Review of "Long Tail Cash " by Dave Tropeano

Review written on 2nd February 2008

Dave Tropeano has come out with a video course on using the long tail in PPC and SEO strategies. Before I go into the course in detail, let me just remind you what the long tail is, and why it is important to online marketers.

In 2004, Chris Anderson wrote an article for Wired Magazine using the term "long tail" to describe the business models for places like Amazon.

"Anderson argued that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough". (Source: Wikipedia)

Now, internet marketers think in terms of keyword phrases. A product will be found at the search engines by the keyword phrases that searchers type in.

e.g. There might be hundreds of different phrases that people type into Google to find a headset to use with Skype.

Some of those phrases will be typed in a lot, and some will be typed in less frequently. In general, the phrases that are typed in less frequently are the longer, multi-phrase keywords.

e.g. We might expect some of the more common phrases to include:

headset for skype or skype headset.

These two would likely have the most searches.

Phrases that would have less searches would include things like:

Plantronics DSP 400 headset
STX-5018 Stereo Headset
Stereo headset with noise cancelling microphone
Logitech 980158-0403 Internet Chat Headset
CS60 USB Wireless Headset

Notice that most of these are makes and model numbers. This is an important part of the long-tail, and one that will deliver targeted traffic to your site.

Each of these phrases will have a lot less searches than the first two. However, in terms of the long tail, the idea is that the sum total of demand for all of these lower search volume phrases is greater than the sum total of the demand for the most popular searches.

Another huge benefit of targeting long tail phrases is that they are much more targeted. Someone searching for "CS60 USB Wireless Headset" knows what he/she wants, and is therefore much more likely to buy. Someone who is just searching for Skype headsets, is still at the research stage, and just looking for information.

Generally the long tail will attract highly targeted traffic that will convert better, and this is the main idea behind Dave Tropeano's course.

Check out the Commission Junction screenshot on this page:

http://ezseonews.com/ltc

You can see that Dave has an EPC of $93.22 for that period. That means he averaged $93.22 in commission, for every 100 visitors he sent to the merchant.

Dave's course is video based course. The videos are downloaded to your own computer, so you don't have to watch them online like so many courses these days. You'll also get some genuinely useful bonuses, which can be used in implementing the strategies seen in this course.

The first main video lasts around 30 minutes and shows an overview of his system. I was excited watching this because I could see the potential of the system. There was a bias towards using PPC in his marketing strategy, but Dave also talks about using traditional SEO to get the targeted traffic.

After watching the main video, there is another hour and a half of tuition, divided into 12 other videos.

Since the course is all about using the long tail, the first video goes into a lot of detail of where you can find complete lists of makes and model numbers for any product line you want to promote.

Once you have a complete list of makes and model numbers, the next step is setting up a landing page for your PPC marketing. The second video shows you how to achieve this using a script that comes with the course. The script will create landing pages on the fly for just about any product a user is searching for in your niche. Best of all, the landing pages achieve a high quality score because even the URL in your ad will contain the keyword phrase the searcher typed in. This is a cool script!

With any PPC campaign using long tail strategies, you need big lists of makes and model numbers, combined with other relevant search phrases. Video 3 shows how to achieve this with a free online tool.

Videos 4 & 5 deal with Placement Targeted Ads. Video 4 shows you a secret weapon Dave uses in his strategy. This tool will find the very best web pages to include your ads in using Google's Placement Targeted Ads. Make sure your ads are seen on the highest converting Content Network pages! Video 5 shows how to set this up in your Google Adwords account.

Video 6 is a lesson in keyword research. Dave shows you his tried and tested methods for finding the low competition, targeted keywords.

Video 7 is split into 6 parts, totalling around 50 minutes. These videos deal with search engine optimization, and setting up an optimized website using Wordpress as the publishing tool. Now, before you think that Wordpress can only be used as a blogging tool, think again. What Dave does in these videos is to show you exactly how he customised Wordpress so that the only clue you are looking at a Wordpress site is the "This site is built with Wordpress.." at the bottom of the page. The final site looks like a site built with any other HTML editor.

For me, this set of videos was very exciting. By using the free plugins that Dave talks about, I am now confident in customising Wordpress to make it a valid Niche site editor.

The final result is a "normal" niche site, with blogging capabilities built in. You can have a link to the blog section of your site from your niche site homepage, and by blogging regularly, you'll be adding valuable content to your site. This is a great model for creating a niche site!

There are couple of interesting bonus videos. The first one highlights a number of datafeed generators. These tools will take merchant datafeeds, and turn them into web page, or code to insert into your web page so that you can have targeted products on your webpages.

The second bonus video looks at writing articles using LSI, and includes a couple of tools Dave uses for this purpose.

I love this course, and to be honest, am surprised that Dave is selling it so cheaply. I am sure that if he had turned this into a physical product, it would be selling for $297+.

Long Tail Cash gets:

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