The growing popularity of SEO techniques poses a serious challenge for digital marketers. As more websites compete for the topmost position in search engine results pages (SERPs), achieving a high search engine rank becomes difficult. A simple yet effective solution is to leverage long-tail keywords.
If you are familiar with the basics of SEO, you would already know that keywords are the life force of any SEO strategy. In the absence of proper keyword research, even your most beautifully penned blog post will fail to achieve traction. Long-tail keywords can refine the keyword research process and breathe new life into it.
Before we shed more light on the importance of long-tail keywords, let us understand the concept in greater detail.
What Are Long Tail Keywords?
Long-tail keywords, as the name suggests, are longer, more specific keywords targeted to what your business is selling and typically range from three to four keyword phrases. These keyword phrases are commonly used in long-tail SEO practices to increase rankings, visibility, and conversions since they are targeting keywords used by visitors who are closer to a point-of-purchase.
Long-tail keywords have a low overall search volume. Meaning that there are comparatively few searches for them each month. That is because each long-tail keyword is very specific. They are not vague, they’re searches carried out by people who know exactly what they’re looking for.
How to find long-tail keywords?
After understanding the importance of long-tail keywords, if you are wondering how to find these incredible keywords, you are not alone.
Google is your friend to do that.
All you have to do is to start typing a topic in the search bar, and you will see multiple Google autocomplete suggestions. These are again specific yet not so popular searches of your overall topic.
Another important place where you can find long-tail keywords related to your business is the ‘People also ask’ box on the Google Search Engine Result Page as well as the ‘Searches related to’ section at the bottom of the page.
If you are not a fan of these manual tactics of finding the long-tail keyword, you can use keyword tools like SEMRush, Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner or Ahref to find numerous long-tail keywords quickly and easily.
Benefits Of Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords account for approximately 70% of web searches and lead to better conversions, making them essential to an effective SEO strategy. But that’s not all!
Here are seven other benefits they offer that you should consider:
1. People Search Using Long-Tail Keywords
Since Google’s objective is to give users the best results based on the exact information they input in their searches, many people do not use single keywords. As a result, you should focus on the keywords that your target audience uses.
For example, they may not use a simple search such as “Argan oil.” Instead, they are likely to input more specific strings such as “what are the benefits of Argan oil?”
Think about it from a user perspective first; how many times do you type a question into Google? For most users, the answer is the majority of their searches, even if they are not always phrased as questions. Statistics show that while around 10% of searches are phrased as questions, over 55% are 3 or more words. For example, “benefits of Argan oil” is not technically a question, but a user who enters this query is looking for the same information as someone who searches “what are the benefits of Argan oil”.
2. They Can Help Outrank Competition
As we’ve discussed, long-tail keywords are more specific keyword terms. Because of this, they aren’t searched as often. However, as a result, you will rank better and get more qualified leads using them. Moreover, there is less competition for long-tail keywords which makes it easier for you to rank well. Plus, despite long-tail keywords being used less in search engines, a visitor who found your website using long-tail keywords is more likely to purchase your product or service.
3. provide value to your audience
Using long-tail keywords not only help you promote your SEO and CRO tactics but also helps you connect with your audience by adding real value to your content.
Creating high-quality content that helps users will surely help you gain traction on search engines. And long-tail keywords help not only search engines get better context about your offering but your audience too.
Long-tail keywords make your content appear more personalized, offer a more interactive experience to your target audience and the long-tail keyword directly answers your searchers’ query.
Additionally, the audience flocking to your website after searching a specific intent phrase, are most likely to be the people you are targeting, resulting in a better ROI.
4. High Conversion
SEO is not only about getting searchers to find your website or pages. It’s not even only about increasing your site’s organic traffic. It’s also about improving your sales or getting more people to sign up for your services. How well any web traffic converts into sales is something that needs consideration.
Web searchers are potential customers, Customers can all be placed somewhere along the customer buying process. That is the journey any customer takes towards making a purchase. It extends from the initial recognition of a problem or a need, all the way to them buying something. Customers search differently depending on where they are along that journey.
Long-tail keywords are used by searchers who are close to a purchase decision. They know what it is they want, so can be very specific with their search query. Traffic from long-tail keywords, as a result, has a high conversion rate.
There is less distance for the searcher to travel from their search to their decision to buy.
5. Help You With Your Blog Strategy
You may already be aware that blogging is the best method of ranking in SERPs. In fact, it should be the cornerstone of your content marketing strategy. For effectiveness, long-tail keywords must be used in the right context within the title tag, URL, meta description and throughout the body text as well. For increased visibility, you can use the focus keyword in headers and alt images which optimizes your website for SEO. The question is, “How do long-tail keywords help with blogs?”.
Focusing on a single keyword minimizes your chances of ranking, and being found, for specific terms related to your focus keyword. For example, consider the long-tail keywords we provided as examples above. We selected the focus keyword, “marketing jobs”. How many blog topics can you develop from that? Not many.
However, using the other long-tail keywords we discovered, you have the potential of writing several other related blog posts which will offer more value to your visitors.
6. Answer Voice Assistant Searches
Voice search optimization is becoming an essential part of SEO. This is not surprising considering the immense popularity of virtual assistant-enabled devices. According to Statista, more than 3.25 billion digital virtual assistants are being used across the globe at present. This figure is projected to reach 8 billion by 2023.
As a marketer or website owner, you can’t afford to ignore voice search optimization. What distinguishes it from traditional SEO is the type of queries used for voice search. Voice search queries tend to be longer and more conversational in nature. This is because users essentially talk to virtual assistants while using voice search, often asking for tips and recommendations.
The very nature of voice search queries demands that you use long-tail keywords. The key is to identify the questions your target audience will likely ask. It is also essential to understand the intent behind asking these questions. If you optimize your content using the right-long tail keywords, your website will be featured in relevant voice search results.
7. Long-Tail Keywords Help You Get Featured in Google’s Rich Snippets
Search engines such as Google constantly strive to deliver the best search experience to their users. That is why they often incorporate new elements to help searchers find relevant and valuable information. For instance, the introduction of the Knowledge Graph and rich snippets has dramatically improved the search experience on Google.
Simply put, rich snippets are regular Google search results, albeit with some additional information displayed. They are a great way to outrank organic listings and search ads to reach the top of SERPs. The most common form of rich snippets includes recipes, film reviews, definitions, etc
We have previously discussed that long-tail keywords make your content more meaningful, relevant, and valuable. However, when you add structured data to these keywords, they provide more context to search engines. This, in turn, helps search engines retrieve additional data from your content and display it in rich snippets. Thus, leveraging long-tail keywords and rich snippets can help you outrank all your SEO and PPC competitors.
You can use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to check the schema on your website.
For best performance, take care of both the primary and long-tail keywords, research thoroughly, monitor the site’s statistics and understand the level of engagement on every keyword used. No matter how small or large your business is, which kind of products and services your company offers, long-tail keyword SEO is a sure way to scaling your online business and boosting traffic to the website.
