No matter what you do SEO for, you will always be recommended to use long-tail keywords. Even if every single specialist talks about this, few site owners actually know why this is important.
There are various different things that can be said about the topic. Using long-tail keywords was already documented on basically all search engine optimization websites out there. This is why we will just stick to some reasons that are particularly important and that you might not take into account as you plan your SEO campaign for your site.
You Outrank The Competition With long-Tail Keywords
When faced with a lot of competition, especially when you launch a brand new site, it is very hard to rank higher with short-tail keywords. Just think about it. Can you outrank any of the large sites for a keyword like “Christmas recipes”?
Although you are still faced with competition even with the long-tail keyword, there is a much bigger possibility to overtake the competition when you optimize your post better.
As an example, while you cannot actually compete for “Christmas recipes”, you might find that people are looking for searches like “traditional Christmas recipes in France”. This is a great start for your long-tail keyword optimization. This can even go further, with something like “cheese traditional Christmas recipes in France”. The big websites will not optimize for such a keyword and you can show up higher than them in search engines.
Real People Use Long-Tail Keywords In Searches
There are usually 3 main reasons why people search for something online:
- To go somewhere
- To learn something
- To do something
Think about how you use the search engine of choice as your interest is in one of these categories. What are you searching for? Planning keyword optimization campaigns without taking into account how people use the search engines is a sure recipe for disaster.
Getting back to the “Christmas recipes” keyword, if I look for that, I am interested in cooking something. This means I want to find some sort of recipe. In many cases I want to cook something with a specific ingredient. Then, I might search for “chicken breast Christmas recipes”. Then, I might find something I like but in the article I read I do not get all the information I need. Because of this, I will move on towards keywords like “how to cook Chicken breast in X style”. These are the types of long-tail keywords that people actually look for and that you want to optimize for.
Content Gains Context With Long-Tail Keywords
Google’s Hummingbird update was the one that made it clear that context is important for the search engine. Exact phrasing started to be matched much more often and Google showed that long-tail keywords are a big part of offering better search results.
When you properly use the long-tail keywords you manage to offer the context that shows a lot more information about the content. The search engines manage to better understand what the article is all about. This allows better ranking placements.
Increased Conversion Rates
Just think about it! Let’s say you sell shoes. Who do you think will be more interested in buying? Those that look for “black shoes” or those that look for “where to buy quality black shoes”? The very best landing pages in the world will convert at a rate of around 12% when optimized for regular keywords. When the optimization is done based on long-tail keywords, the conversion drastically increases to up to 35%.
Realistically speaking, you expect around 2 to 5 percent conversion rate across the entire website. This can definitely be smaller for sites that were just launched. It will take a lot of time to increase conversion rates to two digits percentages.
Basically, the long-tail keywords are going to solidify funnels linked with organic search traffic. Only around 25% or less of a website’s pages are actually ever viewed. This is why you need to be extremely careful and pay attention to everything.
Better Rankings For Shorter Keywords
Ultimately, the goal for any long-term SEO campaign is to rank high for the shorter keywords. Using long-tail keywords actually help you to do that. When looking at any large site we see that there are rankings for tens of thousands of keywords. It is those keywords that create the context for ranking the shorter ones, with more traffic.
Remember that in order to compete and be ranked high you need a lot of focused content for the ranking to be very high. Long-tail keywords offer focused content that is related to specific shorter keywords. Eventually, as the long-tail keywords rank higher and higher, shorter keywords are soon to follow.
Taking Advantage Of Voice Assisted Searches
As SEO specialists, we have to be aware of trends and stay one step ahead of the competition. One of the quickly emerging trends we see is an increase in searching the web through the use of voice assisted services, like Amazon Alexa. So many can now use the voice search offered by Amazon to find top-structured answers.
Devices are starting to make searches for humans. The only way to take advantage of this trend is to optimize content for long-tail keywords that people would actually search by voice. Something like “restaurants in New York that serve sushi” sounds weird for desktop use but it is exactly what people using voice search would look for.
Increased Value For Readers
Last but not least, long-tail keywords are going to offer the most value for the reader. In modern times, any marketing campaign is built based on the needs and wishes of the target audience. In the case of search engine queries, people want to find something specific as they conduct a search. In the vast majority of cases, it is long-tail keywords that offer the highest possible value.
Whenever you want your content marketing strategy to succeed, you need to offer the highest possible value for the readers. Remember that if you want to be successful!
