Long tail Search Offers ROI

Great comments by Bill Tancer of Hitwise on the importance of understanding the long tail of online search behavior. His comments in "Sizing Up The Long Tail of Search" are backed up quantitative data to support his contentions. He shows that the long tail begins after only 18 seach terms out of 14 million, with those 18 terms comprising aobut 3.25% of searches. Tracer notes that if you had a complete monopoly of the top 1000 search terms you would still miss out on about 90% of all search traffic. Then for fun he notes that "if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles." Ultimately, the point is to validate that almost all search activity is beyond the reach of owning the big single keyword for your business.