The term “long-tail” refers to keywords that have low search volume but high relevance. Using them will increase your chances of ranking and attract more qualified traffic.
Keyword Research
Long-tail keywords allow you to target specific searcher intent in your copy. This means that when you create content for these terms, your site is more likely to rank well in SERPs and attract paying visitors. As such, it’s crucial to understand how to integrate long-tail keywords into your content marketing strategy.
Keyword research is the key to discovering long-tail keywords that are relevant to your business and searchers’ needs. There are a few ways to do this, including using free and paid tools like Google Ads’ Keyword Planner and Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. These tools will give you a list of keywords and their associated traffic potential, competition level, and other important metrics. You can also use these tools to identify related keywords and long-tail variations for a given head term.
In addition, you can look for related words and phrases in your existing pages and optimize them accordingly. This approach will help you build a solid foundation and ensure that your entire website is SEO-healthy.
Once you have a list of long-tail keywords, it’s helpful to group them into groups based on their similarity. This will help you determine which keywords are collectively more popular, and which can serve as your page topic. You can then take the most competitive long-tail keywords and target them in your on-page optimization, internal links, and backlinks to improve your chances of ranking well for these terms.
One of the best things about long-tail keywords is that they often have lower competition than broader head terms. This makes them a great way to improve your search engine rankings without spending a lot of money on advertising campaigns. When choosing the right long-tail keywords for your business, you need to think about what your audience is searching for and how your product or service can help them solve their problem or meet their goal.
For example, a head term such as “black dress” might not be as targeted as a long-tail keyword such as “children’s black dresses.” This is because Google personalizes results to show those most relevant to the searcher’s location, age, and sex.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization refers to all measures that can be taken directly within a website to increase its rank on a search engine results page (SERP). This is the area where digital marketers have the most control over influencing rankings. Despite this, effective on-page optimization requires a thorough and rigorous process. Optimizations that aren’t based on a proper analysis or ongoing monitoring can have the opposite effect to what is intended, such as causing keyword rankings to drop or creating irrelevant traffic.
Title tags and meta descriptions are two important aspects of on-page SEO. Both impact the user experience and help search engines determine if content is relevant to a query. It’s recommended that title tags contain a keyword and describe what the page is about, while keeping the tag under 60 characters. Meta descriptions are less of a direct ranking factor but do influence CTR (click-through rates) in SERPs. It’s also essential to optimize internal linking, as this is another ranking signal and can improve the user experience by directing users to related pages and improving navigation.
Beyond these on-page factors, the content of a webpage is the most influential on a SERP rank. To optimize content, consider using the target keyword in the title and headings of a page, then repeating the keyword a few times throughout the body of the text, including in contextually appropriate places and in synonyms where applicable.
Additionally, ensure that the page is optimized for mobile viewing by removing any unnecessary elements that can increase load times or make the content difficult to read on small screens. Aside from these factors, the overall structure of a webpage is also important for on-page SEO.
For example, a page containing multiple informational pieces on the same topic would likely rank well for the keyword “butter substitutes,” but a product-specific landing page targeting this keyword wouldn’t. Identify the search intent behind each keyword you want to target and ensure that the content you create matches this intent. To further hone your on-page SEO skills, try using tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to analyze Google SERPs and see what features are being featured for each of your targeted keywords.
Internal Linking
When you have a good structure in place, you can channel more traffic to your conversion pages. This is because search engines can crawl more of your site in a shorter amount of time and index your content more thoroughly. This can make a big difference for ecommerce sites, which are designed to sell products or services online.
To improve your SEO, you need to optimize internal linking. This involves linking relevant pages on your website to each other. By doing this, you can increase the number of organic keywords your website appears for on SERPs and boost your overall rankings.
The best way to do this is by creating pillar pages. These are pages on your website that have a high level of authority and are used to support other, lower-level pages. To create a pillar page, start by finding long-tail keywords that your target audience would use to find your product or service. Then, create content that answers those queries. Finally, link to the pillar page throughout your website.
You can also create a list of keyword variations and use them to drive traffic to specific pages on your website. For example, if someone searches for “weight loss tips,” you might want to include those in a blog post. However, if they are looking for a specific product or service, you might want to create a dedicated product page for that.
Another benefit of focusing on long-tail keywords is that they tend to be more targeted than broader terms. For example, if someone is searching for “weight loss tips,” they may be interested in learning how to lose weight, but not necessarily ready to buy anything right away. However, if they search for “keto diet supplements,” they are likely much closer to making a purchase.
Aside from increasing organic visibility, long-tail keywords can also reduce your PPC costs. By targeting these more specific keywords, you can focus on a smaller market and get your product in front of the right people at a more affordable price. As long as you aren’t keyword stuffing, using long-tail keywords can be an effective way to drive traffic to your website and build your brand.
Content Development
The best way to target long tail keywords is by creating content that focuses on the specific needs of your audience. This can be done on a blog or through the pages of your website. For example, if you sell classic furniture, it would be difficult to rank well for "furniture" in organic searches, but you could rank well for "contemporary art-deco-influenced semi-circle lounge." This kind of targeting is particularly helpful as users move through the customer journey because people typically use more descriptive phrasing when searching for something specific.
Long tail keyword variations also tend to be less competitive than popular head terms, which means that you can potentially get more traffic from them without spending a lot of money on PPC. This is especially helpful for new sites and those that don't have a ton of existing authority.
For this reason, it's important to always be collecting a list of long-tail variants that are relevant to your business. You can find some great keyword research tools that can help with this, including Answer The Public and SEMrush's Keyword Overview tool.
You can also mine long-tail keyword ideas by looking at the queries that your competitors are ranking for. These can be found in the search box of Google's AdWords tool, and you can also analyze them in the Keyword Overview tool to see if they're long-tail keywords or not.
Finally, you can often find long-tail keywords by mining forum threads for questions that people are asking about your industry or niche. For example, I recently did a keyword search for “weight loss tips” on Reddit and found some good ones that weren't too competitive. But you need to be careful because some of these may not actually be long-tail keywords, as they're short and not very specific (as evidenced by their relatively high search volumes).
Regardless of which method you choose to use, it's important to remember that just adding your keyword to your page isn't enough. You need to create content that satisfies the search intent of the user, and that requires understanding what they're looking for when they use your keywords. This is where the mission statement you've developed for your site or blog comes into play.