Long-Tail Keywords

What Are Long-Tail Keywords, Exactly?

Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific keyword phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they’re closer to a point-of-purchase or when they’re using voice search. Most long-tail keywords have lower search volume than short or “head” keywords. They’re a little bit counter-intuitive, at first, but they can be hugely valuable if you know how to use them.

How Do Long-Tail Keywords Work?

Take this example: if you’re a company that sells classic furniture, the chances are that your pages are never going to appear near the top of an organic search for “furniture” because there’s too much competition (this is particularly true if you’re a smaller company or a startup). But if you specialize in, say, contemporary art-deco furniture, then keywords like “contemporary Art Deco-influenced semi-circle lounge” are going to reliably find those consumers looking for exactly that product.

Why are Long Tail Keywords Important For SEO? 

• Long tail keywords aren’t competitive
•  Have high conversion rates

The 80/20 rule in long-tail keywords

The phrase “long tail” is a visual metaphor for the shape of a distribution graph. Say we were to create a graph of web-wide keyword popularity, a few words and phrases (Facebook, sex, Justin Bieber) would rack up an enormous number of searches. But here’s the surprising part: those keyword search terms, the “head” of the dragon, in reality account for a surprisingly small percentage of all searches, about ten to fifteen percent, depending on how you measure. Another fifteen to twenty percent of searches come from mid-length keywords, meaning that roughly seventy percent of page views are the direct result of – that’s right – long-tailed keywords. It’s a Chinese dragon: the tail goes on and on and on.

Researching long tail keywords

1. Build your buyer personas and map them to customer journeys.
2. Use this information to help you identify topics that your personas will want to see at each stage of their journey.
3. Leverage your own query research via search engines by typing a simple search into the search bar and see what keywords autofill into long tail keywords. These keywords are what users are searching for and you should optimize for them. You can see to the right that we typed “best seo” into Google. Long tail keywords autofilled to show us what users are most often looking for when it comes to “best seo.”
4. Use keyword technology to identify the relevant keywords that you can best rank for that also have high traffic rates.
5. Monitor your success with your keywords, looking closely at your traffic and engagement rates. This will tell you how many people you are attracting and how well your content is answering the needs of their query.

Long-tail keywords are valuable tools for those looking to optimize their content and attract more relevant visitors. The better you are able to better understand your users, the better you will be able to meet their needs and bring in new customers for your organization.