Last Friday, many Phoenix area real estate bloggers came together for a face-to-face meeting. I’m late to the posting party, as several attendees have already chronicled the meeting. I won’t review the details as these folks have already done it, better than I could. Special thanks to Brian “I’ll never buy donuts for Realtors” Brady for setting it all up.
While the gathering was newsworthy in and of itself, and meeting folks and being able to put a face and voice to the prose was certainly a highlight, the discussions that evolved provided the real food-for-thought.
Greg Swann was in attendance and discussed and has penned a great post on cultivating a local audience for your blog.
Another topic that came up more than once was The Long Tail. I’ve always been fascinated by the subject of The Long Tail and highly recommend both Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, as well as his outstanding blog.
It’s a very interesting concept, and with apologies in advance to Mr. Anderson, I’ll attempt a Cliffs Notes version of The Long Tail and how it relates to local content real estate blogging.
Basically The Long Tail is about the volume of sales, web hits, search engine results etc. for “less popular” things. Say Amazon sells 100,000 copies of the latest New York Times best seller. That’s great, brings Amazon a lot of money. But while they are selling 100K copies of the best seller, they are selling one MILLION copies of a bunch of other, less popular books. What generates Amazon more revenue, 100,000 best sellers, or 1,000,000 other titles? That’s the long tail.
OK, goody for Amazon. But what does The Long Tail mean for a real estate blogger?
The Long Tail has huge implications. As I mentioned in the Phoenix bloggers meeting, it’s extremely difficult to get good Google placement for a term such as “Phoenix Real Estate”. But pick a “less popular” term like “Subdivision Real Estate” (substituting “subdivision” for, well, a subdivision name) and you will find two things:
1) FAR greater ease at getting ranked well for that term
2) FAR more serious prospects — serious as in ready to buy or sell
When people hit our site for a term like “Phoenix real estate” they tend to be “tire kickers”, out-of-staters, or people looking for general info on the Phoenix market. Not that there is anything wrong with that. We welcome them.
But when people hit our site for “Val Vista Lakes real estate” they tend to be one of two types of people — someone living in Val Vista Lakes looking for a Realtor to list their home; or someone who is saying, “I want to buy a house in Val Vista Lakes. I need a Realtor.” We love visitors like this.
Our main web site has a page that ranks #1 – #3 (depending on the day) on Google for “Val Vista Lakes real estate” or “Val Vista Lakes Realtor”. (See here)
But the real power of the long tail (and local content blogging) is evident with this fact. Three days after I posted a blog entry here about Val Vista Lakes, that post, that THREE DAY OLD post ranked #7 – #9 on Google for Val Vista Lakes real estate/Val Vista Lakes Realtor. Comments on that post are also now showing up on page 1 of Google.
I posted about this on ActiveRain, and THAT post was rapidly indexed and is now 5th and our AR profile is 6th on Google for the “Val Vista Lakes real estate” search term.
Nothing you could post using a “mainstream” keyword will rank this highly this fast. A post on a Long Tail term however, can place very well, and with remarkable speed.
We now have FIVE web pages on the first page of Google for two very powerful search terms that someone ACTIVELY looking to buy or sell in a 1,000 home subdivision would use. We own 50% of page 1 on Google.
Will more people type “Phoenix real estate” into Google than will type “Val Vista Lakes real estate”? Sure, no question. Will someone seriously looking to buy or sell a home in Val Vista Lakes type “Val Vista Lakes Realtor” in Google. Absolutely. Traffic to the main site from Val Vista Lakes searches is up significantly. We’ve added three people on Val Vista Lakes auto-listings this week alone. Only time will tell if thetraffic and prospects on searches lead to active clients, but there’s no reason to expect it won’t–it certainly has in the past.
The Long Tail works folks. Local content blogging works. Learn it. Use it. Take it to the bank.
PS: Happy Birthday Elvis!
[tags]Long Tail, Val Vista Lakes, Phoenix real estate[/tags]
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I experienced this with the Westbrook site … didn’t take long to appear on the search results, even on Google. Have not had quite the same success with the MHK-type entries on neighborhoods but I may have improperly weighted the keywords in the content.
It’s a learning process.
Excellent commentary on the Long Tail. I hope the industry continues to take notice of the trend. ~MP
Wow!
I retract my comments on the original Val Vista Lakes real estate post.
Those results could not be improved upon.
The Long Tail is indeed a very interesting and important concept. Long Tail hits account for more than 75% of my website traffic. For my original blog, the Long Tail terms bring 88% of my hits.
Congratulations on the mention in the Carnival of Real Estate. This article is excellent
I agree that the traffic you get from local keywords will probably generate better leads than the generic “phoenix real estate”. As the secret gets out more will use it. At least you are ahead of the curve.
Would be interested to hear about the leads you get from it Jay.
Jay, congrats. Good post and worthy of carnival attention!
Thanks,
It really gives a better understanding on this Subject of Long Tail ,
Farooq
Jay is right on about the long tail. My site ranks for all kinds of obscure terms and some that actually get searched a decent number of times.
Long tails are great, there are far, far less of them, but the conversion rate is very good. They are pure gold.
Very accurate observations. I’ve found that the term “San Diego real estate” seems to be more for people who are searching for real estate property values and doing general research rather than trying to find a house for sale. But it is definitely one of the most high-traffic search terms (and an expensive Google Adwords bid).
**San Diego Homes Analyst´s last blog post..Trust Home Foreclosure Reports?