Short vs Long-Tail — What to Optimize Your SEO For?
Chart courtesy of Eric Stegemann at Tribus
When determining your SEO strategy, one of the first things you need to determine is what keywords you are going to optimize your site for. There are two primary schools of thought — focus on either a) the long-tail (a term coined by Chris Anderson from Wired) or b) the short-tail. We all know there is massive consumer traffic searching for keywords such as “Seattle real estate” and “Chicago real estate” — this is called the SHORT-TAIL (left side of above chart). However, there are also consumers searching for the web for terms like “2 bedroom condos in Queen Anne” and “mobile homes for sale in Auburn” — this is called the LONG-TAIL (right side of chart above).
This is a topic that has come up at every RE BarCamp that I’ve been to over the past few months, so thought it was worth a post here to discuss the long vs short tail debate as it relates to real estate. In the real estate space, it all comes down to converting traffic into clients and there are certainly arguments to be made in favor of both schools of thought:
Primary Short-tail benefit:
- More potential consumer traffic to potentially capture and convert into leads
Primary Long-tail benefit:
- MUCH higher conversion rates
As an agent or broker, is it really worth your time and effort to compete for the highly competitive short-tail traffic from an SEO perspective? Particularly for major metro areas (top 50 MSAs), the top 10-20 results on Google for “geo + real estate” and “geo + homes for sale” are usually dominated by aggregators or media sites that produce a lot of content and/or do a lot more than provide real estate information. As a result, their sites likely have a substantial number of inbound links –and hence, more SEO juice to distribute throughout their site. Why not instead target the less competitive, but arguable more valuable, long-tail SEO terms? After all, agents and brokers make money from selling houses, not from attracting as much traffic as possible to your web site — if your traffic doesn’t convert to clients (side note: remember to put calls to action on your site), who cares how much traffic you get?
Which camp are you in? Should agents and brokers focus on the long or the short tail?
Costa Rica Real Estate
Posted at 10:45h, 17 JulyWhat I don't understand well here, is, how you would integrate the long tail-keywords in your daily website and content management, as these key words are usually more specific and don't target the whole site. This would mean that you have to do SEO for every specific listing you take.
jimcronin
Posted at 18:54h, 17 JulyFrom blogger's perspective:
Build the site and develop content with the short tail in mind. As you develop 100s of pages of content for your blog, the long tail success will come automatically. As long as you are dancing around your short tail subject matter, it will be inevitable for you to cover your long tail bases.
I consider the long tail the gift to the blogger. It's not intended to be the focus of your efforts, but rather the unintended beneficial consequnce of massive amounts of content on your core topics.
Jim Marks
Posted at 14:20h, 18 JulyThis is just not right… Long tail does not convert better than short tail… Where is the backup to prove this…Individual Long Tail results may convert (significantly) better than your short tail, but long tail has to be considered in aggregate…that is why it is called Long tail…If you cant design or SEO it for it, it is Longtail…
By design, if you see a Long tail phrase that is converting at a high rate, you build a page campaign around, and it becomes short tail….
So, I agree with JC, design your site for the short tail ald let all of your content float it. (although I am not sure this is a discussion? How would you SEO for 1500 longtail phrases anyway?)
Long Tail traffic is either just the icing on the cake OR all you can get because you didnt short tail well… but either way content will create longtail traffic…
Hawaii real estate guy
Posted at 22:37h, 18 JulyThe long tail keywords are the ones that have less traffic or volume as Drew said, but are more targeted so the conversion % rate would actually be higher. They know usually know more what they are looking for in most cases. I do agree you will have a higher amount of conversions if you are ranking for the bigger keywords just on volume alone.
I believe you can target the long tail stuff if you know your analytics. It is much easier to rank for in most cases with not as much effort.
I hope that makes sense 😉
One more quick thought:
Conversion also depends on if you have what they are looking for and y a way to convert them. You can get a boat load of traffic to a site, but if you aren't converting it into sales, what good is it any ways? I think most agents are in the business of selling homes.
Short vs Long-Tail: What to Optimize Your SEO For? | RealPro Training & Consulting, LLC
Posted at 06:28h, 20 July[…] Drew Meyers – […]
Short vs Long-Tail: What to Optimize Your SEO For? | Hestia Financial, Inc.
Posted at 06:55h, 20 July[…] Drew Meyers – […]
Jim Marks
Posted at 23:19h, 20 JulyHawaii RE Guy, this is the problem. Out of 1500 LT results, only a small percentage are terms that home buyers use. Therefore LT in aggregate does not convert as well.. Individual LT terms may have a better conversion, but aggregate? no.
I mean, really.. what better term is there than? city real estate, or city homes for sale? Kind of a directed search, yeah?
Hawaii real estate guy
Posted at 23:41h, 20 JulyI agree those are great and my analytics tells my the long tail stuff is not so bad either.
City homes, homes for sale city, moving to city, real estate in city, city foreclosures, city mls, city real estate listings, city properties for sale, city real estate mls, living in city, city properties, city condos and the list goes on. Obviously the BIG city real estate is the best and will drive the most traffic.
Out of the 22,000 visits from the serps every month only about 10% of my traffic comes through the 3 big CITY REAL ESTATE keywords the rest comes from many combinations like I listed. Those all seem to be keywords buyers and sellers would be searching for. At least I think they would.
Esko Kiuru
Posted at 16:25h, 02 AugustDrew,
I'm reading this post with great interest and start to really understand short and long tails. And the discussion that followed sheds more light into the whole concept. I guess the best thing to do is try both of them and see what happens. Where the action comes from.
timokeefe
Posted at 08:44h, 17 AugustThe way to do it is focus on your main broader or less specific short tail words. I like to use the word specific or general as opposed to long or short tail. It implies a reason to use the word (lead capture) as opposed to the long short idea which never was created to apply to SEO.
You say tomato I say tomahtoe sort of thing.
Anyway, Like Cronin says build the pages for short tail more general topics . Like he says”
“rather the unintended beneficial consequnce of massive amounts of content on your core topics.”
1.So you can let it occur naturally as Jim states.
2.However, if you wish to do it purposefully you can still go after your broader keywords on each page, then include your long tail words and specifics within that page. Its not that competitive so it doesn't need a title tag and h1's and the mix to get some SERP love.
Jim Marks- On the conversion issue let me take you down a path I ask clients often. And again I prefer specific vs long tail.
Which will convert better?
Los Angeles Real Estate
or Playa del Rey real estate?
or Playa del Rey Condos?
or Playa del Rey Condos for sale?'
or Beach port Village Condos for sale in Playa del Rey ?
The buyer who knows what they want and are not going to be going theru the internet 6 month wait to purchase is coming from the latter phrase.
Now technically all those words are long tail the minute we slap a location on it. But it isn't about traffic it is about conversion which comes from the word they found you by and the capture process on your site.
I still advocate going after the larger more competitive/generalized/short tail term because of the link juice you must create for this competitive of a term will help rise all the other terms up through the SERPS and the generalized term will get you your RELO traffic. Those relo buyers haven't a clue about neighborhoods or anything and they need to do something yesterday.
kevinhill33
Posted at 06:17h, 28 AugustFrom an SEO perspective desired results may take several months up to a year. As a realtor you would have to have inventory for that specific long tail keyword for a long period of time. For example the long tail keyword “condo in Lincoln Park” this is a neighborhood in Chicago. If you want to sell this condo immediately PPC may be the way to go. If you know, as a realtor, you are always going to have condos available in Lincoln Park then SEO would be a good long term marketing plan for search.
SmartROI Consulting
Posted at 13:17h, 28 AugustFrom an SEO perspective desired results may take several months up to a year. As a realtor you would have to have inventory for that specific long tail keyword for a long period of time. For example the long tail keyword “condo in Lincoln Park” this is a neighborhood in Chicago. If you want to sell this condo immediately PPC may be the way to go. If you know, as a realtor, you are always going to have condos available in Lincoln Park then SEO would be a good long term marketing plan for search.