Don’t believe it when people roll their eyes and say that the “long tail” is dead. Long tail is the converse of “viral.” Much of the stuff that everyday people search for isn’t tied to headlines or American Idol, contrary to what you might think. There are things that don’t change much with time. If I want to learn how to use a grommet tool, for example and I type “grommet tool” into plain Google web search, I get a list of places to buy grommet tools, as you can see in the first screen shot. That may come in useful later, but right now, I want to know if its the tool that does the job I need done.
If I search “grommet tool” on Google search for blogs, the top result is from 2008, and if I search blogs next year, it will probably still be the top result. Research has shown that even if you monopolize the top 1,000 search terms in all the search engines, you still only get about 10% of the total search volume. For the long term health of your website, a blog with high quality content that is updated on a steady basis is a great investment of time and effort.
