by 44 people |
How you can use the Long Tail concept and apply it to your lenses
A Long Tail keyword is something that, instead of being a keyword like 'myspace', is a keyword like 'is myspace free to use in china'.
In short, Long Tail concept means that the majority of your lens visitors likely come from people typing in things that very few people type in compared to the search terms that lots of people type in.
('The Long Tail' is the title of a book written by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine)
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Example Visitor Numbers
An example day might be this: 150 people who search google for 'myspace friends' visit my lens (amazingly, as of this moment, my lens comes up 5th!).On the same day 200 people might find my lens via different Long Tail keywords, and each one of them might search for a long tail keyword like 'adding myspace friends faster', 'how can i get more myspace friends', 'finding a good myspace friend adder' etc.
The number of visitors arriving at my page via different long tail keywords, it is said, out-number those arriving there by a non-long tail keywords.
Edit: I predicted this, and as soon as the new viewable stats pages were available for our lenses were introduced I logged in straight away and checked the stats of the lens I'm talking about here. And it was EXACTLY as I had predicted! The only difference was about 6 visitors. Woohoo!
Example Sales Numbers
Basically, the yellow part of the graph is larger 
than the green part.
An employee of Amazon explained it in a simple (yet at first mind-bending) way:
"We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday."
[Go on - read that bit again!]
To explain the "long tail" again using Amazon as the example:
The bestselling books on Amazon make up a very modest amount of their total book sales. The rest of the sales come from niche books that are able to be found by everyone, all round the country/world. It allows the people with less popular interests to find what they want (unlike a high street bookstore), and so the long tail comes into play. The books they sell on NON-popular topics outnumbers the books that are their mega-bestsellers.
The internet makes everything on the "long tail" easier to find.
than the green part.An employee of Amazon explained it in a simple (yet at first mind-bending) way:
"We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday."
[Go on - read that bit again!]
To explain the "long tail" again using Amazon as the example:
The bestselling books on Amazon make up a very modest amount of their total book sales. The rest of the sales come from niche books that are able to be found by everyone, all round the country/world. It allows the people with less popular interests to find what they want (unlike a high street bookstore), and so the long tail comes into play. The books they sell on NON-popular topics outnumbers the books that are their mega-bestsellers.
The internet makes everything on the "long tail" easier to find.
So how can all this help you get more visitors?
Don't try too hard to target a word like broadband or myspace or computer. Or even cheap broadband or myspace friends or best computer.Just make a high quality lens that will help people.
And be genuine about it. And if you're writing about a specific topic, you should get the visitors you want.
People will find your lens if it is on-topic, truthful, genuine, and worth reading.
If it is, don't worry for a single second about trying to get your lens to rank high for certain keywords.
It's all in the Long Tail!
Any Advice To Share? Comments?
Would you like to add anything to what I've written?
This here is your space!
Go wild:
submit
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- QueSea QueSea Jul 26, 2009 @ 5:49 pm
- This is very interesting. it looks like writing about things that are in the long tail are something akin to outliers and likely to be niche targets. I'm not sure I got this right, but you've sure got me thinking.
Thanks for a great lens.
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- queenofthedreamers queenofthedreamers Feb 2, 2009 @ 10:12 am
- Wow! Once again your experience is making my learning go so much faster. Thank you!
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- Gail47 Gail47 Feb 2, 2009 @ 7:32 am
- Lewis, Thanks for the great information. Very helpful for those of us who are still new to these terms. So many terms floating around on the web - unless someone understands what is being said, they lose the point of the article or quote.
I have read several of your lens and really appreciate your honesty and ability to clearly explain what you are talking about. So many others want to hold back information. It's really a wonderful thing that you do as you share what you have learned. I think, in the long run, sharing detailed information helps all of us.
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- MiaBellezza MiaBellezza Jan 15, 2009 @ 1:21 am
- Great advice Lewis - 5* and lensrolled!
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- LaraineRose LaraineRose Nov 14, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
- Thank you. I'm going to go to my lenses and try your suggestions, right away. You ARE the bestest!
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- ProAffiliateOnline ProAffiliateOnline Oct 27, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
- Great lens, thanks for making this computer information easy to understand.
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- Armanproactive Armanproactive Oct 16, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
- Great lens Lewis,you explained very well the concept of Long Tail & how to apply it accurately to squidoo lenses.
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- Armanproactive Armanproactive Oct 16, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
- Great lens Lewis,you explained very well the concept of Long Tail & how to apply it accurately to squidoo lenses.
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- IM-Mom IM-Mom Aug 7, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
- Hi Lewis - another great lens you crafted here. :) Long tail keywords are SOOOO important, and your info is quite helpful. Thanks!
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- RenegadeAussie RenegadeAussie Jul 21, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
- So it is not just Kangaroos that are making use of their Long Tail. Thanks for yet another informative lens.
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- RentMyGarden RentMyGarden Jul 7, 2008 @ 9:15 am
- Great longtail explaination. *****5 Stars! Thanks to Squidoo Stats information I find most of my lens visitors are finding me using longtail keywords.
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- poddys poddys Jun 9, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
- Great lens. I find some long tail strings generating traffic to my lenses as well. I will be adapting my tags likewise. 5***** for all the tips.
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- pre2master pre2master Jun 8, 2008 @ 11:37 am
- Thank to your Idea I will find more time to read this longtails books. You gave me a brilliant information
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- GoddessMari GoddessMari May 27, 2008 @ 11:49 am
- Awesome lens. Thanks for sharing your knowledge in a way we can all understand.
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- Gregory-and-Shelina Gregory-and-Shelina May 9, 2008 @ 1:15 am
- This is certainly something worth trying. I've been chasing my tail as they say to learn tagging. Hopefully I won't be doing that for long.. Thank you.. Shelina
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- Dogs-B-Fit Dogs-B-Fit Apr 29, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
- Thank you ,great help-John
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- steve40004 steve40004 Apr 28, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
- Wow, this is a superbly useful Lens. I'll be around a lot.
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- Candice_Lee Candice_Lee Apr 18, 2008 @ 8:50 am
- Thanks for sharing and helping me to understand how important the "long tail keywords" really are. This all makes great sense and I'm going to start applying it today!
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- AbundantlyEntitled AbundantlyEntitled Apr 12, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
- This is extremely helpful. Thanks so much!
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- Trioman Trioman Apr 2, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
- Great explanation! I will now put it to the test. Keep up the good work!
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- richiewest richiewest Apr 2, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
- Good clear explanation of long tail keywords, but that Amazon stats stuff sent me cross-eyed! I now need a lie down.
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- gemjane gemjane Mar 29, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
- Very helpful to a really new Newbie! Thanks, Lewis, for taking the time to share your expertise.
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- mulberry mulberry Mar 23, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
- Excellent and helpful page as always.
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- jorgemv jorgemv Mar 22, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
- Thanks for not only defining a hard concept to grasp, but also for illustrating it so well. It all begins to sink in now.
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- Norbert_Sczepanski Norbert_Sczepanski Oct 24, 2007 @ 2:43 am
- hi, ok finally I understood this concept.
Thanks to YOU :-)
Norbert Sczepanski
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- Christopher_Scott Christopher_Scott Oct 12, 2007 @ 10:07 am
- Lewis,
Another great lens on how to kick butt at squidoo! Keep up the hard work! Come over to A DAY OF HOPE
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- Oct 6, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
- Another great lens with useful info. Keep them coming!
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- JoanMarie JoanMarie Sep 21, 2007 @ 1:31 am
- Thanks. That was a clear explanation. Cleared it up for me.
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- fefe fefe Sep 11, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
- Lensrolled you and thanks for always sharing your knowledge with everyone!
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- webseitler webseitler Aug 21, 2007 @ 8:47 am
- I love the new stats pages and that amazing little plus sign button for adding tags. But I do hesitate to add too many tags that I think are too individual. Like you said, I'm not going to get hung up on it. ;) Great lens!
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- rentablogger rentablogger Aug 10, 2007 @ 1:59 am
- The long tail is here to stay (as if it just came in) ;)
Just write in your natural language, squeeze in some synonyms and word variations and you can get found on more terms that you thought was possible. Amazing quote from the Amazon executive.
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- WhitePineLane WhitePineLane Jul 31, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
- Great lens, MrLewisSmile! Helpful explanation of a concept I didn't know much about! I'm off to long-tail some of my lenses!
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- LindaJM LindaJM Jul 31, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
- I got a few good ideas... thanks for the inspirations.
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- brettkun brettkun Jul 20, 2007 @ 10:06 am
- I'm still stuck on backlinking, long tail keywords, I got one at least 13 words faithfully producing 1 visitor per month
but I was hoping for the traffic http://squidoo.com/essentialjapanesevocabulary/
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- MrLewisSmile MrLewisSmile Jul 20, 2007 @ 5:10 am
- Thanks for the comments so far, you cool people!
And Jack, how does it look on your lenses?
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- ViqiFrench ViqiFrench Jul 17, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
- Great explanation. Been wondering for months exactly what this 'long tail' business was all about!
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- jackclee jackclee Jul 14, 2007 @ 6:31 am
- Do you think the current Squidoo lens of close to 200,000
behave the way you described? That is the total visitors to the bottom 90% ranked lens is greater than the total visitors to the top 10%? I would be very surprised.
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- kalanui kalanui Jul 6, 2007 @ 12:03 pm
- Excellent lens, as usual, Lewis. 5 stars for you. I added you to my favs and lensroll too.
Aloha,
June
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- flaminglacer flaminglacer Jul 2, 2007 @ 1:54 am
- An excellent explanation of a subject that baffles alot of folks.....
A Squid Angel has passed your way...
~?~
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- Margaret_Schaut Margaret_Schaut Jul 1, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
- Good lens, Lewis, and a very clean explanation of the long and short of it!
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