Longer Search Queries Become More Popular
Trent Blizzard | 26 March 2009 | 11 Reviews »
For a typical hotel, most of the search phrases are 3-4 words long. Most small businesses don’t receive significant traffic from one or even two word phrases because they are not Coke or IBM or Dell. Even two word phrases are not the norm, unless it is for a big phrase like Denver Hotel. Generally speaking, the longer the phrase the higher the conversion rate! People searching for you by name often have the highest conversion rates.
Hitwise released some data that show an increase in longer keyword phrases:
The length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of five to more than eight words in length, have increased 9 percent between February 2009 and February 2008. Searches of eight or more words increased 20 percent. The same time period showed that shorter search queries — those averaging one to four words long — have decreased 2 percent. Searches of two words comprised the majority of searches, amounting to 23.47 percent of all queries. Data from Hitwise
March 26th, 2009 at 11:21 am
When people find out I work in SEM they often ask how can I improve the search results I get in Google to find what I am looking for right away. I always say try using longer, more specific search phrases. It just makes sense! If you are looking for a Downtown Denver Botique Hotel using the more descriptive search phrase is going to eliminate the hotels that don’t fit that description since their sites aren’t about downtown botique hotels!
March 26th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I find that very surprising.
And am really hoping that the trend doesn’t become the norm.
I mean how do you optimise for 8 word search terms.
Google certainly will have it’s work cut out to decipher relevance for these searches.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Hmm…, Trent. Based on the research, it seems that the longer the keywords, then the higher the click rate is! It’s a very strange situation, but everything is possible under the sun, isn’t it?
March 26th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
When I study my client’s analytics, I see higher conversion rates on the longer more specific searches (brand name searches usually convert best). There is a growing belief that the long-tail of search is where the action is. Trent
March 26th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Slimline
I think you optimize your presence for long keywords by having good content and making sure that good content is visible to Google. Avoid the temptation to stuff keywords into your content. If you have good content that is relevant, Google rewards you. Trent
March 27th, 2009 at 10:58 am
This makes perfect sense since more and more information is geting added. If you use one word searches the results are just too broad to be effect.
The more specific you are with the search, the better the results seem to be. Usually….. :-)
March 28th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Long-tail keywords are without a doubt the most profitable. The trick is trying to find them and use them in a non-intrusive way (stuffing keywords is a no-no) Google seems to be puting more and more emphasis on Latent Semantic Indexing these days.
March 30th, 2009 at 5:43 am
yes, long tail keyword are good searching and easy to achieve.
thanks
March 31st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I feel I type in at least 3 or 4 without even thinking. THe longer the better.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:08 am
I have seen evidence that longer 4+ keywords get the clicks and conversions. It is possible to optimize for these keywords and even 8+ keyword with having really good content and using LSI.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 am
Long tail words are becoming more popular, because internet users now understand that by typing a broad word they will recieve many unneeded information, and this is for SEOs to start to target longtail keywords cause they are increasing in traffic and they are the ones with most converstions