To better understand the benefits of long tail keywords, I will start off by providing a little bit of an explanation of what long tail keywords are then I will move on to finding long tail keyword that will help you rank better in the search engines.
Whenever you perform searches on Google or any other search engine like yahoo, you are actually using keywords to find the information that you need. Any term you type in the search engine is a keyword( the term keyword was really confusing when I got started online)
keywords you search for basically fall into two categories:
The head keywords
These are the very broad keywords (or search terms) that we would use when trying to find out information about an interest or category of products. For example, “alarm clock” would be ahead keyword.
It is going to return all different types of results for all different types of alarm clock brands, accessories, repair shops and so on. you will usually take these broad results and start filtering through and refining your searches until you find the exact information that you are looking for.
Long Tail keywords.
These are typically used when you know exactly what it is you’re searching for. You’ve probably done a fair amount of research and now you may want to search for something like “Philips Wake-up Light with Sunrise Simulation alarm clock”. The results that are returned from this query are going to be much more specific, because your search term was also much more specific.
What Are The Benefits Of Longtail Keywords?
You may wonder why you need to use long tail keywords so I will try to make it as simple as I can.
When using a head keyword there will be much more competition from some top sites to get top rankings on Google. In fact, it may be extremely difficult to even break into the first 20 pages of the search engines.
If you think about some examples of when you’re doing research, how often do you go scanning through the first 10 pages of search results?
It just doesn’t happen most of the time. Usually, if we don’t find what we’re looking for on the first page or two, we will refine our search term in an attempt to get better results.
So even though there may be 100,000 searches each month for a particular head keyword, if you’re unable to get top rankings for that word, it is not actually going to generate any traffic to your website meaning all the work you did was for more or less nothing.
Now, let’s compare that to using a long tail keyword, which by the way, make up about 70% of all searches performed.
When using a very specific search term that is several words in length, this is going to generate many fewer results, which means there is a lot less competition.
Less competition, of course, is going to make your chances of getting listed on that coveted first page much more likely.
Check The Example Below
In the example below I searched for hobbies for retired people.If I had only searched hobbies, it would have produced many more monthly searches
Now, there are going to be far fewer searches performed each month on these long tail keywords. In many cases, it may be well under 100.
But ask yourself this… is it better to receive 10, 15, or even 20% of 100 highly targeted searches a month or 0% of 1000,000 broad searches each month? I’m guessing that you went with the former and not the latter.
Another thing is, long tail keywords are performed by people ready to take action.If someone searched the word “hobby”, it`s just that, a search, but someone searching a more targeted long tail keyword is someone ready to take action.
Long Tail Keywords Don’t Produce Enough Visitors:
The use of long tail keywords are going to produce traffic based on the number of pages on your website that are utilizing this strategy.
It is intended to bring very highly targeted, quality traffic into many of the different pages that you have on your site. However, because there are typically far fewer searches for a complete and specific phrase that would be the case for a single word, the traffic numbers may or may not be chart-busting.
It’s a numbers game; the more pages or posts that you have that utilize this technique, the more visitors you will be able to draw to your site.
An important thing to keep in mind is that the long tail keyword will help bring in traffic from your target audience, so make sure you know how to determine your target audience for the best results.
One other advantage to using this technique is that Google and the other search engines really like websites that have a bunch of content.
The more pages you have on your website, the more you will be viewed as an “authority” and your rankings will get an additional boost because of that. Pretty cool, huh?
As you can now understand, the head keywords have a much higher search volume, however, the competition is also much, much higher.
Conversion rates are also significantly lower because the traffic is not as targeted. After all, a one or two-word search term (keyword) is going to be very broad.
By the way, the conversion rate simply means that the visitor has participated in some sort of action that you were aiming for. Maybe they purchased something, signed up for a service or even joined your mailing list.
Benefits Of Longtail Keywords
Now, let’s looking at the long tail keywords above,You can see that the search volume is considerably lower, maybe even a fraction of the volume that the broader, head keyword has.But an interesting thing happens. The competition is also drastically reduced and the conversion rates are always higher.
This happens because the visitor using long tail keywords are looking for something very specific. Once your visitors get to the point of knowing exactly what they’re looking for, they are much further along in the customer purchase cycle.
This usually means that they are much more likely to part with their hard earned money and purchase a product or service – hopefully from you.
Another Benefit Of Long Tail Keywords:
So far I have been talking mainly about “organic” search results but there are other benefits of long tail keywords which I will mention below. These are the search results that we get when someone types a keyword into Google, or any other search engine, and they find our page in the results. These listing don’t cost us anything.
The other type of search engine results would be PPC (pay-per-click). This is where we bid on certain keywords and basically pay to get the rankings.Looking at the image above, you will notice where it has the little “Ad” icon next to some of the listings. These are PPC listings. Each time that link is clicked, the website owner will pay an advertising fee.
Because these bid amounts can vary from a few cents to several dollars for each click, and since most of us don’t have unlimited budgets, we would want to make sure that we’re getting the most bang for our hard earned bucks.
By using lower competition, long tail keywords, the bid amounts will be substantially lower than would be the case using the head keywords; like the word “apple”.
Determining What The Competition Looks Like:
I’d like to show a couple of screenshots that will demonstrate the different competition levels, as well as keyword quality for different head and long tail keywords. If you’re anything like me, visual aids are much easier to absorb then a bunch of text.
Just so you know, the tool that I’m using for these searches is called Jaaxy. In my opinion, this is by far the most comprehensive and affordable keyword research tool that I’ve come across.
For this example, let’s assume that we’re promoting hotels and vacation packages. One of the pages that we want to promote is focusing on hotels that are near Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
If we are trying to target the head keyword of “hotel”, this is what our results are going to look like:
This is the first 15 results/suggestions that Jaaxy has provided for us. Click through the tabs below to see what each of these columns represent.
So now let’s take a look at the results of a long tail keyword that is specific to the Disney World hotels that we’re targeting.
Looking at each of the different metrics, Jaaxy has provided us not only with some good information on our original long tail keyword, but it has also given us some information on many other keywords that we may want to target.
You can see many more green lights for the KQI, and the competition is much lower and will make it much easier to break into the top rankings.
A Little Bit On The Customer Purchase Cycle:
I mentioned earlier about the long tail keywords targeting people that are further into the customer purchase cycle, and I thought it would be beneficial to provide a real quick overview on this cycle.
This customer purchase cycle covers three different phases that most people go through prior to making a purchase. Our goal, as internet marketers, is to try to get our information across to people that are in the final phase.
By reaching people that are in this final phase, you should be able to expect that you will receive much higher conversion rates, compared to getting visits from people that are in the first phase of research.
Here’s the breakdown of the three phases:
- Research Phase: When we’re in this phase, we have maybe just learned about a product that we might be interested in.
Perhaps we’ve been thinking about taking a vacation and want to start finding out destinations that would be appealing.
Whatever the case, this is the phase where we’re focused on researching and learning as much about the item that we can, so we’re able to make an informed decision that we can feel good about. - Decision Phase: At this point, we have already pretty much determined what item we are interested in. We may start looking online for some reviews of the product to either enforce our decision, or possibly sway us in another direction if it’s determined that there is a better product or solution available.
- Purchasing Phase: This final phase is the point that a person actually puts their money out and invests in whichever items or services they’ve been researching in the previous two phases.
Click here to Try this Keyword tool 30 Searches free
By targeting our content to people that are in the second and third stages of this buying cycle, we are able to ensure that visitors to our site will actually find the information that we’re providing to them useful and we should be able to increase our conversion rates at the same time.
Writing a post without checking for low competition keywords does not work, all your competitors are looking for and finding long tail keyword before they settle down to write, you should too.
Now I know I talked quite enough about Jaaxy, is there an alternative you may ask yes there is, but Jaaxy produce good results and is quite affordable should you decide to upgrade after the 30 free searches.
An alternative to Jaaxy, in my opinion, will be the longtailpro.com which you can check here, personally, I can not justify spending the amount they charge.I encourage you to try Jaaxy, with 30 free searches, you really have nothing to lose.
Wrapping It Up:
I hope I’ve been able to shed some light on the many benefits of using long tail keywords and I hope that you can use this strategy in your own online business.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, please be sure to check out this post to make sure your website is Google mobile friendly.
I feel like I’ve been the only one talking writing for a while. Now it’s your turn… Let me know what you think in the comments section below or if you have any questions, just leave me a message below.
As always, I’d like to encourage you to share this page on your favorite social media platform if you think some of your friends might be able to benefit from this information.
Thanks for visiting!
Claire - ClarityAvenue says
This post is exactly what I’ve been looking for! I know you’re promoting Jaaxy but I’ve been searching for a good long tail keyword finder and in the process of testing Moz and Semrush, weighing up my options. So, now I’m going to try Jaaxy :p
Thank you!
sarganser says
Hi Claire,I`m not promoting Jaaxy,what I said about Jaaxy is exactly what you get and more, not many people getting started can afford the high prize of Semrush,Jaaxy has a price that anyone can afford and it`s up there with the high priced tools just for a lower price because the creators of Jaaxy care.
Jhunelle J ♦ www.simplylocal.life says
Wow, very informative. I didn’t know much of this, thanks for the insights. Can start putting in the work in this area and see how it converts 🙂
sarganser says
Glad yu found this helpful,writing without doing a leyword research is a losing game as your competitors do not write without researching keywords to rank better than you.And once you are in page 2 of google, no one finds your site in search.
Lisa Wingerter says
Very informative. Thanks!
sarganser says
Thanks for stopping by