Ya, ya…it’s Father’s Day and there is no way that I should be blogging at this time but, like so many of you out there, I can’t quit thinking about SEM tactics!As the picture depicts above, today’s topic will be long tail economics.  For those green thumbs out there that have never heard this term thrown around, I believe you will enjoy this entry.Whether you have been managing your search campaigns for years, in the initial stages of keyword research, or just learning about paid search, never forget the phrase long tail economics.  It is the strategy that every major search agency should implement.  So…what does it mean and how does it work?  It can be best understood by the below real life scenario that our company has been faced with multiple times.
Lately, several prospective clients have approached our company with one two part goal in mind: “Get me to #1 on Google under my top 5-10 terms…no matter what it cost me.”  As a marketer and not a salesperson, there is only one logical response that I advise our salespeople to move forward with: “Pride comes before the fall.”  (I’ve found that biblical satire fits well in a greedy and egotistical business world.)  I go onto explain that their egotistical desire to dominate their industry is going to lead down a path of search engine marketing destruction and dissatisfaction.  In addition, I inform the salespeople to begin packing up their presentation materials and boldly and sarcastically say, “I appreciate your time but our agency is built on strategy and cost-effectiveness…not blowing your money.”  After the prospective client is intrigued through the dramatic technique, the salesperson will go onto explain that by targeting thousands of lower trafficked terms, our company could drive just as much traffic to their site as targeting the 5 or 10 highest trafficked terms.  Looking at the above graphic (x axis being the search term and y axis being the amount of traffic driven by that search term), think of the darker shaded section as a dragon’s head and torso…or the 5 or 10 highest trafficked terms and think of the lighter section as the dragon’s tail…or thousands of lower trafficked terms.  The dragon’s tail is never-ending, as is the potential number of terms that a consumer’s mind may come up with.  The volume received by the tail will almost always outweigh the volume obtained by the dragon’s head and torso. Now let me take it a step further…a step that most agencies forget.  Long tail economics in regards to paid search does not stop with keyword selection…it must be applied to search engine selection as well.  Companies and agencies make the drastic error of only targeting the Big 3 [Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (Live)]…the dragon’s head and torso; the long tail (Ask, AOL, Business.com, and dozen of others) does not even enter their mind.So, where do economics come into play…try taking your paid search cost-per-lead (CPL) from $50 to $25 or less as placements on less competitive keywords and engines cost a fraction of top placement on Google under the most popular term in your industry.  Implementing long tail economics in your search campaign will ensure a positive experience, as well as ensure that you do not waste thousands of dollars trying to beat the engines quality scores and get to 1st place.