A keyword is one of the powerful elements in doing on-site SEO and believe it or not, long-tail keywords can bring your website to the top of the list.
Search engines have become smarter making the competition fair for all to rank first in the SERP and gain most of the traffic. But still, there are things of the past that remain and that is the power of keyword frequency.
As the search engine algorithm evolves overtime to combat fraudulent and spammy behavior as well as to keep everyone on equal footing, many have found long-tail keywords to be somewhat unimportant to on-site SEO campaigns. However, this is actually a misconception by many and pro-level SEO geeks think otherwise.
Today we are going to take a look at how we can maximize the use of these a bit lengthy phrases to our advantage as SEO practitioners.
Traffic Breakthrough with Long-Tail Keywords
Table of Contents
In the world of SEO, keyword is defined as the word or phrases search engine user typing in the search bar and which we also call as search queries. These are ideas, topics, or the contents to which a user is interested and looking for relevant and valuable answers.
This word or group of words are what the web crawlers are looking for on every page of a website relevant to the search queries. Learning how to use keywords properly is like building a solid foundation for your search engine optimization skill.
But, how do we really use these keywords we are talking about?
On-Site SEO
There’s a lot of techniques that one can employ in doing their SEO campaigns. After all, all of us have the same goal and that is to gain most of the web traffic by being top-notcher on the results page.
Of course, who doesn’t want to gain almost 37% of clickthrough ratio (CTR), right? Imagine that there are 2000 searches on your niche and ranking first in the SERP means you could get as much as around 740 clicks. That is like filling two (2) cinema houses. It has a huge value for your brand awareness campaign alone.
Now, one of the techniques being employed is the On-Site SEO. From the word itself, this practice is done by optimizing key elements WITHIN your website. To name those elements, they are:
- Headings
- Internal Links
- URLs
- Content Value
- Meta-tags
- Anchor Texts
- Keyowrds
Those we’ve listed above are fundamental to strengthen your foundation on doing on-site SEO since you are just relying on the value of your own domain to drive your website rank up.
Keyword and its Impact
In implementing on-page SEO, the best starting point is the keyword. What is your niche? what is your website all about? What search queries would most like point to your page? These questions are very important and doing keyword research will be your dataset on how you will implement your on-page SEO.
There are different types of keywords in the context of SEO. Some of these are:
Product Keywords
These keywords that specifically pertain to goods or services, or the exact product. Competition is high. For example, you are searching for a smartphone so a product keyword is “smartphone”.
Branded Keywords
These are searches that are specifically targeted to the brand name. Undoubtedly the most specific type of search query. Taking our previous example, you want a specific brand of a smartphone so your query could be like “Apple Smartphone”, or “iPhone” as the iPhone is branding to itself.
Short-Tail Keywords
Usually, one or two words, these search queries are very short, generic, popular, and broad. These keywords have a high volume of search traffic and the competition level is very high.
As our first example, that can also be considered as a Short-tail keyword as well as the second example.
Latent Semantic Index (LSI) Keywords
Also known as related keywords , these words or phrases are deemed to be relevant to the topic or main keyword of the page or specific content.
Search engine algorithms have made their robots understand the page content enabling it to find LSI within the page. Very valuable in reinforcing your on-site SEO campaign.
For example, you were searching for a smartphone, LSIs could be like “best smartphones of the year”, “smartphone brand you might like”, or “smartphone prices in your area”.
Long-Tail Keywords
These long phrases consist of three words and above and have a very targetted search since it has more details on its query.
Following our examples, these long-tail keywords are could be like what was stated for the previous or as well as “iPhone rosegold prices in Alberta”. You can see how specific it is where there are the product and brand, the color of the unit, what information is being searched for, and the target location of the search.
Advantages of Long-Tail Keywords
The aforementioned keywords play a vital role in boosting your on-site SEO without breaking the algorithm rules, avoiding keyword stuffing, and get penalized. Many SEO folks are putting much effort into winning on the short-tail keywords since people tend to search using few words.
But, one mistake that these folks do is to overlook how beneficial it is for the whole domain to maximize long-tail keywords. What could be the advantages that many webmasters have been missing all along?
Lower Competition
If your domain belongs to a very popular niche, chances are that you’ll just be simply swallowed by big websites that have the throne of the SERP for a long time already. It will be a tougher competition to even catch the 10th spot.
If you begin to build your website through maximizing long-tail keywords, that will narrow down your competition and you can then climb up the SERP ladder eventually. Remember that many webmasters and SEO professionals don’t expect much from the long-tail keywords, which means lesser competition already.
Economical
Lesser competition means a lower cost per click. Many brands today opt to get paid advertisements through Google, Yahoo, and all major social media sites and other entertainment websites. This is because they want to be noticed just like what you’re targeting.
However, you can avoid this cost by making yourself the best results on every long-tail keyword search. A good on-site SEO will surely do its thing for you.
Better Conversion
It might be true when SEO experts say that most searches are done through shorter keywords. What they are saying is backed up with statistical records after all where it shows that most people who do online searches opt to use short keywords to find answers.
But this doesn’t mean that long-tail keywords don’t amount to anything.
Whilst users tend to use shorter keywords since it is more convenient to type into the search bar, what they might be really looking for could be directly hit if they use longer and more specific keywords.
What do we mean then? To begin with, one major reason for you to having a website domain is to establish brand awareness and a strong presence online. With that being said, one thing you should aim for is that on every specific search, you get the first spot in the SERP.
Now, what does this has to do with long-tail keywords? Since long-tail keywords are specific searches, earning the top spot on these fields means that you have better conversion rates compared to those who reign on the short-tail keywords. Not to mention that better conversion also mean a better Return on Investment.
Traffic Boosting
Let’s say that you got to hit the top spot in the search on every specific search. That also equates that you are gaining regular stable traffic since you have won the long-tail keywords competition.
Aside from better conversion rates, this will also establish your domain as a reputable source of information, product, services, or whatever niche your website is all about.
Maximizing long keywords will not only assure you of a guaranteed regular visitors but is also helping your site build better website metrics that will serve as the foundation of your domain to be in the top spot on all searches related to your niche.
Maximizing the Potential
We know that the benefits could be somewhat surprising to some and very enticing to others but how do we maximize it then? We’re now going to take a look at how we can attract a lot of search traffic easily by using the most avoided long-tail keywords.
Establish Your Niche
Every website domains have their own theme or main topic that they present. Your site could be about cars, mobile devices, lifestyle, or whatever topic your website is really about.
One important factor in building an effective on-page SEO strategy is to be firm on exactly what your niche is all about.
Having your niche determined will also dictate what will be the main keyword or keyphrases you are going to target and make use of. It would be best to narrow down the main topic of the page you are to implement on-page SEO techniques.
Setting the Head
Imagine a funnel. There’s a large opening where you can flow a good volume of water but eventually, on the tip, it’s a narrow opening. So as the searches. There are lots of short tail searched and it can be well represented by the large volume of water. Our goal is to funnel these short searched to your page.
That’s what we are doing when we are making use of long-tail keywords. Building a strong base on these keywords sets a funnel wall that directs the huge volume of search crawls down your very own page where the tip of the funnel is your head page.
An effective way of implementing on-page SEO using long-tail keywords is by setting the Head of the topic. This means you need to set the main page on your domain where you are to use this SEO technique. This could be the page about your product, service, or the homepage of your brand.
Keyword Research
Once you have determined your niche for your domain, and then the main topic of the page you are to boost, the next step is to conduct a good amount of keyword research.
Remember that you compete with thousands, if not millions, of other domains and pages of the same niche, topic, and as well as your geo-position. Yes, you read it right, location also has a bearing on your SEO.
In doing keyword research, list down your main keyword or keyphrases that are usually short-tailed and check your stats using any of the available keyword research tools on the web. Using these tools, you can also check how strong the competition is on those short keywords and how your competitors are faring.
Once you determine those short keywords, it’s time to embark on researching your related searches and long-tail keywords that you are going to utilize. Using the data and analysis you’ve made from your previous short-tail keyword research, check for your competitor’s stats on the long-tail keyword.
As you notice, we are to use your competitor’s data to benchmark which long-tail keywords are doing well.
Write Smart
You don’t stop in determining your long-tail keywords. Your research will just determine on which foundations you are to build. From these researches you’ve made, you are to write contents that will strengthen your main pages.
With the long keyphrases you’ve obtained, prepare blog articles that talk about the topics from your long-tail keywords. Don’t forget that the content itself for your subpages should also be strong enough to support your main pages so you have to write smart – concise, appealing, SEO-friendly.
Strategize Linkage
Once you’ve built your smartly written articles, it’s time to link them to your main pages. Your keyword research will come a long way down here as you are to use your research data to strategically place your anchor texts.
Why is it so important? Another factor that can drive your on-page traffic is your proper placement of anchor text. Search engine crawlers are trailing across the web through hyperlinks where their checkpoints are the anchor texts.
You may assume that you can just keep linking through relevant keywords but it only sounds as it seems. The reality is, too much linking through exact short-tailed keywords could deem your site as spamming and doing keyword stuffing which search engine algorithms notices and eventually penalizes.
Also, plan your on-page SEO well so that you don’t have to spend much time writing too much content that will only add clutter to your domain but doesn’t have a significant impact on driving your on-page traffic.
Conclusion
There are various SEO techniques that you can implement to your site to make it rank at the top. While short-tail keywords are the most sought after, it will always be the long-tail keywords that will set and guide the move to where every short keyword searches are going.
Minimal spending on keyword research tools and investing enough time doing keyword research is a very practical way to improve your search traffic as it will give you enough knowledge on what long-tail keywords to exploit, what would be those topics to write, and how you are to link your long-tail to the head page.
Sometimes, the most overlooked option could be the secret to your SEO campaign success. Now, it’s up to you on how you are to use this knowledge so start maximizing your long-tail keywords!
