Since the PageRank algorithm was introduced, webmasters and SEO consultants have been on a race to receive higher pagerank to their sites and be number on on top keywords. But recently I feel that its not so important to pursue these goals anymore.
Don’t get me wrong, pagerank is still the key to Google Algorithm, but the hours spend on getting high pagerank links , submitting to directories, blogs or forums doesn’t seem to worth it.
Why? very simple, Long Tail Keywords! Since I got to Peru I am trying to explain it to my customers which are sometimes stuck with old SEO and Websites concepts. All of the customers want to have high pagerank and be number one in a list of 10 keywords.
For example lets use one keyword that is very popular “Peru Travel”, well that is the most competitive keyword in Peru, there are probably 1,000 websites with high pagerank that are trying to get top positions on that keyword, yes it is possible to be on the first page on that keyword but it will take a year or two for a new website to archive that.
The solution is using Long Tail Keywords, ‘Peru Travel Information”, “Peru Travel Guide” etc. it probably have less competition or no competition at all. If you calculate the amount of visits if you add up 10 long tail keywords you will get more visits than one very popular keywords and guess what if you do it right you can archive it in 3 months and not a year or two. Also after you’ll be number one on several long tail keywords it is most likely you will automatically be on the first page on very popular ones as well.
Here is the Long Tail Graph from Wikipedia:
This graph show that the amount of visits from popular keywords are less than the amount of visits you can get from the infinite number of long tail keywords you can create from the same topic.
Another factor is that users are getting smarter, if you search “peru travel” you will probably get portals, wikis or government sites about Peru, but if you’ll search more specific keyword like “Travel to Macchu Picchu Peru Low Prices” You will get the agency or agency compression sites that will help you get the travel package that you need.
Now if the users knows that it is our job to let our customers, the web sites owners to know the same thing. Working hours for more than a year to have the slight chance to be #1 on one Keyword or get to PageRank 7 compared to the work on changing inner page titles and get minimum external links on those long tail keywords and have 100% success in less time.
If you’ll get what I’m trying to explain here… there is no way you’ll not succeed in your SEO efforts!
Please post a comment if you have any question regarding the long tail concept.