January 26, 2009
Why Should You Target Longtail Keywords?
Longtail keywords are simply phrases that contain three or more keywords. In other words, longtail keywords are the typical phrases used in search engines by people looking for specific information. Therefore, these longtail keywords are much more targeted than the general or main keyword topic. Identifying the most popular keyword phrases used by your target audience is a critically important step in getting your links in front of the right people.
The primary benefits in identifying and ustilising longtail keywords are:
1. Since users who use longtail keyword searches are looking for specific information they are much more likely to be further along the decision making process. If your product or service has a close match with the longtail keyword being used by the searcher then they are much more likely to click through to your website and such highly targeted traffic is likely to boost your conversion rate.
2. Longtail keywords will usually have much less competition in the search engines and, therefore, will require less effort to rank. The prcision in your targeting will generally result in a higher click through rate and an increase in targeted traffic to your website.
3. Since a longtail keyword phrase will contain the general one and two word terms too, in effect, you are also targeting those broad terms. Essentially, whenever you use a long tail keyword in a link or in your content, you will also benefit from the broad terms included in that longtail phrase and this will help your ranking for all the terms.
Clearly if you had a gardening site, it would be very difficult to grab a page one ranking for the keyword "gardening" with almost 65 million competing pages. However, if you drilled down into the niche and decided to set up a site for "Rose gardening for beginners" there are around 143,000 competing pages.
Have you embraced the longtail?
Comments on Why Should You Target Longtail Keywords? »
I've been targeting longtail keywords from the beginning and didn't know it! I'm writing a blog with local lifestyle focus. So every time I write something about a local attraction — say a museum and an exhibit name — I get search engine results from it.
I didn't actually figure this out using google adsense. I decided to do it by searching longtail keywords myself, seeing that no one was putting good reviews of local shows on the web, and figuring my website would have a niche to fill.
Sonja,
Nice work!
The right keywords for an organic search campaign are those that fit your audience, not just those that you think might be right. If you assume the searcher knows best, then you will choose the right keywords.
Thanks John
this is a new perspective for me and very interesting.
Researching what I can find there seems to be a whole lot of strange combinations in the long tail e.g today I came across "me do".
I'd really appreciate your perspective on search terms actually used but that wouldn't make sense to anybody looking to market at them.
Steve
Steve,
As I mentioned in the above comment, the right keywords for an organic search campaign are those that fit your audience. My own experience tells me that the phrases used don't always make sense!
Checking your own stats (I use AWstats within Cpanel) can be very revealing.
John
Hi John,
I really liked your post on the longtail keywords. You explained it and I understood it. I am a newbie to internet marketing and was wondering, can you use longtail keywords for posting videos? And when using social bookmarketing sites to bookmark either your blog posts or web 2.0 sites, is longtail keywords more effective? Any advice is appreciative.
Thanks
Steven
Hi Steven,
Thank you for the feedback, it's very much appreciated.
Yes, wherever your target audience hangs out it's a good idea to use longtail keywords. Youtube is now the second biggest search engine after Google so using relevant, longtail keyword phrases in your video titles is an excellent idea.
John
I have been trying long tail search terms recently – no data on it yet – but hoping it will make a difference. I used the new word tracker tool for some of it. You put in a key word and it gives you the type of questions people are asking – not sure it is so great for UK search volumes but it gives you some interesting ideas http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions
Good blog post – thanks
Joanne
Joanne Morley’s last blog post..Does marketing need to be pushy?
John, Thank you for the comments on long-tail keywords. My experience with them has taught me and others that websites who use long tail keywords with a density of 10 – 12% have the best success with Google and Yahoo.. Hope this helps.
Best,
Michael G Perry
Michael Perry’s last blog post..eBay Selling Secrets Revealed! Valuable eBay Seller Strategies You Can Use to Skyrocket Your eBay Sales.