{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
    "content" : "news",
    "type" : "single",
    "title" : "Don’t Forget the Long Tail: It Can Deliver Value |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Don’t Forget the Long Tail: It Can Deliver Value",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/2015/02/13/dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Don’t Forget the Long Tail: It Can Deliver Value","summary" : "Top tasks matter. Visitors come to your website with specific goals in mind. Using a top-task methodology can be particularly useful when redesigning your homepage. But, top tasks aren’t the whole story. Our government websites also have a large range of tiny tasks that, when managed carefully, have the potential to deliver value. In The","date" : "2015-02-13T11:10:37-04:00","date_modified" : "2024-04-02T09:45:13-04:00","authors" : {"ammie-farraj-feijoo" : "Ammie Farraj Feijoo"},"topics" : {
        
            "analytics" : "Analytics",
            "content-strategy" : "Content Strategy",
            "search" : "Search"
            },"branch" : "cm-topics-button-component",
      "filename" :"2015-02-13-dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2015/02/2015-02-13-dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/cm-topics-button-component/content/news/2015/02/2015-02-13-dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/cm-topics-button-component/content/news/2015/02/2015-02-13-dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value.md","slug" : "dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/2015/02/13/dont-forget-the-long-tail-it-can-deliver-value/","content" :"\u003cp\u003eTop tasks matter. Visitors come to your website with specific goals in mind. Using a \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/cm-topics-button-component/2014/07/02/using-top-tasks-to-be-top-notch-federal-reserve-board-usability-case-study/\" title=\"Using Top Tasks to be Top-Notch: Federal Reserve Board Usability Case Study\"\u003etop-task methodology\u003c/a\u003e can be particularly useful when redesigning your homepage. But, top tasks aren’t the whole story.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur government websites also have a large range of tiny tasks that, when managed carefully, have the potential to deliver value.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ca href=\"http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/first-chapter/26/books/strangers-long-neck\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Stranger’s Long Neck,\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e Gerry McGovern explains how, when visitors come to your website, they have a small set of top tasks they want to complete quickly and easily. He calls these tasks the “long neck.” They’re also sometimes referred to as the “short head.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/02/450-x-254-DG-Search-long-neck%5c_body%5c_tail-graph-from-Gerry-McGovern-The-Strangers-Long-Neck.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Graph showing long neck, body, and tail; from Gerry McGovern\u0026#39;s The Strangers\u0026#39; Long Neck\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to McGovern, the breakdown is:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e5% of content accounts for 25% of the demand (the long neck);\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e35% of content accounts for 55% of the demand (the body);\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e60% of content accounts for 20% of the demand (the long tail).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmazon and other businesses have realized great success by focusing on the long tail. A former Amazon employee once \u003ca href=\"http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/01/definitions_fin.html#comment-3415583\"\u003eexplained why they focus on the long tail\u003c/a\u003e instead of bestsellers by saying, “We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile a tongue twister, it drives home how a search box (with good, relevant content behind it) can meet the demands of the long tail.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt \u003ca href=\"http://search.digitalgov.gov/\"\u003eDigitalGov Search\u003c/a\u003e, we power the search box on 1,500 government websites and, like Amazon, we’ve found that we got more searches on terms today that didn’t get searched yesterday than we got searches today on all the terms that got searched yesterday—by quite a bit!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNumber of searches on terms today that didn’t get any searches yesterday: 50,713.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNumber of searches today on all the terms that got searched on yesterday: 31,215.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo your search analytics tell the same story? Look at them, and use them to deliver value and help your site’s visitors complete their long tail tasks.\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}