Long Tail Keywords

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are search terms with relatively low search volume and competition levels. Also, long tail terms tend to be longer in length (3+ words) than most other keyword types.

Even though few people search for individual long tail queries, when you add them together, long tails actually make up a large chunk of all Google searches.

(And that’s especially true now that more and more people are using voice search)

In fact, Ahrefs reports that 92% of all keywords get 10 or fewer searches per month.

In other words, 92% of all keywords that people type into search engines are long tails.

Why are Long Tail Keywords Important For SEO?

There are two main reasons that you might want to focus on long tail keywords:

Reason #1: Long tail keywords aren’t that competitive

When it comes to SEO, long tails are MUCH less competitive than shorter “head terms”.

(Which makes them easier to rank for)

For example, a short tail keyword like “link building” has over 6 billion results in Google:

So if you want to rank #1 in Google for that query, you need to outrank 6 billion other sites.

Yikes.

On the other hand, look at a long tail version of that keyword, like “best SEO link building software”.

That long tail keyword has a lot less competition than the head term “link building”.

This same idea also applies to Google Adwords (PPC). Long tail can be cheaper to bid on than super popular head terms.

Reason #2: Long tail keywords have high conversion rates

Long tail searches aren’t just longer.

They’re also more specific.

In other words:

People that search for long tail terms tend to be much further along in the buying cycle compared to folks searching for head terms.

For example, take a keyword like: “keto diet”.

Someone searching for keto diet is probably trying to learn what is it. Or how it works. Which means they’re not ready to buy anything.

But someone searching for a longer version of that term (like “keto diet supplement”) is MUCH closer to making a purchase.

Bottom Line? The traffic that you get from long tail terms tend to convert really well

Also Read :Complete SEO checklist And How to install google analytics

1. Long-tail keywords are how you outrank the competition

New York-based SaaS company Conductor recently performed a comprehensive, nine-month study of its keyword rankings within Google’s search engines.

It found that long-tail keywords with and without on-page optimization were impacted more than single-word head terms.

What this means is that long-tail keywords are your path to overtaking the competition.

Even if it’s a search query they’re already covering, you can gain traction with a better-optimized post.

Let’s take a look at a few virtual reality-related keyword searches in Ubersuggest.

Although “virtual reality” has fewer than 100,000 monthly searches, the competition is high.

Consumers who are searching for these high-level keywords are likely interested in the VR industry, but they might not be buying anything.

If you’re actually making a VR product, it’s probably a game, app, or some type of equipment.

We can tighten SEO and compete in our niche by looking for more refined keyword queries. In Ubersuggest, click “Keyword Ideas” in the left sidebar:

This turns up more than 500 keywords, many of which are likely to be more closely related to what you actually sell:

Virtual reality for ps4, virtual reality goggles, and virtual reality glasses all have a worthy search volume and low SD. And if you aren’t sure what SD stands for, it means SEO difficulty. It’s a score from 1 to 100, with 1 being a really easy keyword to rank for and 100 being a keyword that is difficult to rank for.

Your goal is to find high volume, low SD keywords. These get you the most bang for your buck.

2. Long-tail keywords are how people actually search the Internet

The entire point of Google’s search business is to present users with the right information based on their searches.

If I search for “SEO Trends to Prepare for in 2018,” it’s because I’m specifically searching for information on these trends.

Some savvy SEO already wrote a 2018 SEO trend article in April 2017.

This is all well and good, but a lot has changed in online search between then and now. A lot more is going to change in the future, too.

That’s why Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal waited until December 2016 to list 2017 trends and will do the same for 2018.

As a digital marketing expert, I won’t be looking for “SEO.” I’ll be interested in “SEO trends,” “SEO brand success stories,” and other long-tail keywords.

One of the biggest SEO trends for both 2017 and 2018 is mobile search optimization.

In May 2016, Google raised the character limit in SERP titles and descriptions.

With an extra word displayed, long-tail keywords are an even more vital part of mobile site optimization.

Just keep in mind that people are typically only searching for one of three reasons: to do something, learn something, or go somewhere.

Keep this in mind when you’re planning your keyword campaigns.

3. Long-tail keywords provide context to your content

Google has always pushed contextual search, and with its 2017 Hummingbird update, it’s only digging its heels deeper in the sand.

For those of you who don’t know why it’s called Hummingbird, Google’s updates follow a theme.

Android updates are named alphabetically after desserts.

You can find monuments to each sweet treat spread throughout Google’s Mountain View, CA, campus.

Meanwhile, Google’s search algorithm updates are named after animals.

With each successive update, these animals have been thinning the SERP herd of weak or dying results.

Panda and Penguin were especially feared by SEO experts.

Hummingbird adjusted search algorithms to match exact phrasing more often and to deepen their understanding of context.

Essentially, Google is focused on long-tail keywords and strengthening their search results.

You should be too!

Also read : how to do Keyword research And ultimate guide to robots.txt

4. Long-tail keywords have better conversion rates

According to recent research by WordStream, the top 10% of landing pages convert at 11.45%.

The average conversion rate for long-tail keywords is 36%!

That’s a huge difference!

But, again, it doesn’t tell the entire story. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of conversion rates spread across different web properties.

More realistically, you’re experiencing a 2-5% conversion rate on your website.

Maybe even less, if you’re just starting.

You’re not going to magically increase to 30% overnight just by adding a few long-tail keywords into your website.

That’s not the point.

There’s no “easy button” for life.

What long-tail keywords will do is solidify your CRO funnel through organic search traffic.

With fewer than 25% of web pages ever being viewed, you can’t afford to not pay attention.

It’s cheaper to research these longer terms and write blog posts related to them than it is to pay for a PPC campaign on each of them.

Still, a solid PPC campaign can be a great placeholder until your SEO efforts are done.

It’s a process, and Google understands this.

That’s why my next point is true.

5. Long-tail keywords help you rank for single keywords

We ultimately do want to rank high in the SERPs for short keywords.

Long-tail keywords help us do that.

As you scroll down the page, you’ll want to pay attention to the SEO Keywords Ranking section:

I rank for 1.2 million keywords, many of which are related to digital marketing, SEO, Pinterest, and affiliate marketing. But can you really think of all 1.2 million?

You’ll eventually have to extend to long-tail keywords, and I have a pretty even distribution of around 8,000 to 10,000 pages occupying the lower results on SERPs.

6. Long-tail keywords fuel your blog strategy

I’ve mentioned it a few times, but I want to make this its own point.

A blog is the best way to rank in SERPs.

It’s the cornerstone of any content marketing strategy. Period.

Here’s how long-tail keywords in blogs look to search engines.

To be effective, long-tail keywords need to be used in the correct context within the URL, title tag, and body text.

For even more visibility, using the focus keyword in alt images and headers goes a long way to optimizing your site for SEO.

Now, if I just wrote a single blog about SEO, I’d be done.

That’s not going to help.

I need long-tail keywords to continue creating content.

I bet “search engine optimization tips” will get me some traffic.

Let’s put it into Ubersuggest and see what comes up.

This alone may not tell you much, but you can dig deeper by clicking on “Keyword Ideas” in the left sidebar:

Now, you have access to a variety of long-tail keywords, related to the primary keyword.

For example, “tips for search engine optimization” is a natural variation of the primary keyword. If you rank for one, you should try to rank for both.

I can continue following the rabbit hole to create an entire month’s content calendar on the term SEO alone.

Then we do the same for content marketing, influencer marketing, conversion rate optimization, social media marketing, and so on.

Soon, we’ll have a blog worthy of competing with the best.

HubSpot’s annual State of Inbound report consistently shows that the more often you blog, the more traffic you’ll get.

Long-tail keywords are the key to creating a consistent content calendar.

Just remember to add actual value to the conversation.

7. Ranking for long-tail keywords builds a strong conversion tunnel

Another reason you want to blog about long-tail keywords that it helps build a conversion funnel.

Generating traffic and leads is the top marketing challenge faced by companies today.

A HubSpot survey found that 65% of companies are worried about it.

This is because their content marketing efforts aren’t attached to a proper conversion funnel.

Here’s what a basic business sales funnel looks like.

Steps 1-5 can all be accomplished through a blog that addresses long-tail keywords.

Ranking for the actual product is great, but to build customer trust, you need to provide as much information as possible.

Each customer will come to you at a different point in the sales funnel, and you need to lead them to the negotiation and closing parts of the funnel.

This is why blogging and page hosting is consistently ranked more important than paid advertising in the customer-acquisition process.

The more pages you have, the more keywords you rank for. It builds a larger funnel.

Step 6 and 7 in the sales funnel are easy to optimize.

Once you do, you need to keep building them up and out to reach as many customers in as many steps of the buying process as possible.

Long-tail keywords are the way to do it.

8. Integrate structured data on long-tail keywords to outrank SEO on SERPs

Structured data has been a top priority for ranking in SERPs for over a year now.

Google even has a Structured Data Tool for checking the schema on your site.

Schema.org runs a database of structured code like this.

<div itemscope itemtype=”https://schema.org/Book”>
<span itemprop=”name”> Inbound Marketing and SEO: Insights from the Moz Blog</span>
<span itemprop=”author”>Rand Fishkin</span>
</div>

This code adds a specific data structure for search engines to provide rich, interactive results.

Here’s what it looks like on the live site.

Since Allrecipes.com is obviously hoping to rank for all recipes, it does so by applying structured data to long-tail keywords.

It actually doesn’t even matter where on the first page this ranks because the information box with the recipe shows above all other search results.

Using structured data is more effective than a PPC or SEO campaign.

It’s a sign of the new way to search.

9. Focus on long-tail keywords to answer voice assistant searches

The broad concept of SEO is typically applied to Internet search engines like Google that provide results tfor human users.

That’s all changing thanks to voice assistants like Amazon Alexa.

According to available numbers, there are currently 8.3 million Echo smart speakers on the market.

Amazon estimates it’ll ship another 10 million

That’s a lot of people who can use Amazon’s voice search to find the top-structured answer only, often focusing solely on Amazon’s platform.

The total voice assistant market (including Google Home and Apple Home) is expected to reach 30 million by the end of 2017!

It’s a sign of a new age in which our devices may be making the searches for us.

People are increasingly using voice assistants to search for music and books, to control their smart home devices, and to consume news.

And Google is noticing that more people are using voice search even on its Android phones.

With mobile device usage increasingly being banned in vehicles, voice assistants and smart cars are gaining popularity as well.

In fact, 21 million connected cars are expected to ship this year, according to Business Insider.

When searching for anything in a moving vehicle (even a self-driving one), you need the right answer the first time.

Long-tail keywords help you train these voice assistants to provide your information to mobile voice users.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal right now because we’re still using the Internet in the standard way, as well.

Your kids are watching, though, and younger generations will adopt voice search more and more.

Be prepared or get steamrolled.

10. Posts focused on long-tail keywords provide more value to the reader

The top digital marketing techniques are content marketing and big data, according to a recent study by Smart Insights.

Long-tail keywords don’t just strengthen your SEO and CRO efforts.

They also ensure that your pages provide real value to your readers.

This is what Google, Bing, and other search engines are ultimately looking for.

Keyword research is a method of mining for data that fuels the rest of your marketing efforts.

The key to content marketing is providing value.

Here’s a handy chart to help visualize it.

While video, infographics, apps, and personalization are all important, your web pages need to be solid enough to support them.

There are plenty of more sophisticated methods of reaching an audience.

But the tried-and-true method of gaining organic traffic from providing real value to satisfy a real need never goes out of style.

Long-tail keywords are the foundation of this.

I have one last tip, and it’s an obvious one that should go without saying.

11. Long-tail keywords are most of your keyword research and organic traffic anyway!

Have you taken the time to actually look at your Google Analytics reports?

The vast majority of search queries that bring traffic to your site are from long-tail keywords.

Check out this report from Ogio golf bags.

These search terms that are getting impressions and generating clicks (and sales) are mostly long-tail keywords.

The more keyword research you do, the more you’ll find that long-tail keywords are already fueling your organic search traffic.

You’re just ignoring them!

So the simple answer is to stop ignoring the answers right in front of your face.

But remember this: everyone’s using Google.

If you stick to only Google’s tools, you’ll miss out on more long-tail keyword opportunities.

Using a tool like Ubersuggest, you can get even more detailed information on long-tail keywords related to your niche. Run your search, and then click on “questions” under “Keyword Ideas.”

The more keyword research you perform, the more long-tail keywords just naturally pop up. After you find a keyword that suits you, such as “how create wordpress plugin,” click on it to dive deeper:

If you want to reach the top of page one for this long-tail keyword, it’ll take, on average, 100+ backlinks and a dedication to social media. And of course, a high domain score won’t hurt your cause.

This type of data analysis is invaluable!

You already have the data.

Do what you can with what you have.

How to Find Long Tail Keywords

Here are 9 ways to find long tail keywords.

1. Google “Searches Related to…”

Ever notice that when you scroll to the bottom of Google’s search results there’s a section called, “Searches related to…”?.

Well this little area is a gold mine for long tail keyword research.

Here’s exactly how to use it:

First, type in a keyword that you want to rank for.

Second, scroll to the bottom of the page. And take a look at the “Searches related to…” for that keyword:

And you’ll get handful of GREAT long tail terms that you can target.

Nice!

Pro Tip: Take one of the keywords from the “Searches related to…” area and pop that term into Google. Then, check out the “Searches related to…” results for THAT keyword. Rinse and repeat until you have a massive list of awesome keywords.

2. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a helpful keyword research tool that generates question-focused keywords.

To use it, type a broad keyword into the field and click “Get Questions”:

The tool will then show you questions that people tend to ask about your topic:

And because question keywords tend to be long, they’re pretty much automatically long tail terms.

You can even sort the data alphabetically:

And download the data as a CSV:

3. Forums and Boards

Forums are one of my all-time favorite places to find new keyword ideas.

Think about it:

Where else can you find hundreds of people asking and answering questions about your site’s topic?

After all, if someone asks a question on a forum you KNOW that there are other people out there searching for that same question in Google.

To use forums for keyword research, head over to a forum where your target audience hangs out. You may know a few of these already.

If not, just use these handy search strings to find them:

• “keyword” + “forum”
• “keyword” + “board”
• “keyword” + “powered by vbulletin”

You can also search for your keyword + discussions:

Then, once you find an active foru, look at the titles of of the latest threads.

Don’t forget to check out the words and phrases that people use in the thread itself.

Easy, right?

4. Google Autocomplete

You’ve probably seen Google Autocomplete in action before.

And it’s probably my favorite way to find long tails.

Why?

Because the suggestions that you get come straight from Google.

To use Google Autocomplete for keyword research, you can JUST enter a keyword:

OR

You can type in a keyword plus a letter:

The only problem with this approach is that typing in “keyword a”, “keyword b” etc. is a GIANT pain.

Fortunately, long tail keyword generators like Ubersuggest and keywordtool.io both scrape Google Autocomplete data for you.

They both work pretty much the same way.

Just enter a seed keyword and click “search”:

And the tool will spit out hundreds of suggestions:

5. Soovle

Soovle is a free tool that collects keyword suggestions from Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask.com, and YouTube.

Which means you can uncover untapped terms that are SUPER hard to find with any other keyword tool.

(Not to mention that the fact that you get keyword ideas from sites that your competition probably overlooks)

With that, here’s how to use it:

First, head over to Soovle and enter a broad keyword into the search field.

For example, if you were looking for coffee-related keywords, you could use the keyword “coffee”:

Soovle will automatically display suggested results from different websites:

You can also download the results in a CSV file by clicking the download icon in the top left corner of the page:

Very cool.

6. People Also Ask Boxes

This is another easy way to find question keywords.

First, search for a keyword in Google search.

And keep an eye out for a “People also ask…” box in the SERPs.

These are questions that people ask around the topic of the keyword you typed in.

And if you expand one of the questions, you see an answer… plus Google will show you even MORE questions.

Pro Tip: Like with most things in the world of SEO, there’s an SEO tool that helps you find these “People also ask ” questions. It’s called WonderSearch.

Just enter a keyword into it, and WonderSearch will give you a list of “People also ask” questions from the search results.

7. Google Search Console Performance Report

Sometimes the best keyword is one that you already rank for.

What do I mean?

If you’re like most people, you have a handful of pages sitting on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th page of Google.

And sometimes you’ll find that you rank in Google for long tail keywords that you’re not even optimizing for.

And when you give these pages some extra SEO attention, they’ll usually hit the first page within days or weeks.

You can easily find these 2nd and 3rd page keywords in the Google Search Console (GSC).

First, login to your GSC account and go to the Performance Report.

Scroll down until you see “Queries”.

These are keywords that you rank for on Google’s first page.

To find 2nd and 3rd page keywords, sort the list by “Position”:

And set the number of rows to show to “500”.

Keep scrolling down until you start to see positions 10-15.

Then, take a look at the keywords that are ranking in those positions:

Put any promising keywords into the Google Keyword Planner to check their search volume.

If you find a keyword that makes sense for your site (and has decent search volume) click on that keyword.

And click on the “pages” tab:

This will show you the page on your site that currently ranks for that keyword.

8. Google Trends

Google Trends is one of my all-time favorite keyword research tools.

About to kick off an SEO campaign? You definitely want to know whether or not interest in your keywords is growing (or falling).

Here’s how this works:

First, head over to Google Trends, and enter the keyword you want to rank for into the search field:

The tool will show you “interest over time” based on search volume and news headlines:

In this example, search volume for this term is pretty stable.

But for other keywords, like “Snapchat”, interest picked up suddenly and has now tapered off:

And other terms, like “Google Keyword Tool”, have a steady down trend:

The best case scenarios is when you find a keyword (like “keto diet”) that’s trending up.

Pro Tip: Scroll down to “Related Queries”:

Most of the keywords listed under “Queries” are little-known keywords that you won’t see in most other keyword research tools.

9. Quora

Quora is an extremely popular crowdsourced Q&A site.

It’s similar to to Yahoo! Answers. But with Quora, people’s responses are actually helpful 🙂

To use Quora, you need to create an account.

Once you’ve logged in, enter a broad keyword into the search bar at the top of any page:

Like with forums, Quora will show you the most popular questions on that topic:

Some of the questions will be high-volume keywords that you can copy and paste into your list of potential keywords.

And others can help you brainstorm new keyword ideas in your niche.

For example, in our baking example above, this question is probably too long to be a popular keyword:

But when I entered the shortened version of the question, “bake without eggs”, into the Google Keyword Planner, I found a list of keywords that could easily be used as the topic of a high quality article. They also have relatively high search volume:

This is where Quora shines: giving you laterally related keyword and topic ideas that you may not have thought of on your own.

How to Use Long Tail Keywords

When it comes to using long tail keywords in your content, you have two options:

Option #1: Create a Piece of Content Optimized Around That Term

Your first option to create a new blog post that’s optimized around the long tail keyword that you just found.

For example, a few months ago I found the long tail keyword: “how to get more YouTube subscribers”.

And I created a post that was optimized around that long tail term.

Because that keyword wasn’t that competitive, it quickly cracked Google’s first page.

(And it currently ranks in the top 5 for my target keyword)

The downside of this approach is that you need to pump out A LOT of content.

For example, the keyword “how to get more YouTube subscribers” only gets around 3k monthly searches.

Even if my post got 100% of the clicks from people searching for that term (which is impossible), that post would only increase my traffic by 3k visitors per month… MAX.

And in reality, I probably only get 500-700 clicks per month from that keyword.

So to make this approach worthwhile, I’d need to bang out dozens (or even hundreds) of articles optimized around long tail terms.

Option #2: Sprinkle Long Tail Keywords Into Your Content

Your other option is to optimize your page around a short tail or “Medium tail” keyword. Then, incorporate long tail keywords into your content.

For example, I recently published this list of my favorite free SEO tools.

Obviously, I used on-page SEO to optimize my page around my main keyword: “free SEO tools”.

But I also sprinkled in long tail keyword phrases into my content.

And because I used a bunch of long tails in my post, it currently ranks in Google for 1,100 different keywords: