Explained: Long Tail Keyword Search Volume Vs Competition Chart

Explaination of Long Tail of Keyword Demand Curve

Assuming that by Long Tail Keyword Demand Curve, you mean like the image below, the long tail keyword demand curve is simply a graphical way of explaining the relationship between ... ①How long tail a keyword phrase is ... ②The number of searches a keyword phrase gets ... ③The number of other peices of content online (web pages, blog posts, youtube videos, etc) that are optimized for a particular keyword phrase.

Explanation Long Tail Keyword Demand Curve Chart Volume Relative To Keyword Length.

Explanation Long Tail Keyword Demand Curve Chart Volume Relative To Keyword Length.

The relationship between the length of a keyword phrase, number of searches it gets, and how competitive it is, explained

As a general rule, the shorter (tail) a keyword phrase is, the more searches it gets and the more content online there is for that keyword phrase. This means its harder to get YOUR content on the first page of a search engine for the short tail keyword phrase. A longer (tail) keyword phrase will get less searches and have less content online optimized for that keyword phrase so it will be easier to have your content show up on the first page of search engines.

For example, lets pretend you want to show up on the first page of the search engines for something related to acne because you are an affiliate marketer for a product related to that. On the two extremes, to help you understand this explanation of the long tail keyword demand curve.

• If you try to make your content optimized for the phrase 'acne cure' you are going to have a very difficult task because even though there are millions of searches for that keyword phrase, there are also millions of web pages and other online content optimized for that keyword phrase as well. This very short tail keyword phrase would be on the very left side of the above long tail keyword demand curve as shown in the image above.
• If you try to make content optimized for the keyword phrase all natural home acne cure for teens there will be much fewer people searching that exact keyword phrase but there will also be much less competition. It's what is referred to as low hanging fruit in the keyword business.

The Perfect Long Tail Keyword Phrase

The perfect long tail keyword phrase is one that:

1. Has a lot of words in it - at least 6.
2. Gets a relatively high number of searches.
3. Has little to no content online (competition) that is optimized for that keyword phrase.

Now you may complain that since the short tail keyword phrases (the ones more to the left of the long tail keyword demand curve illustration) get so many more searches and traffic, aren't they the better keywords to try to target web pages, blog posts and youtube videos on? The answer is NO for the following reasons:

1. Assuming your ultimate marketing goal is some sort of sale or conversion, generally speaking, when people type in a very short one, two or three word query into a search engine, they are much less likely to make a purchase or create your desired conversion. People are not going to buy something if they don't know exactly what they want. Who do you think is more likely ready to buy, the person who types acne cure in the search engine or the person who types in inexpensive all natural acne cure for teenagers? The second person knows exactly what they are looking for so a sale might just be around the corner and hopefully, that corner is right where your website is.
2. Its no longer 1999. There are a lot more people on the internet in general, but there is also a lot more online sales outlets and marketing website than there use to be and a lot of them are huge companies. Unless your specific niche is very rare and/or untapped, the likelihood of you getting a web page on the first page of Google, or any search engine, with a keyword phrase that is any less than 5 words long is extremely tough. Finding and focusing on keyword phrases that are over 5 words long may produce less total visitors to your site, but it is much more likely to produce visitors and sales. Imagine you have a website that has 1,000 pages, each optimized for a very long tail keyword phrase (over 5 words long). Even if each page only brings you 5 visitors a week, that amounts to 5,000 visitors to your website or blog, every week, who are much more likely to convert/buy than 100,000 visitors to your website because of a one, two or three word search phrase.

The shorter keyword phrases that show up on the left side of the long tail keyword demand curve might seem more enticing, but you have a lot of work ahead of you because of all the competition. Stick with the right side of the long tail keyword demand curve - long long tail.