Long Tail Keywords are search phrases with longer word counts. Their length makes them more specific than searches with fewer words.
“Buy breathable running socks” (4 words) is an example of a long tail keyword, whereas “buy socks” is a short tail keyword. There isn’t an official cutoff, but marketers generally start counting phrases with 3 or 4 words as long tail keywords.
Highly specific phrases make up the vast majority of search volume. This means only focusing on highly popular search terms is a missed opportunity. Bill Trancer put this into perspective in a 2008 post analyzing Hitwise data.
There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles
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 keyword with and without on-page optimization were impacted more than single-word head terms.
2. 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 is 36%!
3. Long-tail keywords help you rank for single keywords
We ultimately do want to rank high in the SERPs for short keywords.
rank for 1.2 million keyword, 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
4. 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.
o be effective, long-tail 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.
5. 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.
