Google changed the way that customers search in online shops: today, about 70 per cent of customers using site search type in what are known as long tail requests. In contrast to generic search queries like “shoe”, long tail queries are combinations of single search words (e.g. “red Nike men’s shoe”) and communicate a very specific intent to buy.
Complex queries are not only those that are most likely to lead to a conversion: in many cases, they also attract customers to high-margin niche products.
Consequently, as a merchant you benefit twice, if your customers get relevant results in response to their complex queries. Often, though, that is exactly the problem: most online shops have a hard time recognising all the possible combinations of word components and all imaginable misspellings without long, manually composed word lists.
You could manually teach 10 or even 1,000 long tail keywords to your search tool, but the effort becomes impossible with 100,000 keywords. So, in order to realise the sales potential of long tail queries, you should use a site search tool that handles complex queries automatically.
Written by:
Jasmin HerbJasmin Herb is Inbound Marketing Specialist in the FACT-Finder marketing team. She’s specialized in Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization / Search Engine Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Public Relations. During her work at FACT-Finder, she developed a deep understanding on e-commerce, product data quality, retail strategy, conversion optimization and the latest trends in retail. In 2011, Jasmin graduated from Pforzheim University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Communication Science.