vBulletin SEO Forums

SEO

vBulletin Search Engine Optimization

Buy vBSEO Now! HACKER SAFE certified sites prevent over 99.9% of hacker crime.
Go Back   vBulletin SEO Forums > Blogs > Joe Ward

Enhancing 80 million pages.

Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Rate this Entry

Measuring Your Long Tail

Posted 04-07-2008 at 04:04 PM by Joe Ward
Your search long tail can be measured very easily. The main metric you should be considered with is how many different keywords do you get traffic for?

You can determine this with your Google Analytics account or other stats program. You should also be tracking your process using your Google Webmaster Tools account. Here is how vBSEO customers can make efficient use of their Google Webmaster Tools account.

When this number is growing, you are effectively growing your search long tail.

You can also determine the average # of search hits per term. The lowest this #, the more powerful your search long tail is likely to be.

The search long tail at vBSEO contained more than 18,000 search terms in the last 30 days.

Example A: NOT Long Tail Dominated / Search Traffic for Top Terms
  • You have 100 keywords delivering traffic.
  • Your top 3 keywords get 10,000 hits.
  • Your remaining 97 keywords get 1,000 hits total.
  • 10,000 hits / 100 keywords = 100 hits per keyword
Analysis: The above is a very high # of average hits per keyword, and accurately indicates that this search traffic is more dominated by top keywords than long tail search keywords.

Example B: Long Tail Dominated

  • Now, let's say you have 2,000 keywords delivering traffic and you get 30,000 hits from all keywords.
  • 30,000 hits / 2,000 keywords = 15 hits per keyword
Analysis: The above is a lower average # of hits per keyword, indicating it's more long tail dominated. However, a bigger long tail can lower the average significantly, even as low as 2-5 keywords per keyword.

In fact, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch mentions a long tail search metric indicating:

Top 50% of All Unique Search Keywords = 80% of Total Hits

Keep this in mind when you are looking at your stats the next time. If you see your total # of search keywords growing, you are seeing vBSEO help your forum capitalize on the long tail search phenomenon.

If the trend continues, you are going to be positioned to get *a lot* of traffic!

Posted in Uncategorized
Views 2103 Comments 7 Email Blog Entry
Total Comments 7

Comments

  1. Old
    Loco's Avatar
    permalink
    Posted 04-07-2008 at 04:54 PM by Loco Loco is offline
  2. Old
    Joe Ward's Avatar
    Determing the Size of Your Search Long Tail in Google Analytics
    • Login to analytics.google.com
    • Click on "Traffic Sources"
    • Click on "Keywords"
    The summary of the search keywords sending you traffic will be displayed.

    You can change the date rate to determine the size of your long tail (that is, the # of keywords you received hits for) during that time period.
    permalink
    Posted 06-02-2008 at 07:31 PM by Joe Ward Joe Ward is offline
  3. Old
    Search sent 66,565 total visits via 37,931 keywords. how long is that?

    The most visits coming via 1 keyword are 552.
    permalink
    Posted 06-05-2008 at 09:33 PM by Milad Milad is offline
    Updated 06-06-2008 at 01:09 AM by Milad
  4. Old
    Joe Ward's Avatar
    That is 37,931 keywords long.
    permalink
    Posted 06-06-2008 at 12:35 AM by Joe Ward Joe Ward is offline
  5. Old
    I have 66,565 / 37,931 = 1.75 hits per keyword ... is that good?
    permalink
    Posted 06-06-2008 at 01:11 AM by Milad Milad is offline
  6. Old
    CoryHawk's Avatar
    Search sent 33,197 total visits via 10,928 keywords for me.
    permalink
    Posted 06-24-2008 at 01:38 AM by CoryHawk CoryHawk is offline
  7. Old
    Hittail is very useful
    permalink
    Posted 09-05-2008 at 09:29 PM by blacknight blacknight is offline
 
Total Trackbacks 0

Trackbacks


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:37 AM.


Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.0 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
SEO by vBSEO 3.2.5 ©2008, Crawlability, Inc.