Here's the catch: your sample is too small to know for sure. If you had 3 visitors who came via a very long-tail keyword search, one of whom clicked on an ad, sure it's going to look great - with a 33% CTR and a $50+ eCPM, probably (perhaps even more). But that doesn't mean anything unless you can scale. And scaling may be impossible precisely because it's in the "long tail".

But may be I am missing something...

>>>this site makes more per visitor than many sites make per click.

Longtail is great for traffic because of the reasons you listed, i.e.

1. Less competitive
2. Relatively easier to rank for
3. Generally low profile so competitors keep off your back
4. Lots of visitors

So my theory is this: people coming to your website through long tail searches are more likely to click on an ad than the general audience you get from a site that ranks well.

I agree that longtail is great for clicks, however I would respectfully suggest that we need to add the word because to that statement, and then an explanation why longtail visitors may click more.

Personally I don't believe being longtail in itself is going to cause the effect you're seeing. So to add a because to the statement, maybe it is the level of commercial edge the query contains and/or the relative lack of knowledge of the topic being queried can play a strong role. There must be more reasons.

Or are long tail queries more likely to cause clicks for other reasons?

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:44 am (utc) on Jan. 14, 2009]

MB: your 'because' is a good suggestion, so lets turn it over to the group.

"So my theory is this: people coming to your website through long tail searches are more likely to click on an ad than the general audience you get from a site that ranks well BECAUSE...

Loudspeaker: I agree that scaling could prove me wrong (or right), but all of my sites usually generate about 25-50 K visitors a month. That sets limits on my scaling measure, and thats fine with me. It's what works for me, and it pays well.

BECAUSE...

with long tail they are a lot more likely to find the what they were looking for so they are more ready for the next step.

Going back to Googles old example usings cameras.

If they were looking for a review of the

"auto-focus zones of the Widget D-1,200,000"

and that leads them to a page on your site where they find info about the

"auto-focus zones of the Widget D-1,200,000"

and they also find ads for the "Widget D-1,200,000"....

clicking the ads may be the next logical step for them.

I'm not surprised, because anyone who goes to a page after scanning through 30 or more higher-ranked search results (and probably looking at at least some of those Web sites) is likely to be seriously interested in the topic.

The same is true of people who click ads on a high-quality, professionally-written information site (as opposed to ads on low-quality sites that consist of filler text with multiple AdSense units). They're clicking because they've found information and are ready to act on it, instead of clicking because they're still trying to find the information that was missing on the site.

Ken_B: An equally plausible Because could be that visitors are NOT finding relevant info on the page, and click on the ads to see if those links offer more info.

Longtail searches can often be referred to a page because of things in your page that are not part of the main content, such as Related Articles links, or blog archive links, which combine their keywords with ones in the main content. A perusal of your logs will usually reveal many unlikely searches.

Longtail searches can often be referred to a page because of things in your page that are not part of the main content...

True, but quite often are the result of a well thought out strategy to construct semantically rich pages that are more likely to rank for longer tail searches. They are also more likely to attract better targeted ads.

Better targeted traffic plus better targeted ads equals better CTR.

strategy to construct semantically rich pages that are more likely to rank for longer tail searches.

I have been thinking about this and have some ideas about page construct targeted to long tail searches. It's not a subject that has been explored much. Any ideas from the group?

The value of symantically rich pages (with honest emphasis on language which meets the needs of common or niche searches) often involve extensive research and depend upon many external factors, such as the value of the page on your site from which it is called, whether the page is linked to externally, etc., etc. IMO, of course.

On another note, I find it very ironic that there is often an inverse ratio between the quality of a page and the amount of CTR received. If an article is really well done and includes a list of well-researched links, the user is likely to click on the links you have created on that very page without clicking on any sort of ad.

If, however, the page is rich in content but lacks internal links, or perhaps the page simply is indexed in a more flattering manner than it may deserve given its inherent quality, or there is an element of chance in the construction of the page, there is likely to be a temptation for someone to click an ad. My experience bears this out as regards all types of ads, as even though I always attempt to design great web pages on every site which are rich in content, some are always going to be more well-done than others.

This seems to be one of the paradoxes of advertising, and I notice that this paradoxical user behavior almost always happens as a result of longtail searches.

>>Any ideas from the group?

know your subject and write in a verbose style

If you have not read the long tail you are ding yourself a disservice, The link tail works. I seen it wit me own eyez.

I worked hard to rank top 10 for a difficult 1-word term and was at the top of the heap for 9 months. After the rosh hashnnah reconfig I fell off the top page. into the 3rd page; pushed down by a back hatted #*$!.

I was sad. I was drinking pints and eating tranquillizers like an blueblood, When I came to I wrote a batch of smaller, longtail pages; about 25 or so.

Bottom line -- the one word SERP netted 20 - 22K per month. I thought I was doomed. The non-front page has been netting 10K - 12K per month and is growing steadily as I add more pages.

Bottom line: I thought I would fall off a cliff when I lost my one golden word on the front page but it aren't that bad, with my other revenue streams, 15K is still a nice pudding to put me thumb in. I reckon with 50 mnore high quality long tail pages I shall retain me former standing. Me 1st longtail pages now have PR of 4 so I must be onto something.

Go forth and build the long tail. Write one page every other day but make it GOOD QUALITY. Like than Yank movie some years ago -- if you build it, they Will come (and click).

Godspeed to all of you --

I don't know if your hypothesis is correct, but I'm a big fan of the "long tail" for other reasons:

1) Not everyone types "poodle" into the search box. Some users will type in "toy poodle" or "poodle grooming" or "poodle clothes" or "standard poodle" (or even "Tony Blair," but only if they're still holding a grudge). If you've got pages that address all of those topics, you'll get more traffic--and more qualified traffic, at that.

2) You never know what's going to bring in users. One of my most popular articles brings in more traffic on page 2 (a subtopic of the article's topic) than on the first page. Another one-page article on a minor subtopic consistently ranks among my top pages on a site with 7,000+ pages.

3) On my own site, I might get 8,000 to 10,000 Google referrals on a good day, but only a few keywords generate impressions in the triple digits. Most keywords/keyphrases are in the double or even single digits. There are a lot of different ways for users to enter a site besides walking in through the front door.

On another level, it makes me re-think a few opportunities to jump in and ride the wave of very-current topics. I passed up on a few ideas because I just didn't think I could rank well enough against a sea of established competitors. On re-thinking, I can see opportunity in winning the back of the bus, so to speak, while the big guys fight for the front.

I think there's a surprising amount of opportunity in niches we may have thought were dominated by high ranking, established competitors. This is perhaps what 11364guy's post illustrates.