Typically many digital marketers claim long tail keywords are easier to rank for, but is this true?
The answer is Yes and No! There are different types of keywords; depending on the type, a long-tail keyword might be easier or harder to rank. This article discusses all you need to know about long-tail keywords to create a beneficial keyword list to boost your SEO.
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What Are Long-tail Keywords?
Long-tail keywords or phrases,” are longer and more specific keywords that users are more likely to use when they are in the final stages of the buying process or when conducting a voice search. On average, long-tail keywords receive fewer searches than their shorter “head” counterparts. They are counterintuitive at first but extremely useful once you figure out how to put them to use; just like an SEO agency.
How do long-tail Key Phrases Work?
Consider this: if you run a business selling traditional furniture, your pages won’t appear near the top of an organic search for “furniture,” especially if you’re a small operation or startup. However, sell, say, modern art deco furniture. Phrases like “contemporary Art Deco-influenced semi-circle lounge” will help you reach the people actively looking for that exact item.
Taking control of long-tail keywords is as easy as widening your company’s reach to the many people already searching for your products or services.
What is the probability of purchasing after searching for the very general term “sofa” (also known as a “head term”) on Google?
If you search for “elm wood veneer day-bed” on Google, you will find what you need, and you will likely be ready to make a purchase immediately.
Although the volume of visitors you receive will be lower if you use a long-tail keyword rather than a more generic one, the quality of those who visit your site will be much higher. If you’re a small business, any digital marketing agency would advise you to start with these keywords.
Finding Qualified Searchers
Competition for rankings can be fierce for shorter keywords, but traffic and return on investment may be low. If you use long-tail keywords effectively, you may see a decrease in overall traffic volume. Still, your ROI will be much higher because you’ll be reaching your target demographic. They’ll be much closer to the purchase stage than your less-savvy competitors.
Less Competitive Keywords and Lower Costs on PPC
Businesses that care about their content’s visibility in organic Google search results will find long-tail keywords useful. Still, advertisers who employ paid search marketing strategies stand to gain even more from these terms.
Because there is less competition for long-tail keywords, the bid price per click is lower. AdWords campaigns focusing on longer, more specific long-tail keywords can achieve better search engine rankings for relevant terms at a lower cost per click.
The challenge is identifying a sustainable pool of relevant long-tail keywords for your niche. Surprisingly, most keyword suggestion tools overlook this fruitful area, concentrating solely on the dragon’s proverbial head.
Also, if you have a niche website, we have this article to help you ace it: How to create an affiliate niche site that earns 6 figures
Types of Long-tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords vary in quality and usefulness. Some represent entirely new search queries, while others are less common variants of more common ones.
These are distinguished from other long-tail keywords by the terms “topical” and “supporting.”
Supporting Long-tail Keyword
I’ll give you an example to help illustrate. A search for “best healthy treats for dogs” only yields 100 results per month, making it a classic example of a long-tail keyword. However, several other search queries have the same meaning and are much more popular. All of these keywords lead to the same top-ranking pages in Google searches.
Google is intelligent enough to know that people will use different wordings when searching for the same thing. As a result, it provides the same set of results for all these different permutations of the keywords.
Your page will rank for all the long-tail variations of a popular search query like “healthy dog treats” (6.8k searches) once it has started ranking for the primary query. That way, you won’t have to make separate landing pages for each long-tail variant. Instead, send them to the same page.
Topical Long-tail Keywords
The phrase “fly bites on dogs’ ears” is an example of a different kind of long-tail keyword.
Here, the original keyword doubles as the Parent Topic. This demonstrates that our chosen keyword is the preferred method of finding this subject. It’s safe to create a landing page around this specific long-tail keyword.
Once you achieve page one rankings for this timely long-tail keyword, you will also achieve rankings for all the less common “supporting” search query variations. To be sure, life can be complicated. Lastly, let’s analyze the term “natural sleep aid for dogs.”
According to the Parent Topic, this phrase is just another way of saying “sleep aid for dogs” (1.6k searches). However, the word “natural” in the original keyword separates it from the proposed Parent Topic. Those who seek it are trying to find a non-pharmaceutical solution.
Even more surprisingly, not one of the top results for that particular long-tail keyword discusses “natural sleep aid.” As an alternative, it discusses “sleep aids” in a broad sense.
Hence, I’d argue that it is rational to produce unique content with the keyword “natural sleep aid for dogs” as its focus. If no other articles exist on the topic, it has a good shot of being the first result. Just don’t forget there are other digital marketing services too if you want to target these keywords.
Put differently, you shouldn’t always take what the Parent Topic says at face value. It has the flaws and restrictions expected of any computer algorithm. Examining the most relevant results for your keyword search is a great way to determine whether or not the information you’re looking for is part of a larger theme.
