Long tail conversion?

[firedragontbo]

Hello,

I am new to gambling, but have a bit of other affiliate marketing experience. I recently read an article by an "expert" suggesting that targeting long, ie 3 or 4 word keywords just "doesn't convert in this industry". Is that so, or has the author just researched them poorly?

Because honestly, isn't that the way to go these days in such a competitive market? I have found several keywords with an exact Google search of 2-3000 and not great competition. They seemed like "buyer keywords" to me...

Thanks for your input.

Trish

[johnbenjamin]

Well, now a days, just about anyone is a self proclaimed 'expert' the truth is far from it. While I can't speak for the gambling industry per se, I do believe that long tail keywords should be part of the keyword research strategy. Unless you have been promoting your website for a while, for a new site it would take quite a bit of time in order to get a visible ranking for just one or even two keyword phrases.

One of the key factors, from my personal experience is instead of going after the big keywords, it pays off to build your ranking for the incoming keywords (long tail) just a simple move from page 2 to page 1 can see a good increase in traffic and potential conversions as well.

[firedragontbo]

Thanks!
I think so too...

[TheBoyMitchell]

If someone is telling other people how to do it, then they either aint any good at it themself, or they arent telling *everything* - have a look and see how many of the *massive* affiliates post up tips on here....

As they say, those can can, do. Those that cant, teach.

*All* my sites are based on longtail. Look at it this way - traffic means ****. Conversion is king. Have a look at the following three keyword phrases;

"Online casino"
"Online casino bonus"
"Live Roulette online"

Now, you arent going to rank for keyword 1, and there's no point trying - 90 odd percent of clicks come from the top three positions, and these spaces are either taken up by operators or massive massive sites. Keyword 2 is more achievable, but with this comes the risk that the visitor to your site is only looking for free money. They'll probably play only once or twice, and its unlikely they will redeposit. Fine if you are on a CPA, but useless if you are on a RevShare (and if you are on a CPA delivering this kind of money, you'll quickly find your CPA rate being slashed - why should a casino pay you a few hundred dollars on a player that only deposits 50? They aren't in this business to make a loss.

Keyword 3 would suggest someone that has a certain level of experience in online gaming. They know what they want and they have asked directly for it. This player is more likely to convert *and* be a reasonably decent player, depositing a realistic amount of times and allowing you to make some money from their play. Sure, the competition will be lower than the other two keywords, but the conversion rate will be higher.

I think that sometimes as an affiliate I get too familiar with the vertical, and it affects my choice of keywords, so I ask my wife and sometimes my friends "If you were looking for 'x' on google, what would you type in?". Its interesting to find that their responses are often quite different from what I would have thought, and that because I know enough about the industry to assume that the keywords I choose to optimise on are what everyone would be thinking about.

[davemerry]

I'd be interested in hearing who the 'expert' is and finding out their reasoning, because not only do my affiliate websites earn through longtail keywords but common sense tells me that they should convert better anyway.

A longtail search is a longer search query which is generally more refined and less broad, therefore the user is often looking for something more exact. If the content and SEO team work together to make sure that the right page with the right content ranks then it should convert better than any other in my mind.

An example of the type of longtail term we used to quite well from is 'roulette casino on channel four', we only got around 3 visits per day for this however analytics showed that 75% of people clicked through to the casino - the only reason I can think of for this is that we had a landing page that featured the only casino which showed on channel four, therefore the longtail query got the deserved answer and it converted excellently.

[johnbenjamin]

I think that sometimes as an affiliate I get too familiar with the vertical, and it affects my choice of keywords, so I ask my wife and sometimes my friends "If you were looking for 'x' on google, what would you type in?". Its interesting to find that their responses are often quite different from what I would have thought, and that because I know enough about the industry to assume that the keywords I choose to optimise on are what everyone would be thinking about.

That's so very true!! It's interesting how people approach SE's from different perspectives. What one person thinks will work is not entirely true.

@ conversions. I believe long tail has more potential in conversion than just one or two words. As you mentioned, "online casino" could carry a whole different meaning.. as compared to "online casino bonus" which makes the search more purposeful.

[davemerry]

@TheBoyMitchell - spot on!

[firedragontbo]

Thanks for all your insightful replies, and yes TheBoyMitchell, I have long thought that the quality of the traffic totally trumps sheer quantity....
I guess the whole "bonus" thing could be a mixed bag as some are just coupon hunters...

[firedragontbo]

Sorry for posting too much, but now I get it. When I clicked on some links in his article, I found that to him "long tail" mean 5-6 words.. Well no wonder that doesnt convert!!!

[TheBoyMitchell]

Sorry for posting too much, but now I get it. When I clicked on some links in his article, I found that to him "long tail" mean 5-6 words.. Well no wonder that doesnt convert!!!

Not necessarily - the keyword "free slots no download no registration" is 6 words and gets 9900 globals a month. ("free slots" gets 823,000 globals a month, but again unless you are in the top three positions you aint gonna get any of that traffic).

The longer a keyword is then the less traffic there will be for it, BUT the higher the chance of the conversion.

Another example

"Buy cars online"
"Buy Vauxhall cars online"
"Buy Vauxhall cars in London UK"

Which one would you think is more likely to convert in the sale? Keyword 3 is the most specific, but also the most targetted - the user knows exactly what they are looking for, and where they want to find it. If you used a mixture of short and longtail keywords then you'll be able to see in your G stats what kind of enquiries people are typing in to enable them to find your site. Some of the results will surprise you - folk have wierd minds

At the end of the day its better to get 40% of 9900 targetted searches, than 0.5% of 823,000 untargetted searches (I reckon) and thats pretty much what you'll get if you are pos 1 in Google for "free slots no download no registration" and position 9 in Google for "free slots"

[firedragontbo]

Thanks for your insights! You're right, "free slots no download no registration" is huge! And it surprised me... But it doesn't sound like most of the searchers want to fork out money in this case!

Thank you again for great, helpful advice. Now I just have to seek out those long tail golden nuggets

Trisha