Joe Ward
Measuring Your Long Tail
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on 04-07-2008 at 04:04 PM (6463 Views)
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
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.
- 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
Example B: Long Tail Dominated
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 hits per keyword.
- 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
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!
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