Last Updated on Saturday, 24 July 2010 20:25 Written by Januar S. Amberto

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If you’re already familiar with the Google long tail, the fi rst part of this document will serve as a refresher, and perhaps open your eyes to a few examples the Long Tail model has played into the success of many businesses.

The Long Tail is a concept describing how selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities can generate more total revenue than the blockbuster. This is largely made possible by advances in technology that have lowered distribution costs. This white paper details how a Long Tail strategy can be applied to raking in search traffic by targeting niche keywords using an online directory.

The Y axis in this chart shows popularity of any particular item. This could relate to amount of downloads sales, units, or any measurable standard of success of in today’s market. In music, the ‘Popularity’ column could be replaced with number of CD Sales, downloads or plays. In Google’s case, this axis represents the number of dollars in ad sales. We see the head, or red portion of the graph accounts for the highest CPC (Cost Per Click) rate that advertisers pay on desirable popular keywords like “Insurance, Mortgage, Cars, Hotels,” etc. In his book entitled “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,” Chris Anderson sheds light on an example of how Rhapsody capitalized on the opportunity they saw in the long tail. In terms of music, the ‘head’ or red shaded part of the graph would represent those artists or groups who have the most sales, downloads or plays. These are more popular artists with multiple billboard topping, platinum or gold selling hits. These are what record stores and stores that carry records are selling. In the Orange is the tail, with an abundance of less popular artists. These

are bands whom you’ve likely never heard of, who are on small time record labels and tour small clubs throughout the country but have avid, cult like followings of small groups of people. Most record stores won’t carry these artists because, well, they aren’t high in demand and their records aren’t flying off the shelves, so how cost effective could it really be carry their CDs? Think of it this way: If bands represented keywords in the long tail, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bon Jovi & Pink Floyd are in the head of the graph, and Hot Rod Circuit, The Victory Year, Sir Salvatore are bands in the long tail. The point here being, there aren’t thousands of Bon Jovi’s or Pink Floyds, there are, however millions of bands like Hot Rod Circuit, Victory Year and Sir Salvatore that you’ve never heard before.

The secret of the long tail is in what isn’t shown on this chart, specifi cally on the far right side of the graph. This model doesn’t rapidly take a nose dive into the ground as it moves more toward the right as one might expect, in fact it takes a very gradual, slow decline and spans out for quite a distance. Why? Because

there are certainly more bands in this world with smaller record labels, isolated, short tours than there are with major record deals performing around the world. What Google saw was big spending advertisers on prime keywords in the red, words like ‘Insurance, Hotels, Car, Mortgage,” etc. But what Google realized was there were millions of potential advertisers in the Orange. So what did they do? They provided a platform that would allow smaller advertisers to buy more niche CPC phrases, piped them through thousands of ad networks (think small publishers) and accordingly, advertisers pay a dramatically cheaper cost to do so. Today, this accounts for over 50% of Google’s business. What did Rhapsody do? They took all the music that record stores and Walmarts wouldn’t carry, and hosted it online. Currently, these ‘long tail’ artists on Rhapsody’s music application account for 25% of its business.

So what does this mean? Well if the key to success in online business is selling less of more, there’s something to be said about what these Long Tail search keywords can do for generating search traffic to a site.

Many businesses concentrate on the q

uality of their site and often overlook at what quantity can do for your search traffic. If there are as much, if not more opportunities in the tail, and content is king, why not create long tail keyword-driven content to rake in search traffic? Let’s take all the content in the tail, centralize it, organize it and create a valuable resource. Online Directories produce thousands of pages of unique, long tail-driven content and consequently rank well on search engines. You can spend time with SEO experts modifying your content, adjusting your page titles or URLS in order to rank higher on search engines, how- ever, directory listings are the bread and butter of long tail keywords. While directories may not rank #1 in “New York Restaurant” they do rank very high on more niches, specific terms like “French Provincial Restaurant Upper East Side.”

Where there is search traffic, there are ad dollars to be made. What makes the opportunities at hand even more lucrative is the fast pace transition media is taking from print to online. Print is dying. It’s not dead, and it’s no

t right to say People, Time, or the New York Times are going under anytime soon, but print media is on its way out. It’s not cost effective. It’s not as easily accessible and for marketers, it’s simply not measurable enough. Web 2.0 guru Gary Vaynerchuk says, regarding the opportunities with print money moving online, and developing more niche, directory-like sites, “trillion dollars in ad revenue that is going to leak down to all the hyper, local, super nichey-niche-niche opportunities.” During a talk he gave promoting his new book, “Crush It,” Vaynerchuk mentions the case of his friend, Zach Brooks, who owns and operates midtownlunch.com Zach covers 6 blocks of street food (vendors, etc) in New York…6 blocks and generates $70,000+ a year from this site. Why? Because it’s a niche site that offers its visitors a resource of valuable information. It’s an online directory for food selections in Midtown Manhattan and Zach is crushing it.
Two big things are happening that are opening doors for online directories, on top of their SEO friendliness.

First, the pace at which media is moving from print to online, and their advertisers with them is accelerating much quicker than most people in the publishing industry expected. Secondly, online media is already morphing and changing to adapt to the trends in web2.0 and social media. People want centralized, easily accessible data in their hands in a presentable manner and even more specifically, sites and publications that had broad approaches are now being undermined by niche, narrow focused ones. Some of the most popular, upcoming sites are those that include people that shop

in Walmart [www.peopelofwalmart.com], another dedicated to a compilation of weird family photos [www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com], passive-aggressive notes people post [www.passiveaggressivenotes.com] and a multi-million dollar empire on putting silly captions on pictures of cats [icanhascheezburger.com]. These niche site are taking ad revenue that was once owned and conquered by print publications.

Internet users are lazy. No one wants to search the menus of eight different restaurants to fi nd a good restaurant in New York, they want to find a local search directory that will house all of the menus under one roof. They way we search and find information is changing, thus the mediums to which we access that inf

ormation is changing and savvy advertisers are taking the money they spent in print and putting it strategically into online portals, directories and sites that cater to the way we search.

There are windows of opportunity opening left and right for niche focused, information packed resource sites to take a piece of ad revenue that’s transitioning from paper to online. Every business, in any industry can benefit from adding a directory to their site. Most of our clients develop industry services directories where people can search for services like PR or Advertising agencies. Many of our product-centric clie

nts develop product directories from their site and most popular are local search sites. Local search sites enable visitors to search through and fi nd restaurants, events, classifieds, or businesses in a particular area. All of these sites are capitalizing on the opportunity Google’s long tail has given them, and they’re only growing.

From small, but successful local search sites like Branson.com to a national directory of Certified Mold Inspectors, many directory site owners have jumped on the opportunity in front of them and have capitalized.

If the future of business is making less with more, directories are doing, and will continue to do just that. May this helpful for webmasters.