Long tail keywords are one of the most crucial components of making an SEO strategy work for your Wellington business. In fact, for many companies, long tail keywords are the cornerstone of their SEO campaigns.
In practice, this means they get most of their organic search traffic from long tail keywords. So, not only can you improve your results by focusing on long tail keywords – you can actually skyrocket your traffic.
What Are Long Tail Keywords?
Keywords are a top SEO ranking factor, but when many people think about keywords they think about single words or very short phrases: “red shoes”, “mountain bike”, “roofing contractor”, etc.
As the name suggests, long tail keywords are longer. This generally means they are three or more words long.
Your website probably already features several long tail keywords. An SEO audit will identify them. However, to maximise the potential of long tail keywords, you need to target them.
Why Target Long Tail Keywords?
As long tail keywords are usually more specific, they have lower average monthly search volumes than single-word keywords. So, why should you target them when the stats for shorter keywords are higher?
There are four main reasons for targeting long tail keywords:
Long tail keywords are more specific – the reason for there being fewer searches is also one of the things that makes long tail keywords potentially beneficial. As they are more specific, they often indicate that a person is more advanced in their research and is getting closer to making a buying decision.
Most people search using long tail keywords – while shorter keywords have higher search stats than longer variations, most of the keywords used in Google are long tail keywords.
Less competitive – the competition for single-word keywords can make it difficult (and expensive) to get positive results. Long tail keywords have less competition, however, so the ROI is much better.
Better conversions – this one is connected to the first point. After all, the main objective of SEO is not traffic. Instead, it is results, i.e. conversions. You’ll get better conversions with long tail keywords.
How to Use Long Tail Keywords
So, long tail keywords can be beneficial to your business. How do you use them? The starting point is to find them.
How to Find Long Tail Keywords?
There are several ways to find long tail keywords to target in your SEO campaign.
- Google Suggest – when you start typing a query into the search box on Google, you will see suggestions starting to appear. These are almost always long tail keywords, so they are a fantastic resource to use.
- Searches related to – at the bottom of a search results page, Google usually displays a section under the heading “Searches related to…”. This is another excellent source of long tail keywords.”People also ask” boxes – another feature of many Google search results pages is the “People also ask” boxes. You can also find long tail keywords to target here.
- Keyword research tools – keyword research tools will identify long tail keywords to target in addition to providing you with a wealth of other information. The problem is they can be expensive. An alternative is to hire an SEO agency.
- Analytics and stats – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Ads are also great sources for long tail keywords. These tools give actual data, i.e. long tail keyword searches where your website appeared. You can use this information to identify keywords where you can improve the ranking.
- Competitors – analysing the websites of your competitors can also help identify new long tail keywords to potentially target.
Prioritise the Long Tail Keywords You Identify
Some long tail keywords will be more beneficial than others. Therefore, it is important to prioritise your list, so you target the most important ones first.
When prioritising, don’t just look at average monthly search volumes. While this is important as those with the highest average monthly searches should bring more traffic to your website, it is also important to identify keywords that indicate a buying intent.
Those that have both – high average monthly search volumes and buying intent – are the best to target.
Create Great Content
The next step in the process is to create great content for each long tail keyword you want to target. This could be a page on your website or a blog post.
Importantly, you should endeavour to make your content better than anything else on the internet, particularly in relation to the content on your competitors’ websites.
Promote Your Content
Finally, you need to promote the content to get as many backlinks as possible. Sharing on social media is one method of doing this, or you can include the new content on an email newsletter.
The long tail SEO strategy for your Wellington business would also benefit from a link building campaign run by an SEO agency. This will generate faster results.
Bringing It All Together
One final thing to highlight in relation to long tail keywords is the benefits of regular blogging. Blog articles naturally include long tail keywords, so will improve your SEO results.
You can then complement this with a structured long tail keyword strategy as outlined above.
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