What does Personalization and The Long Tail have in common?

While this might seem like an odd question, it is actually quite logical. First, Google Personalization is described by Google as,

“With Web History, you'll be able to:

• ...View and manage your web activity…

• ...Get the search results most relevant to you…

• ...Follow interesting trends in your web activity…”

This sounds pretty good, correct? Well … that depends.

From a User standpoint this may be a good thing in the short run. However, if all the past searches are taken into consideration with a new search, aren’t you going to miss something?

Perhaps.

From a Business standpoint, if ranking highly on the SERPs is important to you then Personalization means that your Long Tail keywords are more of a factor then ever before.

Why?

If you have a user who does not mind that Google is capturing their search behaviour -- or even encourages it -- then businesses have to make sure their White Hat website has as many of the long tail keywords incorporated into the text as possible.

This is because seemingly inconsequential keywords are being captured that make the visitor unique. Unique in the manner that they willingly give their interest and intent in their own lingo. If all those words are captured within the search history -- and if you have similar words on your website -- then the probability of a SERPs match will increase. The best part about this is many times the likelihood of a visitor purchasing from a website that speaks their lingo increases.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am recommending legitimate text content with these keywords and not SPAM tactics. When you have good content that speaks directly to your visitors in their language then you don’t have anything to worry about. If you know your customer but don’t have this incorporated into your online text, then you do have something to worry about.

While these seemingly odd words or phrases might seem a bit silly to incorporate in your page keyword metadata, if it corresponds with the visible text, then you will have a greater chance during this Personalization era of capturing and/or keeping your high SERPs.

Sound simple? It’s not…