That's an excellent observation. Basically, keyword variations that are *related* to your main keywords used in your link building campaign may be better able to rank.

    And that's really a fundamental principle in how people should build out there niche content. Start with the core thematic ideas, and branch out to more specific related topics/keywords.

    The is a little bit like building a "guided long tail". A little planning goes a long way, and the effect cascades into the quality of the user generated content that follows.
  3. talaconheo's Avatar
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    Very excellent, thanks

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