Long-tail keywords are words or phrases specific to a product or service. That means they are targeted for the promotion of that product or service. Ideally, a long-tail keyword has at least 3 – 4 words, hence the name, but they can also be longer.
To have a better understanding of what the keywords are, here is an example of a search query.
A user may search for “the price of Nintendo Switch”, which is a long-tail keyword, which implies they plan to buy the gaming system. On the other hand, if the search input was for “Nintendo Switch,” then the user is likely looking for more details about the gaming system’s features or any other related information.
As you can see, the intent of the search is quite different, as the 1st example is looking to buy, while the 2nd is simply acquiring more information. Because of the search intent associated with each search, targeting long-tail keywords with a clear understanding of user intent will help increase conversion rates.
The intentions of the two users in the example given above are an example of why you must have a clear understanding of the search intent for each query. This is how your target audience will find the information you post, which will boost your conversions and allow you to better optimize pages. As an experienced digital marketing firm, EverConvert understands how to incorporate long-tail keywords into a content marketing strategy. Our SEO content team is constantly monitoring changes and how user intent factors into rankings.
Why Long-Tail SEO Is Important
Google’s algorithms keep changing to ensure better user experience. Therefore, you need to stay current with your SEO strategy. Know how to leverage your keywords for the promotion of your content. You must balance your head keywords with long-tail ones; the former having a higher search volume but the latter having a very specific intent. As such, the impact that long-tail keywords can have on search engine optimization is too significant to be discounted.
Eight Reasons why you should focus on long-tail keyword in your SEO
1. Provide More Value
The game in SEO is rather straightforward; you need to offer value to your target audience in order to rank higher in search results. The information must be useful, but the relevance will mean little if the content is not optimized. That is why you should do enough keyword research to come up with new topics to write about that are optimized for long-tail searches.
By incorporating long-tail keywords, you will use specific phrases based on your target audience’s needs and interests to provide more value to them. This will also play an essential role in strengthening your marketing efforts. To provide a real-world example, many of our clients are lawyers, meaning their pillar content is often tied to keywords like “Atlanta personal injury lawyer” or “New York business lawyer”. While these terms have the largest search volumes, the intent of the query is not always to acquire a lawyer’s services. So, we use our content and supporting blogs to target long-tail keywords like “how much does a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta cost?” that are most likely associated with someone looking to hire an attorney.
2. 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 instance, they may not use a simple search such as “CBD oil.” Instead, they are likely to input more specific strings such as “what are the benefits of CBD 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 CBD 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 CBD oil”.
3. Less Competition
It is difficult to rank better for head keywords because they are highly competitive due to their larger volume, which is not the case with the long-tail keywords. As a result, it can be much easier to rank on page 1 of search results for a long-tail keyword, while head keywords will be more difficult.
With the long-tail keywords being specific, they are highly relevant because they will help the target user find exactly what they are looking for online. That translates into better conversion rates without facing as much competition for the keywords you use.
4. Better Conversion Rates
Long-tail keywords are known to be highly effective in generating organic traffic. They may take a longer time to give significant returns, due to their generally low volume, they are a worthwhile investment if you consider the potential long-term gains.
For instance, you can strategize to use the long-tail keywords in your blog posts as opposed to the costlier option of depending more on running PPC campaigns for your head keywords. Then you will be able to see long-term gains as you generate organic traffic and better conversion rates, which will in turn help push your shorter, high volume head keyword pages higher in the SERP.
5. They Help You Optimize For Semantic Search
If you are targeting to optimize your content for semantic searches, then you will need to use long-tail keywords. With a huge number of the new generation of online users using voice searches, you should always consider voice search in your search engine optimization strategy.
Voice searches run based mostly on long-tail keywords, and they have revolutionized how people do their online searches. Given the expected growth in the use of smart speakers and the versatility in the use of these voice assistants, you should research the long-tail keywords that will answer their search queries.
6. Optimize Your Blog Strategy
Blogging has become a valuable part of any optimization campaign. It is one of the best methods for ranking higher on search results pages (SERPs). As you implement the long-tail keywords in your website’s content, you also should do the same in your blog posts.
Do what you can to include them in the URL, title, body, and meta tags, but all in the right context. Research the keywords to ensure they are relevant to the topic and let your content revolve or be based on the keywords.
You can rely on a tool such as Google Keyword Planner to figure out which long-tail keywords to use, which will then help you generate more supporting articles and blog posts. As a result, you will create content that not only is good for conversions, but that also supports your pillar content by addressing specific queries associated with a head keyword. Then, you want to make sure the supporting blog content links back to the associated target keyword page in an organic way.
7. A Strong Conversion Funnel
In the areas of traffic and lead generation, your objective is to ensure that every customer that enters the sales (conversion) funnel gets to the negotiation stage so you can then close the deal. Accomplishing this demands that you build customer trust. You will achieve this by providing as much relevant information to them as you can.
To do so, you will need to build out more useful content for your target audience. That is why blogging is an essential element in your SEO strategy. Providing more relevant information to a user normally means creating more pages, allowing you to target a wider array of long-tail keywords.
As a result, you will start ranking for more of these keywords, thus building a larger funnel that helps you generate more traffic and leads to a better conversion rate.
8. Better Structured Data Integration
As you focus on using relevant keywords for a better ranking, you can boost your efforts by adding structured data. By incorporating such data into your long-tail keywords, your content will feature more results, taking up more real estate on the results page then other comparable pages that are not using structured data.
Because you are providing users with more relevant information in the SERP, structured data can be an excellent way to boost your rankings for target pages.
Contact EverConvert to Create a Robust Content Marketing Strategy for Your Business!
Developing optimization strategies that meet the ever-evolving demands of search engines like Google is essential. Regardless of whether that means you are continuously churning out fresh, relevant content, or you are voice search ready; you should utilize long-tail keywords if you want to rank higher in SERPs.
In order to utilize long-tail keywords successfully, you must do thorough keyword research, as it is the foundation of any successful digital marketing campaign. You should know what content is your pillar content (head keyword) so that you can structure your supporting content (long-tail keywords) around it and create a robust content marketing plan. Doing this on your own is a time-consuming, arduous process, but, by hiring a digital marketing firm like EverConvert to do this work for you, your business can focus on making customers happy, while we focus on getting the customers to you, because at the end of the day: