Long Tail Keywords are the best way for you to have a competitive advantage in search over your competition.
Intrigued? I am sure you are, but I also bet you are wondering what the heck is a Long Tail Keyword (LTK) anyways? Basically it’s a keyword that has more verbiage in it and only get fewer searches on the search engines. As you probably know, the 80/20 rule applies to most things in life, and search is no different. Only a few keywords get a large amount of traffic. The rest of the keywords are basically left to “pick up the scraps”. However, there are a lot of scraps. So many in fact, that you can actually generate more traffic to your site by concentrating on LTKs, than on the top performing keywords.
ONE BIG CAVEAT however. Notice that I did not say that you should ignore the top performing keywords. You should make sure your site is optimized for these as well. The issue with the top keywords is that they can be very competitive. All of your competition is optimizing their website for those keywords too. When you get many sites all with content on the same keywords, not everyone is going to be able to make it to the top of the search. It’s essentially a log jam of competition.
Lets say you are a wedding planner in Raleigh-Durham, NC. Here are some keywords and their traffic that might be used to find your business.
wedding planner – 368,000 local searches
wedding planner raleigh – 880 local searches
wedding cake raleigh – 720 local searches
raleigh wedding photographer – 3,600 local searches
wedding planner durham – 140 local searches
The keyword “wedding planner” is probably really tempting at first glance. 368,000 local searches is a lot of traffic. But you are competing with a lot of other businesses for that traffic. Most likely businesses with more money and more time to spending on their marketing than you do. When you have that much competition, the odds are that your website and your amazing blog article on “Jane The Wedding Planner” are not going to make it to the top of the search results.
Instead, take a look at those other keywords. Not only do they generate a decent amount of searches together, but often the LTKs are more specific to your area or speciality of business anyways. They help you target the unique competitive advantages that differentiate your business from your direct competitors’. These are people who are specifically narrowing their search to the Raleigh or Durham area. It doesn’t have to be geographic either, it could be around the specific wedding planning services you offer, like “jewish catholic weddings” – 390 local searches.
Now here is the real eye-opener…there are literally hundreds of LTKs for almost every kind of business. When you add these up, you can not only get more traffic than the top keywords, but also traffic that is more likely to buy your service or product due to narrowing their search criteria.
Now, I am sure you are asking yourself, “How do I find out what Long Tail Keywords I should optimize my website for?” That is easy. Just sign up for BoostSuite. We will analyze your website and provide suggestions on keywords that will give you the most return for your efforts. There is no need to hunt through Google Analytics or spend hours with other keyword tools trying to figure out what will work the most efficiently. It really is that simple.
Have you had luck using a Long Tail Keyword strategy? We would love to know about it. Leave us a note below.
