Subject areaChannels and tools
The long tail is the economic model in which, in a digital market, the sum of a great many products sold in small quantities can be worth as much as, or more than, the few big hits.
The name comes from the shape of the sales chart: a tall head of a few best-selling titles, and a very long tail of niche titles.
Chris Anderson described it, first in a Wired article in 2004 and then in his 2006 book The Long Tail. The logical step is this: in a physical store shelf space costs money and holds only what sells a lot, while online keeping one more product in the catalogue costs almost nothing, so niches become economically relevant too. In SEO (search engine optimisation) the same idea gives long-tail keywords: multi-word, precise searches, each run only a few times but numerous overall and with a clearer intent.
An example
A distributor of mechanical components that also sells online the spare parts a few customers order each year finds that, added up, those slow-moving codes weigh as much as the best sellers; in SEO the same holds for long, precise searches, each one rare on its own.
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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