Head Term (Short Tail)
One or two words, enormous volume, almost no discernible intent, and every competitor in the category fighting for it.
Analogy Mental model
The premium pitch on the main shopping street. Millions of people walk past, the rent is astronomical, and most of them only came in for the air conditioning.
In practice What you actually do
For a new or mid-sized site, leave head terms alone for the first year. Wikipedia, Amazon and whichever incumbent has held the position since 2011 are not going to be displaced by a better-written page. Build the long tail, earn the links, and come back when the domain can actually compete.
Where people get burned Pitfalls
Shoes gets a million searches a month and the top result is Nike. Even reaching page two earns almost nothing, because the crowd using that word wants ten different things and most of them are not shopping.
This entry was written in English from the Chinese original, not machine-translated. Read the Chinese version →