| There's been a lot of talk lately about "The Long | | | | now shifted, from only being able to stock a very |
| Tail", the Chris Anderson book that has become | | | | limited number of titles to being able to stock |
| kind of the bible of niche marketing. In his book, | | | | anything that is or can be saved to a digital |
| Mr. Anderson describes how the blockbuster is | | | | format. This makes it economically feasible --in |
| quickly becoming a thing of the past as | | | | fact highly profitable, to stock titles that may only |
| technology (the internet) is allowing businesses to | | | | sell one or two copies per year, simply because |
| focus or essentially hone in on formerly | | | | there are just so many of them. |
| underserved markets. | | | | So what does all this have to do with SEO? |
| Case in point is the music industry. In the old days | | | | A lot when you think about it. First anyone who |
| (10 or so years ago), a band would release an | | | | has owned a website for any length of time and |
| album, the record company would promote it, | | | | has reviewed their websites log files will tell you |
| hopefully radio stations would start playing it and | | | | that a large number of hits they get from search |
| once demand was there, record stores would | | | | engines come from some pretty unpredictable |
| stock the album. It had to be this way because | | | | search terms. |
| (brick and mortar) record stores, have very | | | | As an example, here are a few actual search |
| limited shelf space. They simply can't afford to | | | | terms that one of my sites received traffic for |
| stock very many albums, since only the records | | | | recently. |
| that receive radio air play sell more then a copy | | | | "car accidents on wantagh parkway nov. 30 2006" |
| or two, that's all the record stores can afford to | | | | "cool places to go to go out and long island" |
| stock. | | | | "newsday articles babylon official write about li |
| Fast forward to the 21st century, when high | | | | pilots" |
| speed internet connections and ipods rule, the | | | | Do you think I tried to optimize for any of these |
| entire music industry changed. Now, virtual stores | | | | terms? Do you think I could even come close to |
| (websites) like itunes can stock an almost | | | | thinking up any of these terms? Of course not, |
| unlimited inventory of music. A digital album | | | | these terms are simply natural results of the |
| doesn't take up shelf space, it takes up a few | | | | content that I post to this site. This site happens |
| million bytes of super cheap disk space and it can | | | | to be about Long Island and these search terms |
| be delivered to the customer's computer/ipod in a | | | | are essentially the long tail search terms of my |
| few seconds over the high speed internet | | | | content. These long tail terms also happen to be |
| connection. Today, music lovers can search | | | | much more focused then you would normally |
| through millions of songs many produced by | | | | SEO for, these are kind of the niches of the |
| completely unknown artists - with no record label, | | | | niche. |
| and without any radio airplay and they can buy | | | | So how do you "SEO" for something that is |
| what they like, when they want to. | | | | essentially a happy accident? |
| The economics of owning a "record store" have | | | | |