The past year has seen an astonishing increase in the number of keywords used in a typical online search query.

People searching for keyphrases of 8 or more words increased by over 22% in the last year.

Searches with 5 or more phrases have increased 10% over the last year. The data comes from Hitwise with a sample of 10 million Internet users.

In our business we call this a “long tail” search. Long-tailing is something we have been talking about for years now and although it’s growth is surprising, most SEOs would have used long tail strategies in their online marketing campaigns. The reason is simple. The searches are more specific, therefore, there should be less competition and in turn this should result in more conversions. However, you are likely to get a lot less traffic for such specific searches.

So it’s probably time to take a serious look at your SEO keyphrase strategy! It looks like people are becoming more specific in their searches when seeking the information they require.

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• The Rise of the Long-Tail Keyword (blippitt.com)
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• Hitwise: The Long Tail of Search is Much Longer Than Expected (readwriteweb.com)

Tags: Google, Hitwise, Internet marketing, Keyword, Long Tail, Long Tailing, Marketing, Search, Search engine optimization, Web search query