Most SEOs are hard-set on chasing the “head keywords” — the very popular ones. Others are starting to pay more attention to the long tail. Now, how many are actually pursuing the invisible long tail?
“At Google’s Universal Search announcement, Udi Manber put up a slide stating that 20% to 25% of the search queries Google sees every day are search queries it has never seen before. “
Source: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070521-100156
That 20-25% is what I call the invisible long tail. The keywords that are actively being searched for at this moment that no keyword research tool is giving you. Why? Current keyword research tools reports are based on historical data (at least one month old) and because of that, they miss this part of the tail. This means that you will have to wait a month or more in most cases, to be able to identify these keywords. Another limitation is that most keyword tools do not return all keywords, just a limited number results.
It is very easy to rank for these keywords. Nobody is targeting them!
We only need to create content pages that include them in the body. (preferably, in the title and meta description tag as well).
Here is a simple technique to help you identify such keywords immediately and write content about them that is very likely to rank organically without much effort or link juice:
1. Start a PPC campaign in Google, Yahoo or MSN. You can start it in all of them to maximize results.
2. Use your “head keywords” in broad match. For example: “seo”, without brackets or quotes, this will present your ads to all possible variations that include these keywords. Make sure you bid at the minimum or as close to the minimum price as possible and that your ads are catchy enough to get clicks. The minimum bid guarantees you won’t be billed for popular variations. Let it run for a week or two, preferably a month.
3. Mine your log file for such keywords. You can use my free script for this or you can create your own. It’s simple.
You can mine your log file as often as you need and start writing content on the spot. This way you can access this valuable information and take advantage of it in “real time.”
