The Power of the Long Tail and Local Content Blogging

Yesterday I witnessed an Arizona Rain Storm. (Ironically, it was actually raining that morning, an event in and of itself that is newsworthy around here.) It was a meeting that Brain Brady pulled together that included most of the top ActiveRain point holders in Arizona, and some Bloodhounds. It was a great time. See Brain and Suzanne's posts for details.

One topic that came up a couple of times was "The Long Tail". It's been discussed here before, and the author of the definitive book on the long tail has an interesting blog. So I won't go into details about what the long tail is. Basically it's 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" is huge. As I mentioned in the AZ RainStorm 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 ago, I posted a blog entry on The Phoenix Real Estate Guy about Val Vista Lakes.  That post, that THREE DAY OLD post now ranks #6 - 7 on Google for Val Vista Lakes real estate/Val Vista Lakes Realtor.

So we now have TWO 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 20% 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. We've added two people on Val Vista Lakes only auto-listings this week alone. Was it because of the blog post or web page? I don't know. Nor to be honest, do I really care. 

The long tail works folks. Learn it. Use it. Take it to the bank.