Long-tail keywords? Let’s dive in! These are not any keywords, my friend. Long-tail keywords are like your big magic wand, your traffic-making-solution when there are story lines in your SEO journey that won’t end the way you expected. Long-tail keywords are incredibly, insanely efficient at bringing visitors to your site – visitors who are pre-sold and are very likely to convert. Long-tail keywords kill competitors and strike fear in their hearts. Read on to discover how you can unleash powerful traffic to your site by thinking of great long
Understanding the Power of Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are three words and are very specific to whatever is being promoted or sold. They might have a lower search volume, but so do they have less competition. And so, the easier your content ranks higher in search results. Users who search for these keywords are often further along the buying process and ready to actually buy something. So, once again, you always speak to your target audience by choosing your keywords. This is very effective, as higher specificity results in higher conversion rates, because traffic is more relevant to the given project.
Why Focus on Long-Tail Keywords?
By thinking solely long-tail, you can create absolutely laser-targeted content that will please a searcher’s intent more than generic keywords, and they’re also better for search engine results such as Google because, the more it improves, the more it ‘understands’ a searcher’s intent and tries to provide that intent with something useful.
Long-tail keywords can help you get found faster and higher up in searches. For instance, going for a long-tail keyword such as ‘best organic dog food for sensitive stomachs’ means your content has an obvious focus, and you don’t have to try to do the selling all over the place within your copy to appeal to the different intents that a generic keyword such as ‘dog food’ would cover. You can simply do exactly what the searcher appears to want – you can help to give your audience ‘green trust’ by being more specific.
How to Find the Right Long-Tail Keywords
Finding the right long-tail keywords comes from intimately knowing your niche, and the particular questions or needs that your prospective customers have. There are various tools available for mining stem, root, and long-tail keywords based on a certain root keyword, like Ahrefs, SEMrush and Moz Keyword Explorer. These tools provide important insights on search volume, competitiveness and keyword difficulty levels. Forums such as Quora and Reddit are also great places to discover long-tail phrases that real humans are actually asking about.
Strategies for Optimizing Content with Long-Tail Keywords
Establishing this long-tail might be a good use of your time: if you figured out the right keywords, then all you have to do is be resourceful and write something useful. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that you stuff your articles with keywords.
Creating Content That Ranks
When writing content, answer the question the user might have had (via long-tail keyword, of course) in the title, meta description and content, using the long-tail keyword wherever it feels natural to do so. After that, spend some more time writing the content so that it answers the question better than your competition. Yoast SEO can help you optimise your content according to SEO best practices.
Enhancing User Engagement
One exceptional way to do this and maximise your long-tail keyword strategy is by making quality content that engages your readers. Complex information is easier to explain when it is illustrated with pictures, videos or infographics. The reader’s attention will stay longer and be more engaged, which will potentially increase the number of social media shares. Also, internal links from your blog post or page to your other content increases engagement and helps distribute page authority throughout your website.
Leveraging Long-Tail Keywords for Link Building
Finally, link building with long-tail keywords is extremely effective – incredibly, it usually comes down to just targeting that niche segment. Which in turn makes it more likely that other niche sites with a matching audience will actually be interested in linking to your content, since your content adds a specific kind of value for the people who will be visiting their sites.
Building Relationships with Niche Bloggers
You might also try simply outreaching other bloggers or sites within your niche, people you know would find value in your detailed long-tail content and thus might link back. The outreach could come via email, social media, or guest blog opportunities.
Using Long-Tail Keywords in Your Anchor Text
Lastly (but not least), if link building is part of your SEO approach, links carrying long-tail keywords as their anchor text can help you rank better with those keywords. Just don’t overdo it (over-optimisation can actually lead to penalties), and make sure you’re always building those links either on real web pages or in the most natural way possible.
Monitoring and Adjusting Your Long-Tail Keyword Strategy
But just because you’ve published some content doesn’t mean you’re done. Your job in ranking well for long-tail keywords is never finished. It requires constant vigilance for how your content does when you publish it.
Tracking Keyword Performance
Keep a close eye on how they rank and send traffic by using Google Analytics and Google Search Console, especially for new customer keywords with momentum, to see trends; watch for keywords trending up or down before tweaking.
Adjusting Based on Performance
This information could prompt you to iterate your strategy – changing up the actual content to better cover the searcher’s intent, or identifying a new set of long-tail keywords that proves more effective than the one you first chose. There is no ‘I’m done with SEO now’ button. Being able to adapt is a core SEO skill.
Conclusion
By now, you should have a better understanding of how to use long-tail keywords for SEO – and how to take your traffic to the next level. As those high-converting long-tail keywords are designed for relevance and user intent, the key is to keep on evolving, keep on perfecting and keep on adapting. Do that, and before you know it, your site will be receiving more qualified traffic from users who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. Good luck!
FAQs:
Q: Is it true that long-tail keywords are always better than short-tail keywords?
A: Not always but potentially very effective if you’re looking at specific, targeted traffic and higher conversion rates. It’s your way to attract a more targeted audience with a specific intention.
Q: How many long-tail keywords per content?
A: There’s not a specific number, but do focus on one primary long-tail keyword per content item, and use related long-tail terms naturally in the body of your text to add relevancy.
Q: Can I use long-tail keywords in a PPC campaign?
A: Sure! Long-tail keywords make perfect sense for PPC as they are sometimes less competitive and have lower costs per click, which works great for targeting niche groups because you can get more mileage for fewer dollars.