Many bloggers spend a considerable amount of time analyzing their website traffic and statistics in an effort to learn what works and doesn’t work in terms of SEO and reader enjoyment.
One of the tools that I use in that process is HitTail, which helps me analyze the more obscure keywords that readers have used to find their way to my site. The process of reviewing the keywords that are bringing readers to your site can provide valuable insight into terms that you may wish to highlight on your site.
Long Tail
These obscure keywords are often referred to as the long tail, which is essentially the concept that the cumulative demand for obscure or less popular items can exceed all of the most popular items added together.
Photo Courtesy of HitTail.com
In terms of your website, the long tail would be the less common keywords that readers have used to navigate to your website via one of the search engines. The power of the long tail is that you can tailor new posts or pages to take advantage of those keywords in an attempt to maximize your exposure.
Unique Results
Given that I am addicted (according to my wife) to blogging, I am regularly checking my long tail results with HitTail. It is really interesting to examine the popular keywords and phrases that bring readers to my blogs. For the most part, the terms are relative to the theme of the content on the site.
However, every now and then you will see an off-the-wall long tail keyword pop up in your results. Recently I have had one very odd (disturbing even) phrase appear for my personal finance blog and one for this site that I found somewhat humorous given my list of obsessions.
So, you’re probably wondering what the terms were that I found to be humorous as well as odd/disturbing. Okay, be honest, you really only want to know the disturbing phrase but I am going to share both with you.
obsessed with cheese
Yes, someone found their way to Derek Semmler dot com by searching for an obsession with cheese. To me this is quite humorous given that I had listed cheese as one of my obsessions but never did I think that other people would actually be searching for that phrase. I guess that just goes to show you that you never really know how people will find your site.
Now, on to the somewhat disturbing long tail result…
bang mywife while I help
When I first saw that phrase in my HitTail results, I nearly fell off of my chair and wondered what in the world I would have had on my site that would show up in the search results.
Imagine my amazement when I navigated to the search query and discovered that my site was #3 on the first page of more than 1 million results for that phrase!
While I was happy to see that my post rated so highly out of that many search results, it was still quite shocking to see that someone found their way to my site using that phrase.
Fun With Long Tail
Now I would like to turn things over to you in order to find out what is the most unique long tail search result that you have seen used to find your site.
I’m looking forward to seeing the most unique long tail search results so get yours added now. I’ve got an idea for a little reward to the most unique long tail result that I will elaborate on in another post.
Until then start sharing those long tails!
Most Unique Long Tail Search Hits
Stay In The Loop!
Subscribe to the Derek Semmler dot com feed via RSS or Email to receive notifications when new posts are published. Follow the WordPress ninja on Twitter too!
Previous post: Speedlinking – 14 May 2007
Next post: Long Tail Contest
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s why I love the internet, we are all becoming fascinated by the power and culture of words! Amazing. Great article.
Thanks Damien! It is amazing to see the power of words, which is why I often try to choose my words carefully particularly on the Interweb where you lose any sense of inflection and can easily misinterpret the intended meaning.
from the past seven days, search terms that directed visitors to my blog,
“how to shower laik woman” 🙂
“colonic irrigation scotland”
“diarrhea after childbirth”
“death of pets – poetry”
“page rank 7 beauty blogs” (now this is a compliment. 🙂
i love doing this! LOL it’s so geeky but what the hell… here are some of my long tail kw’s from analytics (7 day)
“reasons for getting a second dog” hahahaha! sounds like a ‘new couple’ argument 😉
“roasted garlic express .co.uk” 😀
“halelujah” ?? i don’t think i’ve ever used this word
“dirty thirty birthday” ohhh yeaaaaah…
“how to make $7000 quick” what the..?
“eleanor keds black owl” i’m not the only one looking for these!
Cheese is good, I can see how someone might be obsessed with it. It still amazes what some people search for..and what Google or another search engine whips up for them.
On the other hand, I know I’ve searched for some pretty strange things at times too.
People are wierd, that’s all there is to it, and when you get a couple billion people using something (like the internet) there’s bound to be some oddities.
I think I would quit blogging if “diarrhea after childbirth” brought an amazing number of people to my site. Then again, maybe I could monetize that problem by selling discount Pepto-Bismol!
right?! LOL capitolize on those crazy niche terms! 😉
Hey I started posting these on my site. I thought I would make it weekly. I didnt realize it had a term for it “long tailing”. Wild.
This is the post I did with a few recent ones:
http://flippingrich.com/misled-search-results-part-1/
My favorite though:
fat woman flipping finger
Whoever searches that knows how to party
BTW whats your wifes phone number?
867-5309 😉
can we get a photo of her wearing a shirt lol
your readers might find this long tail pretty funny:
danielle derek porn
LOL!
Lol, now that is a funny long tail.
Lol obsession with cheese, I know about that…
What is your favorite cheese? I’d have to say that my top two choices would be muenster cheese (melt a slice in the microwave, simply fantastic) or gorgonzola cheese.
Ohh no do you have to talk about cheese? Cheeses cost a bomb here – imported all the way from the other side of the world. I would do anything to win a simple camembert or brie.
Hmmm, I don’t think cheese would do too well being shipped across the world.
Should I tell you that you now show up first for bang mywife while I help.
Lol, I hadn’t checked that in quite some time so thanks for bringing that up here.
Derek, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you seem to have slipped out of the rankings altogether for “bang mywife while I help”. So I thought by resurrecting this thread I may be able in some small way to help you get back where you belong!
An interesting article concerning longtail http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/udi_manber_search_is_a_hard_problem.php
“20 to 25% of the queries we see today, we have never seen before”
{ 10 trackbacks }