Long Tail Keyword Research: Cut the Competition and Get Found
Posted by Emma Rudeck on Thu, Feb 09, 2012
Getting found in search engines is so important. Most people will click on the first few search engine hits, which is why you need to get your website to the first page of results. Cut your competition and get yourself found by tailoring your webpages around long tail keyword research.
What Are Long Tail Keywords?
Long tail keywords are an extended, yet important phrase. Comprising of three or more words, they offer more relevant search results because they are a niche term. Let’s take the phrase itself as an example. Google ‘Keywords’ and you’ll get 3,290 million results. Extend this to ‘Long Tail Keywords’ and the results reduce to 10 million. Instantly, you can see the competition dramatically reduces. Though be careful with how far you take your phrase. Google ‘longish tail keywords’ and you won’t find any precise results, so competition is minimal. But just bear the search volume for the phrase will also be minimal.
Why Use Them To Get Found?
Firstly, long tail keywords offer less competition in search engines compared to more general keywords. Plus, they offer more tailored traffic to your webpage. Those looking for ‘keywords’ may not be interested in the more specific ‘long tail keywords’. But, you can be sure that everyone searching ‘long tail keywords’ is also searching ‘keywords’. Good long tail keyword research helps you control your on-page SEO, by signalling the compatibility of your webpage with the search query.
How to Include Long Tail Keywords in Search?
Optimising a single page around long tail keywords will help search engines to know what your page is about. Framing a webpage around long tail keywords shows it is authoritative and relevant on a specific subject. Google ‘long tail keywords’ and three of the top four organic hits have the phrase in the URL. Click on the top listing and you’ll see the phrase is in the title, the H1 and in bold several times in the body of the text. The webpage is all about ‘long tail keywords’ and this is clearly signalled throughout. Build upon this on-page presence by creating links from other pages back to your optimised page. These off-page connections will highlight the relevance and reliability of your webpage.
In short, use your long tail keyword research to drive the content of a particular page, outline this content with the phrase and link back to the page to show it is the go-to page for your search term.
Want to find out even more tips on getting found and beating your competition? Have a look at our whitepaper on International SEO.
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