SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Ignore the Tail at Your Peril! from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

The long tail can be applied to both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) management alike.

I have seen many clients and SEO/PPC agencies alike who target the “fat head” and/or “chunky middle” (see the video for an explanation), even sometimes just the “fat head” – but they do not consider or even recognize the long tail.

As Rand explains, up to 75% of all traffic can come from the long tail. Therefore if you are only targeting the “fat head” and/or “chunky middle”, you are missing out on most of the traffic that could be coming to your website, and the most relevant traffic at that!

Yahoo have lost 15%, MSN have lost 21% and Ask has also lost 21% over last year.

Searchers are also now using longer search queries when searching for what they want on the web. What does this mean? This means that the average searcher now knows (better) how to use a search engine to find the results that he/she is searching for.

Longer search queries are becoming more popular as year over year increases (and decreases) show just that.

• 1 word search queries have dropped by 3%
• 2 word search queries have dropped by 5%
• 3 word search queries have remained stable
• 4 word search queries have increased by 2%
• 5 word search queries have increased by 6%
• 6 word search queries have increased by 8%
• 7 word search queries have increased by 12%
• 8 word search queries have increased by 22%

This means that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) management have become a lot more difficult as search queries become longer and therefore more varied.

Paid advertising using keyword targeting will become more difficult as accounts become larger due to increased keyword numbers. As keyword phrases become more targeted, so too must paid advertising campaigns such as Google AdWords, in order to maximise quality score, reduce Cost Per Click (CPC), and thereby increase Return On Investment (ROI).

What effect this will have on Google’s ranking system (quality score) may be questionable as Google may not be able to determine which advertisers are keeping their AdWords campaigns targeted and therefore relevant to users’ queries. This is something that Google will have to think about before implementing this feature.

However, it is most likely that paid search without keywords won’t be happening for a while yet as the current system is working very well and currently there is no need for change. Change now may upset the apple cart and Google wouldn’t want that considering that 99% of their revenue comes from paid advertising.

Hal explains that advertisers want to show relevant ads (most of the time), users want to see relevant ads, and Google wants the best for both advertisers and users.

Hal explains how the maximum Cost Per Click (CPC) is not necessarily what the advertiser will pay.

Hal continues to explain quality score. The most important factor is Click Through Rate (CTR), followed by relevancy (how well ads relate to keywords bid upon), and last, the landing page quality in relation to both ads and keywords bid upon.

Quality score ensures that the most relevant advertiser is ranked first and therefore gets the most visibility. Quality Score also ensures that the price paid per click is reduced for the most relevant advertiser.

Watch the video below for a clear, precise explanation:

Therefore the main focus of Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click marketing is on keyword phrases. Keyword phrases consist of numerous keywords stringed together. Usually when we type our search query into, say, Google, we will start off with something basic like ‘books’. If that keyword is too broad we may refine it by adding another keyword, ‘books hong kong’. Further we could add to that ‘dean koontz books hong kong’. In fact, the number of keywords strung together could be infinite, but usually we will look at a maximum of about 5 keywords in a keyword phrase as users are less likely to use more than that.

When it comes to optimizing ones website, or managing a Pay Per Click account such as Google AdWords, these keyword phrases come into play.

With Search Engine Optimization it is highly important to have these keyword phrases visible throughout your site. This may mean:

• Keywords in your domain name eg. www.hiking-hong-kong.com
• Keywords in your Title and Meta tags (coding tags used to describe the content within your website)
• Keywords in your website content
• Keywords in your image description tags
• Keywords in the links that point to your page from other websites eg. Hong Kong Hiking Trails

The more relevant your website looks to a search engine in terms of the keyword phrase a user searches for, the more likely that your website will be listed higher in the search engine results.

However it is not as simple as just adding keywords wherever you can at a whim. Careful placement has to take place to ensure that there are not too many keywords used on a website. In the past, spammers or Black Hat SEOs used to take advantage of search engines by inserting hundreds of keywords into a page to trick the search engines into ranking their websites above the rest. These days, as a result, search engines are much more diligent.

Consequently, Keyword Density plays a big role alongside the use of keyword phrases to make sure that there are not too many incidences of a keyword in any particular area, which, if too many exist, may result in a penalty consisting of a drop in rankings on a search engine rather than that which was sought, a rise in rankings. Search Engines are very strict now, as they want to provide the best user experience by providing the best search results. 

Similarly, Keyword Phrases play the most important role in Pay Per Click marketing. Search Engines use Pay Per Click engines such as Google’s AdWords to list sponsored links on their search results as well as on content sites. These sponsored links (ads) are triggered to appear when a user types in a keywords phrase in a search engine that matches the keyword phrase bid upon by the advertiser. This also works with content placement ads (ads that appear within the content of other websites) in that a site about ‘dean koontz books’ will trigger your ad selling ‘dean koontz books’ if the content on that site mentions Dean Koontz and if you have also bid upon that keyword phrase.

With Google AdWords, for example, different factors play a role in optimization such as:

• Campaigns focused on certain demographics (in relation to where your product/service is and which languages you provide it in)
• Ad Groups focused on different keyword groups eg. Dean Koontz, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle
• Keyword phrases related to these specific Ad Groups
• Exact Match, Phrase Match, Broad Match or Negative Match keyword phrases (different ways to bid on a keyword phrase depending on the variations of what a user may actually type into a search engine)
• Ad Text and the use of keyword phrases used therein
• Keyword Phrases used on your website (where your ad points to) in relation to the keyword phrases you are bidding on

In both cases, Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click marketing, Keywords or Keyword Phrases to be more precise, play one of the most important roles. Therefore it is paramount that you get this right when either establishing a Search Engine Optimization campaign or in targeting the correct clients in a Pay Per Click engine. Because if the keywords you target are incorrect, then your entire campaign will be worthless and your Return On Investment (ROI) will be nothing as you will be targeting the wrong group of people.

Quality Score is Google’s way of determining how relevant your ads are to your competitors and to what your are selling or offering to your clients. Quality score is used in Google AdWords to ensure that the highest bidder on any particular keyword, may not in fact always achieve the first place ranking in search engine results. Instead, certain other factors are taken into consideration in order to determine the order of paid listings in Google. These factors are:

• The keywords you are bidding on and their relevance to your ads and the content on your website.
• The landing pages you are using and its relevance to your keywords.
• The keywords that you use in your ad text.
• Targeted campaigns that focus on a specific set of keywords.

Therefore by making your campaigns highly targeted in terms of a specific set of keywords, ad group text, landing pages and campaigns you can significantly increase your quality score and thereby decrease the amount needed to bid on any particular keyword, compared with that of your competitors. It is therefore very important to have a professionally setup Google AdWords account to ensure you are getting the highest possible Return On Investment.

Visit our website for more information on our Pay Per Click management service.

• Do you really know what you are doing? 
• Do you know if your account is performing to the best of its ability? 
• Are you achieving maximum Return On Investment (ROI)? 
• Are you spending your money wisely or are you throwing it down the drain? 
• Are you targeting the correct audience? 

These questions and more need to be answered. Google AdWords has made it easy for you to run your own AdWords account, however when managed correctly, a lot of work, time and effort must be put in to make in work in harmony and achieve maximum ROI. It must be monitored often to make sure that it is still performing well as there are always new advertisers entering the market and old ones leaving, thereby changing the bid prices and dynamics of your advertising placements.

If you know Google AdWords inside out and if you have the time to manage your own account, then yes, you can manage your Google AdWords account. However if you don’t, then I would only recommend doing so if you don’t mind throwing money down the drain, because that is exactly what you will be doing. As well as making it easy for you to manage your own account, Google AdWords also makes it easy for you to spend your money, and they encourage you to do so through services such as advertising on the content network which may result in an extremely low conversion rate when you may be better off sticking to the search network only.

Further questions worth asking:

1. Do you know how to use negative keywords, exact match keywords, phrase match keywords and broad match keywords correctly?
2. Do you know how to use day-parting?
3. Do you know how to target users in specific areas/countries?
4. Do you know how to write effective ad text?
5. Do you know which keywords potential clients are using to find your products/services? Do you know how to find these keywords?
6. Do you know which landing pages to target?
7. Do you know how to setup keywords, ad groups, campaigns and accounts effectively?
8. Do you know the benefits of both advertising on the search network and the content network?
9. Do you know how to do A/B testing?
10. Do you know how to choose the best performing ads?
11. Do you know how to achieve a high quality score?
12. Do you know how to maximize Return On Investment?
13. Do you know how to perform conversion tracking?
14. Do you know how to use Google Analytics to measure your account performance?
15. Do you really know what you are doing? Are you confident in your ability to manage your own Google AdWords Account?

If you think you’d be better off having us manage your Google AdWords account then visit our website page on our Google AdWords Pay Per Click management service.