Search engine optimization (SEO) is always done by focusing on specific keywords, like "Atlanta spa" or "massage Albuquerque". Ironically, although doing this well will bring you visitors making those searches, it's all the variations of searches — often completely unique variations — that will make up the bulk of your search traffic.

For example, for Spa Emergency, one of the keywords we've focused on is the rather obvious "spa gift certificates". But look at some examples of searches that have produced sales for SpaBoomers on Spa Emergency:

• massage spa mill valley strawberry village
• saint louis spas
• massage therapy + whitewater WI
• internet gift certificate email
• pedicure arlington
• send gift certificate through email

Those are all unique, one-time searches that brought a visitor to Spa Emergency who purchased an Instant Gift Certificate.

Of course, we get plenty of visitors searching for "spa gift certificates". But unique, one-time searches make up 82% of our visitors, and that has turned into 82% of our sales on Spa Emergency for SpaBoomers.

Focusing on keywords is still the practical way to go about SEO. But keeping the long tail in mind will make it much more effective.

By the way, the term "long tail" was popularized by the interesting book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. It's a great phenomena of the Internet: unlimited shelf space means that we're not limited to just the best sellers anymore. The original term came from statistics, to describe the common occurrence where low-frequency instances actually make up the majority in aggregate. Search terms are a great example.

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