What is the ‘Long Tail’ search result?
According to HitTail (a nice online SEO tool), the Long Tail is an economic concept that says the collective demand for less-popular items can exceed all the most popular added together. So, long tail search is about using terms related to your prime search terms that will individually cause less search hits but collectively increase your search hits. Get it?
The opposite of the ‘Log tail’ is the ‘Short tail’. Short tail search result listing in the Irish online recruitment industry is your site ranked for the single word (like ‘Jobs’) or simple phrases (like ‘Cork Jobs’). Long tail example is a visitor that came to your site by searching for: “multilingual sales representative”:
http://www.google.ie/search?&q=multilingual+sales+representative
… or even longer search phrase, hence the name ‘Lon Tail’ search phrase result.
The importance of ranking the recruitment web site in the ‘Long Tail’ search engine results is absolutely huge. That is the fact. Here is why:
QUALITY
The better the job hunter ‘describes’ the job he is looking for in the search engine the more relevant candidate you are getting to apply for your jobs. Increasing the quality of the applications for your jobs will bring benefit to almost all steps in your selection and recruitment process.
QUANTITY
This is where it gets ‘unexpected’! The logic says that since less people are using the long search phrases while searching for jobs, there should not be MORE applications from the Long Tail results than from the listing for the short broad terms like ‘Jobs’. The reality is the opposite, simply because of the sheer QUANTITY of the Long Tail search phrases. The total amount of the applications for the long tail search phrases will ALWAYS be higher that the applications that came for the broad search terms.
Conclusion on the Long Tail search phrases in the Irish recruitment:
By listing your site high for the long and descriptive search phrases will bring you the best candidates in the largest volumes.
Sounds like a dream? And jet it’s sooo doable!