DMI technology editor, Jamie Riddell, discusses use of Search keywords and says there’s gold in that long tail. 

Ahh! The long tail. A concept that became popular with search campaigns to identify profitable sales opportunities by focusing on lots of little keywords that would deliver more profitable sales together than a handful of large terms. 

For search, the belief and, indeed, the results showed, that taking many smaller keywords would collectively deliver profitable business as there was less competition for these terms and, as a resultant, the average cost per click was cheaper. 

Over time, the need to identify thousands of tiny phrases and terms was reduced by more and more advanced matching techniques offered by the search engines, which enabled advertisers to buy clumps of words to cover the bases through matching techniques.

So, the concept of the long tail became less important – or certainly less pitch-worthy – until now, because smart businesses are starting to see real income potential. Under the phrase ‘inadequate content’, smart companies like Demand Media are identifying long tail search terms that are not being adequately represented in the search results. 

Sites like eHow.com are growing rapidly by identifying terms with volume that have little or no content to match, and creating that content. While this could sound a trivial business model, the rumoured IPO (initial public offering) value of $1.4 billion should change your perception. 

Content production

Not to be outdone, both Google and Yahoo are launching their own content production outfits to match this gap in demand and delivery. Yahoo‘s ‘The Upshot’ is their attempt to create the content rather than simply index or publish affiliated works. With a team of six, The Upshot aims to be a news service in its own right, covering key global stories while adding content as defined by its own search analysis for weak points.

Google’s venture is currently less clear but potentially a far larger deal. Taking on the likes of Demand Media, Google has filed a patent for technology to help identify ‘inadequate content’ with the aim (we suspect) of filling the gaps somehow. You may have already seen Google’s own publishing with the World Cup results, opting to show you the results rather than pass off to a sponsor. 

The second part of this equation is the announcement that Google is working on a micropayment format that will allow content providers to charge for individual pieces of content through Google. 

The main headlines focused on this as a potential olive branch to the likes of Rupert Murdoch who dislikes handing content out for free. 

If you connect the two together, you could be looking at a new business model that involves Google producing content and achieving direct revenue through micropayments. While this may be a small income model for the mighty Google, it is still an important one to pay attention to. 

So, the long tail is back and it can make you money. 

Is it time to review those keywords again? 

Jamie Riddell is the CEO and co-founder of Digital Tomorrow Today, an over the horizon digital consultancy for brands. A digital veteran, he has been delivering Digital DM campaigns since 1996. As co-founder and director of innovation, he built one of the UK’s largest digital marketing agencies before selling to the Digital Marketing Group plc.  You can follow him on Twitter.com/jamieriddell www.digitaltomorrowtoday.com