Long Tail Keywords?

[Airik]

Throughout my course of Internet Marketing study I've pretty much came to the conclusion of two things. The MAJORITY of e-books are garbage and can be found free throughout forums, blogs, newsletters, etc and long tail keywords is the grade A keywords to hit.

However, I've been recently reading about PPC Advertising and I reread a book that I purchased a long time ago, along with the stickies, and a couple other things and it appears to me as if Long Tail Keywords are not as good to hit in PPC. So basically what I'm trying to figure out is if Long Tail Keywords are viable in PPC.

I just recently read a piece of information that suggests that Google is hitting Long Tail Keywords for $7.00+ a click. I don't see how this could possibly be true since in my mind long tail keywords = less competition = less bids for certain keywords = less cost per click = higher converting traffic because the keywords are not "broad".

The Zac Johnson sticky suggests that new PPC users should be hitting broad terms such as "Weight Loss" or "Lose Weight" but isn't this just a waste of money? How do I know that people searching for "Weight Loss" are not looking for a FREE guide a Diet book and my PPC shows a Exercise Book? Sure I could split test these terms and discover which would give a higher ROI but if I'm just starting out I'd like to hit a Higher Targeted group of interested individuals.

So basically what it all boils down to is the question are long tail keywords still viable? A lot of the actual "respected" websites and marketers appear to deem them not worthy...unless I have just missed the boat.

Thanks always
I'll try to dig deeper to the root of the matter!
But any PPC marketers thoughts would be great!

 

[Linda Buquet]

This is actually a more complicated Q than you might imagine because there are various options and lots of gray areas in between. And always the answer is "it depends" because the best option varies based on your market, your skill set and who's giving the advice. (And what they are trying to sell you.)

1st off yes long tails are suggested because they are cheaper typically. When you talk about $7 per click, lots were even charged $10 per click. Those were Google slaps for people who had really low quality scores.

There are people that say to bid on a ton of low cost long tails and they add up. But in my experience that does not work - at least not in my market. I just don't get any clicks on the long tails and get all my clicks on my main KW.
But I imagine in other markets long tails work. Like in dating for instance there are probably a ton of viable long tail combinations I imagine.

I would NEVER recommend a newbie target broad competitive phrases like "Weight Loss" or "Lose Weight." That's just a crazy way to loose a bunch of money. I don't think most of the pros even go that broad.

I suggest for starters put your primary KWs in adgroups and keep your long tails in separate groups - don't mix long tails in with your main KW.

One thing that's certain, is you need to take the best advice and then test, tweak and test some more.

 

[Airik]

This is actually a more complicated Q than you might imagine because there are various options and lots of gray areas in between. And always the answer is "it depends" because the best option varies based on your market, your skill set and who's giving the advice. (And what they are trying to sell you.)

1st off yes long tails are suggested because they are cheaper typically. When you talk about $7 per click, lots were even charged $10 per click. Those were Google slaps for people who had really low quality scores.

There are people that say to bid on a ton of low cost long tails and they add up. But in my experience that does not work - at least not in my market. I just don't get any clicks on the long tails and get all my clicks on my main KW.
But I imagine in other markets long tails work. Like in dating for instance there are probably a ton of viable long tail combinations I imagine.

I would NEVER recommend a newbie target broad competitive phrases like "Weight Loss" or "Lose Weight." That's just a crazy way to loose a bunch of money. I don't think most of the pros even go that broad.

I suggest for starters put your primary KWs in adgroups and keep your long tails in separate groups - don't mix long tails in with your main KW.

One thing that's certain, is you need to take the best advice and then test, tweak and test some more.

Yeah I kind of assumed it was going to be a not so straightforward answer because there are a lot of variables to include, but I was trying to get a general census I guess haha.

So pretty much now PPC revolves around the quality score of the Adwords Account now compared to earlier years? I guess that is where the majority of these PPCers are kinda getting at that I read about. Makes sense if that's true.

Thanks for the quick reply
As you can tell my e-mail strategy got scrapped
Going to begin reading some more the goal is to read and reteach myself my first true love! PPC! I was too scared at first to attempt it but I think I can do good with it now with the amount of knowledge I've acquired. Hopefully I'll get my first campaign running this weekend. That's my goal! Wish me luck!

 

[Linda Buquet]

I would really not start with PPC. Why not start with bum marketing just while you are learning. Not the email part, just the article marketing and learning to drive traffic. Then like you said do PPC later after you learn the affiliate side of the game a little bit better?

If you really want to start with PPC then you need to take a free class that's launching next week.
I'll blog or post about it probably.

 

[djbaxter]

Another take on long tail keywords

Why it Makes Sense to Target Longtail Keywords First
SEOBook.com
Feb 20, 2009

When launching a brand new website in a competitive marketplace you have a lot of network effects working against you. Your competition has years of conversion data, an older trusted site, tons of content, and thousands of organic inbound links. Try to beat them right from the start for the most potent high-value keywords and you will likely fail.

Any new website has opportunity cost. One of my first goals with a new site is to get it to self-sustaining while it is still growing rapidly. In doing that, I can afford to lock up that capital with no returns because I know I am buying market-share in a fairly organic manner, and few competitors will operate at that strategic level or see me coming. Whenever the site has enough exposure then advertising (and other promotional spending) can be cut as needed.

If I target the most competitive keywords first (without a strong competitive advantage - like a network of sites to build off, an old trusted website, a huge brand, or a strong domain name) then I might never get to self-sustaining. There is no award, little traffic, and virtually no value for ranking on page 2 or page 3, even if it is for an exceptionally competitive and high traffic keyword like credit cards.

Longtail keywords are easier to rank for. If you can pick off mid-tier phrases and rank at the top of the search results then you can build a revenue stream from them, which can be reinvested to further buy marketshare and distribution.

There is more value in...

• using your core pages (and link anchor text) to target lower competition variations of your core keywords (like best credit cards or compare credit cards) rather than targeting just the core competitive keyword credit cards
• ensuring that each particular deep page is well optimized and can pull in relevant traffic

than there is *almost* ranking for credit cards.

...more

 

[Linda Buquet]

Just found this. <a href="http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2009/02/hitwise-long-tail-queries-more-popular.html">Hitwise: Multi-Word Queries Growing in Popularity</a>

"According to Hitwise: The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of 5+ words in length, have increased 10 percent comparing January 2009 to January 2008. The same time period showed that shorter search queries, averaging those 1 to 4 words in length, have decreased 2 percent."

 

[djbaxter]

I think this is a natural consequence of the exponentially increasing number of web pages and the similarly increasing capacity of search engines to index those pages. Searching has become a process of funneling down until the searcher obtains information specifically relevant to his query.

I suspect that among the first words to be added to increase the specificity of a search are often those related to geographical location, i.e., city, town, state, etc., which is a factor that should be considered when optimizing page titles and on page keywords.