Using long tail keywords is a great SEO strategy. A Long Tail Keywords are more specialised keyword or keyphrase that is typically lengthier than a more popular keyword. You may improve the conversation value of your content by using longtail keywords. Your website will progressively draw in more visitors—both motivated newcomers and returning ones. But how do longtail keywords function, since most of us don’t know? We will discuss every aspect of long tail keywords in this article.
What are long tail keywords?
Keywords that are lengthier and more focused than more popular keywords are referred to as long-tail keywords. Due to their tendency to be longer and more specialised keyword phrases, longtail keywords are more frequently chosen by those who are about to make a purchase or utilise voice search.
The majority of long-tail keywords receive less search traffic than “head” or short-tail keywords. They may be somewhat useful if you know how to use them, even though they initially appear a little confusing.
Longtail phrases make up a sizable share of all searches, even though individuals don’t search for them as much.
The phrase “long tail” originated from the fact that specialty products on online retailers such as Amazon typically accounted for higher overall sales than the best-selling items.
It turns out that when people enter keywords into a search engine, the same thing occurs.
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Why are they called long tail keywords?
Because they would be on the “long tail” end of the search demand curve if you plotted these keywords based on the number of searches they receive each month, we refer to them as longtail keywords.
It should be mentioned that it doesn’t matter how long these keywords are. Longtail keywords are distinguished from low-volume, targeted searches that are only one or two words long (like many brand names). Because of their precision, longtail keywords usually consist of three words or more.
Types of long tail keywords
It is important to take into account the generality or specificity of a longtail term while analysing it. Do long tail keywords tend to focus on a specific subject or are they considerably more inclusive? How competitive is the SERP market? Answering these questions will tell you more about the type of longtail term you’re working with.
Based on their purpose, longtail keywords can be categorised into three groups: topical, supportive, and auxiliary.
Supportive Long tail Keywords
The name comes from the first type, which covers considerably broader themes along with their head keywords and allows longtail keywords. It isn’t biassed towards any one topic.
For example, since the time doesn’t represent a distinct topic but rather falls under the larger category of “grilled cheese,” it might be difficult to rank higher than the top results for a longtail search like “how to cook a grilled cheese in a toaster” on Google.
Because of this, when displaying search results for supporting longtail keywords, Google may include results that appear for the head keyword even if these pages don’t rank for the entered term. As a result, supporting longtail keywords face greater competition and are harder to rank for.
Topical Longtail Keywords
Topical longtail keywords, which make up the second category, focus on a certain topic.
For example, there are 260 searches for the longtail term “private blog network” each month. Because PBNs are the only topic covered by the search results that show up in SERPs, there is no head phrase to support this.
For example: Seasonal searches (“2023 sports fashion trends”), localised longtail keywords (e.g., “SEO services in Greater Wilshire”),
Long names that include thorough explanations of particular objects (“Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History,” “How I Met Your Mother”). In the latter case, the search phrases are much more general, but they are still “too” specific, referring to a single entity (a business, a location, a book or movie, etc.).
What makes long tail keywords so great?
Go through the available search terms by logging into your Google Search Console account. See anything, do you? I can assure you that the majority of the search queries you rank for are composed of longtail keywords.
Longtail keywords make up 91.8% of all search inquiries, according to Backlinko’s analysis of 306 million terms.
Now imagine what you could achieve if all those extremely focused searches generated new prospects that converted well for your assets.
Advantages of using long tail keywords
• Less rivalry
Because long tail keywords are specific to your market and sector, they receive less search traffic.
This has the advantage of requiring far less effort to score highly for the longtail keywords you want to use.
Your landing pages should gain authority if your targeted terms are specific enough and you implement some basic on-page SEO and link-building strategies.
• Increased Conversions
A thorough understanding of search intent can be gained by investigating longtail keywords.
Using search intent, you can identify queries like [buy AF1s for kids under 10] (e.g., [how to target longtail keywords]) that indicate the buyer’s intent and want for additional information.
You can use this data to help your content marketing campaigns and drive prospects who are highly qualified into your sales funnel.
• Greatly Supports Conversational, Semantic, and Voice Search Optimization
Long tail keyword usage is crucial for optimising semantic search results.
Presently, voice search is regularly used by 55% of millennials.
Which Local Barbecue Restaurants Are the Best? is an illustration of a longtail keyword phrase that these consumers utilise on various platforms.
In order to answer inquiries about your business and services and effectively target these long tail keyword terms, attempt to predict the intent behind naturally spoken and voice search queries.
It’s important to keep in mind that even in low search volume situations, long tail keywords can still be advantageous to your business if you target high conversion rate keywords.
• Quite a few of them exist
Indeed, you won’t get a lot of traffic from a single longtail search for your website. However, the search traffic will gradually increase to a considerable level as you deal with more of them.
Long tail keywords are plentiful in practically every industry, so you won’t run out of them.
How to find long tail keywords?
There are multiple methods for locating longtail keywords. Look through the list of alternatives below to find the one that works best for you. If you need more longtail keyword suggestions, you can always come back here and look at more alternatives.
• Google Suggest
Google Suggestions has a tonne of longtail keyword alternatives. Enter your primary keyword into the Google search bar to view the suggested alternatives:
A phrase can be considered famous if it shows up in a Google suggestion.
• Utilize Related Searches on Google
Like the suggestions that appear on Google when you input your inquiry. But these suggested similar searches appear in the SERP below the first page of organic results:
• Employ more various tools for keyword research
Fortunately, finding long tail keywords is a breeze with most keyword research tools. Choose sentences with more than two words, and use them if they align with the goal of your website.
We suggest utilising the following resources while conducting longtail keyword research:
• Google Trends; Hubspot; Semrush
Every tool has a few unique supplementary features that may come in handy depending on what you’re looking for. They’re all quite good at finding lucrative longtail keywords related to their main goal, though.
• Use the Search Query Reports
If you’re running a PPC campaign in AdWords, one of the numerous ways that PPC data can benefit your SEO is to use your Search Query Report in the same manner that you would your analytics. The search keywords that drove people to click on your ads are displayed in your Search Query Report instead of your organic search results. An additional benefit is that, unlike your organic referrers in Google Analytics, you have full access to this data.
Finding the terms that are driving conversions instead of just traffic may also be easier. High conversion rate long tail keywords are especially valuable.
• Explore eHow
For websites like eHow, keyword research—especially long tail keyword research—is the main source of traffic. Demand Media, the company behind eHow, Cracked.com, and other websites, uses strong algorithms to find longtail keywords for which they can rank with hyper-targeted content.
You can still gain from this strategy even if you do not have access to Demand Media’s data sources or their immensely lucrative content algorithms. Look for suggested keywords on these websites. If eHow features a keyword phrase and advertisers are interested in buying placement on those pages, you can be sure that the term has a high search traffic.
Another prudent bet? Anything they’ve made to target those keywords is presumably quite mediocre. The content that eHow creates is frequently cheaply made by freelancers and superficial; this is the kind of content that Google no longer supports after Panda. If you are able to deliver hyper-targeted, authentically valuable content, you stand a good chance of outranking content farms.
• Visit Q&A Websites
Q&A websites (such as those operated by Demand Media) are a good source of longtail keyword ideas. I’m talking about sites like Answers.com, Google Answers, and Quora.
• Amazon’s query; LinkedIn’s responses
Questions make excellent long tail keywords. I have no doubt that these people are looking for information and clarification.
Of course, in order to determine which variant of each question has the right search volume and level of competition, you’ll need to conduct some keyword research. On a Q&A website, not every question will be a good keyword to target.
• Check out Wikipedia
Is Wikipedia the most optimised website on the Internet? It comes in high. By copying Wikipedia’s on-page SEO strategies, you can learn a great deal. Before doing any research on the basic term, check its Wikipedia entry. For an example, take a look at the contents table for this “William Shakespeare” page:
Many of these headers, such “William Shakespeare’s early life,” “William Shakespeare’s later years and death,” “Sonnets of William Shakespeare,” and so on, can be converted into longtail keywords. Alternatively, you may search the page for your primary term using the Control-F keyboard shortcut to check if any additional synonyms appear elsewhere in the text. Several Wikipedia articles have a “See Also” section at the bottom that can be used to find collections of similar terms.
• Copy from rivals
Wikipedia often faces competition from you when you look up information. Competition is something you should constantly take into account while chasing a keyword term. Look for keyword variations related to your target head and mid-tail terms on the pages that rank in the top 5–10 results.
As an example, consider the keyword “holiday crafts.” Look at the page that appears first in Google search results for that term to see the keywords that are used on the page.
How to Create Content Based on Long tail Keywords?
Now that you have a list of long tail keywords that you can optimise, what should you do with them? The amount of longtail keywords you concentrate on and the degree to which their themes coincide will dictate the outcome.
Conventional wisdom states that you should try to create a unique page for each longtail keyword. It’s not always feasible to do this, though.
If you have hundreds of longtail keywords to target, you still need high-quality content in addition to landing pages that are specifically tailored for your longtails.
Your list of potential longtail keywords ought to be divided into digestible sections and organised according to searcher intent.
Organising your keywords based on the theme can help you find natural places for them.
You may be able to incorporate these longtails into your copy if you already have this content on your website. If not, you now have ideas for the topics you should write about in your next articles.
Conclusion
Search engines need to be able to tell that you are giving them the greatest experience possible. You need to know the search trends of your target market in order to accomplish this.
Any content marketing plan should give priority to long tail keywords. If you employ these keywords to match user purpose and deliver an excellent user experience, your writing will be more effective.