WDI

The Long Tail Concept as it Applies to Web Design

The phrase The Long Tail was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article to describe certain business and economic models that have had a huge impact particularly on the Internet. Businesses with distribution power can sell a greater volume of typically hard-to-find items at small volumes rather simply focusing on selling popular items at large volumes. The term long tail is also generally used in statistics.

The long tail is the common name for a well known feature of statistical distributions. The feature is also referred to as heavy tails, power-law tails, or Pareto tails. These distributions resemble the simple, accompanying graph.

In these distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude section of the graph is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude portion which gradually “tails away”. In many cases the infrequent or low-amplitude section of the long tail, represented here by the yellow portion of the graph, results in the majority of the graph’s area.

Anderson argued that low demand and low sales volume products can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters. Anderson cites earlier research by Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu (Jeffrey) Hu, and Michael D. Smith, which revealed a large portion of Amazon.com’s sales come from obscure books not available in brick-and-mortar stores. Because of this, The Long Tail is a viable marketing plan and, as the examples illustrate, the distribution and sales channels created by the web empower businesses to tap successfully into that market.

  According to Anderson, an Amazon employee described The Long Tail as follows: “We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.” This quote is a great summation of the entire plan. This is where The Long Tail shines for Internet based companies!

  Anderson has this to say on Squidoo,

“The theory of The Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.”

In my opinion this is where it all becomes very applicable to web designers. By “…shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits…toward a huge number of niches in the tail” is where the work of good web designers plays out. The Long Tail becomes a principle that shifts from economics to calculated, intentional web design. This all goes back to several of the principles we highlighted in the article series on Logo Design. Research, Professional Discipline, Creative Brilliance, and Results for Clients all factor heavily into creating The Long Tail approach your customers need to succeed with their businesses. As a web designer you succeed by listening to your customers, researching their company (What do they do best? What sets them apart from the competition? How can you highlight their strengths and bring their ‘niche’ abilities to the forefront?) and creating a site appropriate for their company.

By keeping the concept of The Long Tail at the forefront of your ultimate design goals, you will in turn create your own ‘niche’ because of the success you bring to your customers.

In future articles, I hope to bring several more direct points into focus from The Long Tail approach as it applies to web design.

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