I’m talking about long tails – the content that isn’t affected by time. The stuff that stays fresh for years without much of an effort on your part.
How do I find the golden eggs, then?
I have a background as an analyst in news organizations. Their business is revolving around content that ages quickly. Who cares about yesterday’s news? But on these news sites, content could be found that rarely made it to the daily or weekly top lists, but kept getting traffic year after year. Maybe it was the seasonal stuff (think ‘recipe for a holiday treat’ or ‘how to prune those bushes in the yard’) or just something that never gets old (say, ‘how to change the tires on your car’).
It doesn’t sound like the most clickable stuff on the site, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to go viral. It’s supposed to stay fresh and up-to-date. That’s why it’s the most read stuff when you look at a longer period of time – years. Try it; have a look at which content has gotten the most page views over, say, the last three years. Or five. Did you find it? Did you have any idea it was your most read piece over the last few years?
The content of your long-tail might surprise you.
Frantic’s long-tail
Frantic has a blog post, written by our Senior Designer Henri Block, that keeps racking up page views year after year. It was published in January 2013. It’s this one. The post is a clear summary of the eight classic and academic rules for user interface design.
I first noticed the blog post when I was looking for typical landing pages on our website. Quite a few sites rely on social media for traffic, but this landing page got its traffic only from organic searches, which seems to be the rule-of-thumb for long-tail content.
The ones landing on this page are certainly sure of what they are looking for. They are very specifically googling for “eight golden rules” and the like.
Frantic does have other long-tail content on the site also, and it’s fairly timeless stuff. Who doesn’t dream of summer in the middle of a bad Finnish winter? Or who doesn’t get a little provoked by this headline?
The challenge
Retaining the users that land on your page is the challenge with long-tail, but you can work on that. The recipe for what to do with the traffic your long-tail content brings to your site, depends on what your objective with the site is.
The readers of your long-tail content might not be your usual audience. Have a look at the ones reading that piece. Is it your normal audience – the same demographics, same devices? If so, you are probably in the minority. In the case of Henri’s blog, the people reading it are a tad older than our usual users.
Maybe you want more signups for your newsletter? Put the sign-up widget right under the long-tail content.
If you have lots of long-tail content, maybe even of the same kind (like recipes or something similar), then maybe add a different subset of material on the site? Lead from one article to the next one? Or maybe send out that golden egg in your next newsletter? Remember, just because you think it’s yesterday's news, doesn’t mean that your target group will.
If they do read something else on your site, what is it? It probably isn’t the longest top list you’ve seen, but you’ll get a feel for the crowd. Are they reading the same kind of stuff or doing something completely different? Did they do it during the same session, or did they come back? And if they did come back, from which channel did they arrive?
Moral of the story
It’s easy to think that we have to constantly create new content for the website, and that only the new stuff is interesting enough. For most of your users, it’s all new. After all, it might be their first time on your site.
What’s my point, then? – Widen your perspective, don’t just look at the top list from the previous week. And remember that you have more than one type of users.
