Why Long Tail Keywords are an Effective Tool for Boosting Organic Traffic

Long tail keywords are one piece of SEO jargon you should become familiar with. They should also be a crucial part of the SEO campaign to boost your Auckland website.

There are two main reasons for this and several additional reasons, but more on those later. Let’s start by defining long-tail keywords.

What Are Long-Tail Keywords?

The easiest way to define long-tail keywords is they are keywords that are three words or more in length. This description covers the vast majority of long-tail keywords.

An additional element to long-tail keywords is their popularity, i.e. they are keywords that are used less frequently than standard keywords. So, there are fewer monthly searches for long-tail keywords.

Hold-up – isn’t the idea of SEO to get more people to visit your website? How can you achieve that by targeting less popular keywords?

Long-Tail Keyword & Competition

The popularity of standard keywords is only one of the factors you should consider. The other, equally important factor is the level of competition.

For many standard keywords, competition levels are high. This could be local competition, a situation that a good SEO agency in Auckland should be able to deal with.

Other levels of competition are not as easy to overcome, though, particularly if it involves large and popular websites (TripAdvisor, Amazon, eBay, and Stuff are some examples).

Long-tail keywords, however, have much lower levels of competition. This makes it easier to rank in a high position on Google search results pages, even when going up against an international brand.

Let’s look at it in terms of return on investment. Is it better to invest in SEO to maybe get to the first page of Google for a standard keyword where you will get a small percentage of the people who search using that term? Or is it better to target long tail keywords where you get to position one or close to position one so pick up most of the people searching?

In most situations, particularly in relation to SEO in Auckland campaigns, the best option is the latter.

This is because the reduced level of competition makes it easier to increase your organic traffic.

More Specific Search Phrase

The other main reason that long tail keywords are effective for boosting organic traffic is they are more specific than standard keywords.

For example, if you search for “motorised blackout roller blinds in Auckland”, which option would you be most likely to click on?

• Motorised blackout roller blinds Auckland
• Roller blinds Auckland
• Roller blinds

Most people would click on the first option because it is more specific to their query.

However, most business owners think targeting the last option is best because more people use that phrase when they search.

You can get ahead of your competition and boost your organic traffic by matching the content on your website to what people are searching for, i.e. by using long tail keywords.

Other Benefits of Using Long Tail Keywords

There are other benefits to using long tail keywords for the success of your SEO campaign, for conversion rate optimisation, and for overall return on investment. These benefits include:

• Better conversions – look again at the above example of the keyword “motorised blackout roller blinds in Auckland”. It would be reasonable to assume that this keyword shows strong buying intent. Therefore, the traffic you get to your website from keywords like this (keywords with strong buying intent) is likely to have a higher conversion rate than standard keywords, i.e. keywords that people use when they are looking but not necessarily buying.
• People search using long-tail keywords – this was hinted at above, but it’s worth mentioning again in its own right. Most searches conducted in Google are for long tail keywords. As many as 70 percent, in fact. If your potential customers use long tail keywords on Google, you need a long tail keyword element to your SEO campaign to ensure you are the business that reaches them and not one of your competitors.
• Adds context to the content on your website – one of the objectives of SEO is to help Google understand your website. One of the ways you can do this is by using long tail keywords. We can again use the keyword example above: “motorised blackout roller blinds in Auckland”. The context that this keyword gives Google is the site not only offers roller blinds in Auckland, but they also specialise in motorised and blackout roller blinds.
• Builds links – pages on your website that target long tail keywords are likely to be highly focused and detailed, particularly if you create high-quality content. This fact makes the page more attractive for other websites to link to. In other words, content targeting long tail keywords can help build powerful backlinks to your website.
• Traffic from other sources – following on from the above point, the backlinks you win with long tail keyword-focused content will themselves generate traffic to your website as people click on those links to find out more. This is known as referral traffic.

Make Long Tail Keywords Part of Your SEO Strategy

The most important thing to remember with long tail keywords is to not do what everyone else does. By including long tail keywords in your SEO strategy in addition to the standard keywords that everyone else is targeting, you will get the edge you need to increase organic traffic to your site.