You know that time when you meet a friend whom you haven’t seen in a long time and you start to talk about your lives, wives, children and the one which is the first question, where do you work? To me, it happens all the time. Any old friend whom I haven’t met in a long time has the same question! Most of them do not know what is SEO so I have to explain it to them. At first, this was troublesome, but when I started to meet friends who know what Search Engine Optimization is and they started to ask question like: “What kind of porn?” “What’s your client like?” or “I understand that you can’t tell me who your client is, but what field does he activate on?” Well, that’s not really disturbing, what is bothersome is that after I say “porn SEO”, they are taking a step back and that’s when the real chat begins!
Most of the SEO agents don’t realize it, but one of the principles of porn SEO is the same as e-marketing! Yes, that is true, long tail keywords is the principle which helps both of these rank high in search engines! This is a strategy outlined in our boss’s post, Expert Keyword Research 2012.

Long Tail Keywords!

Definition: At the beginning, the term “long tail keyword” has been used to describe any keyword formed from at least 2 words. But  the length could vary up to phrases with four or five or sometimes six sentences. In the past years, the number of web-sites has increased dramatically and, in order to rank well in searches, you have to use keywords. Words used as a key in searches, if used more and more will lose the power to rank well for other sites which have started their businesses or campaigns in promoting. This is why they had to use keywords consisting in at least one or two words. Porn sites and e-markets had to substitute the lack of keywords used on regular sites with multiple word tag, which consist from keywords with at least three words.

Consistency. Long Tail Keyword are included in this category when they are consistent in length by the number of the words used, (eg. 3 to 6) but sometimes there is a fine line between a short keyword and a long keyword. The difference is given not only by the number of the words used in a keyword, but also their competitiveness. Let’s take as an example two keywords. “Vintage circle skirt” is a short one and sounds neat but search engines might categorize it as a long tail keyword, in exchange “fashion sunglasses summer 2012” is not, because of the usage of these words, which is popular enough. The competitivity is high, so it will be regarded by SERP’s as a short tail or as a headed keyword. If we also look at the number of the words used in the keyword we’ll notice that the one taken as a long one actually has fewer words than the last one! Conclusion, the number of words is not defining for a keyword to be long tailed or short tailed.

Volume. Search volume of the keyword is another characteristic which determines if a keyword is long tailed or short tailed. No one except the search engine knows how high the number of searches must be, but it is logical for a keyword which has ten searches in a month to be considered long tailed and those which are being searched one hundred or sometimes one thousand times per hour.

Competitivity. The competitiveness is also another important factor which defines the long tail keywords from the short tailed ones. The problem is again that no one except search engines know where exactly to draw the line where a long tail keyword becomes a generic one. You can first try some tools like Google keywords but it is rarely effective. If it would be, then everyone could take advantage of it. This would mess with their algorithm.

Variety. The variety of the consumers you are addressing to is also defining your keyword – if it is a long tailed or a short tailed one. If a big advertiser is addressing to a large number of people, then the keyword used might be considered to be long tailed, but if a small advertiser uses the same keyword but he is loyal to a small group of customers then the keyword would be considered to be generic.

The ones listed above are not the only characteristics which define a long tail keyword, but these are the main ones. These are also characteristics which are defining long tailed keywords used on multiple genres of sites and not only by the porn ones.