Long-tail analysis - Long-tail keyphrases are typically related to your main strategic keywords and generally include three, four, or more words. For example, “web hosting linux,” “cheap web hosting,” and “web hosting control panel” might be typical long-tail phrases for a web-design business. Such phrases are known as long tail because the frequency with which they are searched on reduces as the length of the phrase increases (in a long tail that tends toward zero searches). In the next chapter, on keyword attractiveness, I will show you how to assess the degree of popularity and competitiveness attached to each keyword and keyphrase. However, before we get there I can give you a sneak preview: Generally, the longer a phrase is, the more attractive it is, in relative terms.

Long-tail analysis seeks to identify, for your most common keyword categories (or “stems”), the phrases that pay where demand is relatively high but competition relatively weak; what I call relatively underexploited keyphrases. As an example, consider Sam Larder, owner of a luxury, ski-in–skiout chalet in Verbier, Switzerland. Sam has been spending a fortune on a paid advertising campaign, selecting phrases such as “ski chalet” and “chalet verbier.” Given the popularity of the resort (and the number of competing accommodation providers) he has had to pay more and more to acquire his visitors. However, after reading this book, Sam thoroughly considers his business proposition and looks at the long tail in the light of this.

Brad investigates his competitors’ sites again (only this time going down much further in the rankings and trying many different searches). He settles on a group of multi-word phrases that appear most often on competing sites, of which the following are just a few examples:

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