Dec
13
Cut-off Your Head; Grow a Longer Tail
Filed Under SEO
A couple months back, I decided to take a calculated risk with my most popular page; I cut off my head. It’s worked out for the better, and is an interesting case study. Let me explain…
A page on one of my sites was ranking a very solid #1 for a single head keyword. That’s great, right? Maybe.
Let’s say my site is about Widgets. This one head keyword, let’s call it WidgMaster was bringing in a decent amount of traffic.
While the page was certainly related to the WidgMaster variant of Widgets, it was also very relevant to learning about widgets in general. As evidence, the page currently ranks on page 3 of Google for the much more broad “widgets” term.
In terms of traffic, the page was successful, but unnecessarily pigeon-holed into a very small niche.
It’s worth noting that this page is linked to more heavily than any of the other internal pages on this site, having been on the front page of Slashdot once, and digg twice. It has more “link juice” than any other page on the site, and pulls in three times as much traffic as the homepage.
I wanted to see if I could make the page pull in a more general audience. I was looking for more “Widget” focused long tail traffic, as described very well recently in “Deep Links, Longtail Keywords, and Why you Should Love Them Both.
I performed a simple and minor, but crucial strategic change. I figured the chance of success was 50/50, and there was certainly potential for traffic loss.
I reordered the words in the page title.
Learn about WidgMaster Installation and Configuration - Widgets
Became…
Learn about Widget Installation and Configuration - WidgMaster
Almost immediately, I lost the #1 spot that I had held for WidgMaster, which had been solid #1 for over a year. The page now ranks around #6 on Google, high enough to still get a trickle of traffic, but less than 10% of what was previously coming in for that keyword.
Interesting, and supporting my initial hypothesis, the traffic levels stayed about the same.
I was hoping for an increase, but the resulting wash isn’t all bad.
The page now ranks much better for more general long term “Widget” phrases. The resulting visitors are less WidgMaster focus “one hit wonders”, and much more interested in sticking around my site after their initial landing.
While this strategy is not right for all situations and pages. Much more usable for “short head” terms than “tall head” terms, it’s certainly a strategy and method that you should consider experimenting with on a small scale, and having in your SEO Bag o’ Tricks.
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2 Responses to “Cut-off Your Head; Grow a Longer Tail”
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This is interesting. It confirms something I’ve always assumed but not confirmed:
The order of the words matters. Google must take into account how closely the search terms are in the search, and in the actual content. Perhaps the proper order. Regardless of quotes, etc. It appears also that this influences it a lot more heavily than I would have imagined.
Hmm. I smell a research test site coming up. I do so love these.
SlightlyShadySEO, I hope you write a post about your test site results. Post a comment here when it’s published if you would be so kind.
Another interesting data-point:
The page referenced here is currently ranking #6 for the short head term. Every result ranking above it links to my page, although each one links to the #1 or #2 page as well.