Definition of Long-Tail Keywords
While talking about the competition, let’s face it, there’s much competition for the head keywords. Your chances to compete against the top brands are quite less, but the more specific your keyword is, the less competition you will find. This will increase your chances to get more links to that specific page of your website. Long-tail keywords are a great way to differentiate your blog from the competition. Try using these keywords as titles in your articles. This will improve your chances of getting more targeted visitors from search engines. As it’s difficult to predict what combination of keywords will have the maximum impact, you can start off by experimenting with different long-tails. Once you see the results, you can further optimize that specific page.
A very interesting thing about long-tail searchers is that they are much clear about what they want, which simplifies the web marketer’s task. If a visitor comes through a long-tail search phrase, it’s easy for the marketer to know what the visitor exactly wants. The idea is you need to see things in the way a customer does. Do not assume that all your visitors know what they are looking for. Use specific landing pages for different products. Higher potentials of long-tail keywords can be viewed as an opportunity to make a strategy for numerous landing pages.
Usually, people think that more search volume means more traffic to your website. It’s obviously true, but we’ve missed out on the type of visitors you’ll get for that traffic. More search volume will result in more generic visitors who are not exactly interested in what they are looking for. As a result, he/she will not spend a long time at your site or will not buy anything at all. On the other hand, if you get a low search volume but very specific and precise potential visitor via a long-tail search phrase, there are high chances that he will convert into your customer. According to recent research, long-tail keywords have more conversion rates although they might appear to have less search volume.
Long-tail keywords are long and specific keyword phrases that searchers enter into search engines. They are basically those keywords that are more specific and have usually a lower search volume in contrast to the broad and more common “head” keywords. It has been observed that people are quite fussy these days. They know what they are looking for when they start searching on the internet. Most probably they would reach your website through a long-tail search phrase. These searchers are looking for precise information. And in turn, this will increase the probability of the visitor to convert from a searcher to a customer.
Importance of Long-Tail Keywords in SEO
It is important to target potential customers who are further along in the buying cycle. While it’s still difficult to read the searcher’s mind, long-tail keywords make it far easier to approximate what the searcher wants. If a landscaping company in Austin, Texas specializes in environmentally friendly xeriscaping, they’d much rather have ad to appear when someone searches “environmentally friendly home garden” than when someone searches “garden”. Remember, a click on the ad is going to cost the company money, and the user who clicked on the ad for the more specific search is far more likely to be a potential customer.
Long-tail keywords are those three or four (even five) keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you are selling. You see, whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are actually going to buy. In virtually every case, such specific searches are far more likely to convert to sales than general generic searches that tend to be geared more toward the type of research or information gathering conducted by consumers who have yet to decide what they really want to buy.
Benefits of Using Long-Tail Keywords
Higher conversion rates often translate to higher return on investment (ROI). Because of this, many online marketing professionals are shifting more of their advertising budget to long-tail optimization. These keywords may bring in less traffic, but the lower competition and higher conversion rates make them more cost effective. It’s been proven that adding long-tail keywords to an existing AdWords campaign can result in a 2-3 times increase in conversions. All of the top SEO and marketing blogs have countless articles on the importance of using long-tail keywords for this very reason.
Compared to broad keywords, long-tail keywords tend to convert better. Visitors who use long-tail keywords are often looking for something specific and are more likely to make a purchase. Someone who is just browsing may use a broad keyword like “furniture”, but someone who is looking to buy a specific type of product may search “oak dining chair.” More specific searches are easier to match to the right product, hence bringing in more qualified leads. All of our clients that have added long-tail optimization to their marketing plan have seen an increase in sales. An increase in sales is always the end goal and by using long-tail keywords, we can ensure better results.
Higher Conversion Rates
In 2006, a study by Hitwise found that long-tail type key phrases usually lead to conversions 2.5 instances greater than generic key phrases. Despite an absence of up-to-date statistical info, the connection between the utilization of long-tail key phrases and elevated conversion charges stays a constant discovering within the search advertising and marketing trade. If we glance at why that is, the explanation is obvious. Someone who varieties a search question utilizing a long-tail key phrase is usually trying to find one thing particular. For instance, evaluate these two hypothetical search queries: “dog” and “dog chew toy product recall”. The person typing in a generic search time period reminiscent of “dog” could also be doing so for lots of eventualities and as a result of this fact can be probably fairly unclear on what it’s they’re truly trying to find. A person looking for one thing particular nonetheless, already has a transparent idea of what it’s they want. Due to this fact, when a consumer arrives at a web site by way of a search question containing long-tail key phrases, there’s often a higher stage of buy intent. Another excuse why long-tail key phrases can result in elevated conversion charges is as a result of much less “window customers” arrive at internet sites through this technique of search. As talked about earlier than, customers arriving at web sites through ppc search may be extra prone to bounce from the webpage if it isn’t related to their search question, nonetheless customers coming from natural search outcomes usually count on to spend extra time evaluating and contrasting numerous web sites and as a result of this fact have an increased stage of engagement on the web site that they select to click on on.
Lower Competition
Generally, long-tails target specific items, and that often means people are set on buying it. And a person who uses a long-tail search query is also likely to be further along in the buying cycle. Now if we combine those two thoughts, we end up in a situation where the visitor coming from a long-tail search query is looking for the exact item we are targeting, and is also very likely to buy that item. This makes a long-tail searcher a great visitor for a niche e-commerce site. After all, more targeted and motivated traffic is never a bad thing. In general, lower competition means easier to rank for. But this is an important point that often gets overlooked. In a situation where we are trying to decide between targeting a popular general search term, or a lower volume long-tail, it is often much easier to see quicker and more dramatic results by going after the lower volume long-tail. Trying to build a presence and traffic for the popular generic search term can be a long and discouraging road, as it is likely to take quite a few months before you’ll see your site even appear on the front page of the search engine results. Although the potential traffic is higher, the effort and resources needed to reach that point may not be worth the return. On the other hand, we can often rank well for one or more long-tails in a matter of a few weeks, and using the above logic, if there are many long-tails to be had in the same niche, the potential combined traffic can be quite significant.
Enhanced User Experience
It’s clear that long-tail keywords can deliver the goods when it comes to sales, but search engine optimization isn’t all about making a sale. A lot of people use it to get information, learn topics, and to seek out local businesses. Long-tail keywords seem to feed the searchers’ needs a bit better than head keywords. When someone uses a 2-4 word search phrase, they tend to be looking for something specific. Imagine someone searching for “shoes” (head keyword) and someone searching for “buy air jordan retro basketball shoes” exact and specific. The second keyword phrase automatically puts the shoes shopper into the buyers’ category, and if the content is what they are looking for, sales will be made much easier. Long-tail keywords increase the chances of converting organic search traffic into leads or sales, offering a more targeted approach. According to a blog post on the KISSmetrics website, Neil Patel wrote, “Over time, you’ll find that the majority of your sales and leads now come from search. You’re now converting organic search traffic. This actually takes a while. But when it happens, you’ll experience the best ROI on your marketing dollars. This is because search traffic is actually the most targeted.” Step 8 – this does not make it clear that he’s talking about long-tail keywords, perhaps we should add a few more benefits from the article.
Improved Search Engine Rankings
This aspect of long-tail keywords revolves around one main concept. It is quite difficult for a new website to compete on popular keywords which have search volume in the hundreds of thousands. For instance, very few new websites would be able to compete on the keyword ‘loan’ which has a search volume of 550,000 [ed: 10]. Ranking on the first page of a popular keyword is an extensive, tiresome battle that may take months or even years to accomplish. It is much more prudent to target keywords that have significantly less competition and thus a significantly higher probability of ranking well. A new website could conceivably compete on a keyword phrase such as ‘college student loan with bad credit’. This keyword has a much lower search volume but an extremely high relevance to the visitor and would be far easier to rank highly on. By targeting a large quantity of relevant, low competition keywords, a new website can attract the same amount of traffic it would receive from one high competition keyword. This tactic is an essential strategy for new websites because traffic volume is vital for a new site, but trying to attract that traffic through over-competitiveness on popular keywords can be demoralizing and inefficacious.
Strategies for Identifying and Implementing Long-Tail Keywords
In order to find the most effective long-tail keywords to include in the content on a website, special tools can be utilized to discover all possible keyword variations. The Moz Keyword Explorer provides a vast array of keywords and can filter them based on search queries, making it easy to identify the specific keywords with higher search rates. Google AdWords Keyword Planner will automatically group similar keywords together, making it easier to analyze the data, and is especially useful for websites that are using paid search in addition to organic. SEMRush and Soovle are two other popular tools that can be used to find keywords and both offer unique features, with SEMRush providing a “related keywords” option and Soovle populating keywords based on multiple search engines. Another effective strategy is to analyze competitor websites in order to identify the keywords they are ranking for. Develop a list of known competitors and the most valuable keywords for your website. From there, input these keywords into SEMRush and export a list of the top 50 organic search results for each of these keywords. Compile the data and check for any keywords that are ranking for multiple competitors. Create another list using these keywords and filter them down to find the most valuable ones. Keep an eye on your competitors and be sure to periodically check and update your lists based on the keywords they are targeting.
Keyword Research Tools
Free tools such as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool allow you to search for keywords and ad group ideas. The tool will then give you a list of keywords that contain your search term as well as similar or related terms. It also allows you to enter a webpage or upload a file to find relevant keywords. This can be extremely useful if you want to find keywords related to your niche for the content you already have. A drawback to the free tool is that it offers broad results, it does not provide specific long-tail keywords, rather a list of related keywords that can still be quite competitive. However, this can be used to your advantage by choosing less relevant keywords with the focus of creating more targeted long-tail keywords.
When it comes to identifying and implementing long-tail keywords, it is important to have the right strategies. One of the most effective methods is to use keyword research tools to find the most relevant and highly searched keywords in your industry. These kinds of tools usually offer both paid and free services, but can be very effective in discovering large lists of keywords for your business.
Analyzing Competitor Keywords
Although the KEI is a very powerful tool, you can manually search for your keywords using any search engine and look at the supply and demand of the keyword. For instance, doing a search in Google for the keyword “Computer” by typing it in and then placing quotes around it will give you a value of how many web pages are found with that exact search term. Now, if you do a search for “top quality computers” using the same method in quotes, you will find that the number of search results is much lower. This would indicate that top quality computers is a better keyword to target for a PC retailer as there are fewer competing web pages.
Carrying out good keyword research would mean devoting substantial time looking into the geography of your target market, studying the competition, and pinpointing the exact words and phrases your target market uses to try to find your solutions. You can also use tools such as Wordtracker that you have already subscribed to, to identify which words convert to sales. A good tool to use is the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) that looks at the search term EPMC (Effectiveness of Phrase in Market Culture) which is a complex formula that looks at the search term in relation to the number of competing web pages.
Incorporating Long-Tail Keywords in Content
Using long-tail keywords in your meta-tags is an effective way to build relevance for those keywords and the articles associated with them. Most content management systems allow for unique meta-tags to be created for each piece of content. This is important because the meta-tag can essentially be a sales pitch to entice readers searching for that keyword to click on your link. Make sure the meta-tag includes the long-tail keyword and accurately describes the content. The meta-tag will also be what is displayed as the title of your content in search results, so be clear and concise.
Remember, the ultimate goal of all marketing is to generate sales. Everything that is put on your website should be designed to help readers understand better the benefits of your product and to receive a call to action.
To be effective, long-tail keywords should be woven into the content in a way that is both natural and highly relevant to the reader. Adding keywords where they don’t fit naturally is always a bad idea, but it’s possible to create too much good content as well. Search engines give preference to content that’s highly focused and relevant. With this in mind, it’s usually best to create a piece of content focusing on a single long-tail keyword, rather than trying to include a variety of different keywords in one article. This will also help the article remain tightly focused and informative.
Monitoring and Adjusting Keyword Performance
Rank checking software will usually also provide information on the number of backlinks and the PageRank for the page being ranked. It is useful to record this information at the same time as the keyword ranking, so that we can look for a correlation between these factors. If the data is kept in a spreadsheet, graphs can be easily produced from the data, which can be useful for presentations.
In order to assess the effectiveness of the implemented keywords, we must monitor our site’s ranking on the chosen keywords. This can be done using various rank checking software. However, it is important to note that our site may be ranked differently for visitors located in different countries (or using the search engine of a different country). This is due to factors such as local competition and local trends. Different search engines may also produce different results. Therefore, it is unrealistic to track our rankings across all search engines and all countries. For most sites, the best approach is to focus on one search engine in one country. Usually this will be the Google search engine and the country in which the company is located. If the website is an international one, it can track rankings on the different search engines for different countries and languages.
