Long-Tail SEO is becoming a pretty popular topic these days. This is an incredibly powerful technique for building up organic search traffic for your business. There are tons of studies out there that suggest long tail keywords are easier to rank for, bring in more combined traffic and even convert more visitors to customers! So let’s dive right in and take a look at what this long tail SEO is all about.

What Is Long Tail SEO?

Long-tail SEO is the use of longer and more specific keyword phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they’re closer to a point-of-purchase or when they’re using voice search.

Example Time!!

If you’re a company that sells classic furniture, the chances of your pages coming to the top of Google from an organic search with the keyword being “furniture” are slim to none. There is just way to much competition for that keyword. But say your company specializes in contemporary art-deco furniture, then keywords like “contemporary Art Deco-incluenced semi-circle lounge” are going to be found by consumers looking for your exact product and you will rank with that keyword/phrase.

Think about it: if you Google the term “coke”, what are the chances you’re going to end up clicking through to a sale? Slim, because hell, I bet your might see some crazy results. But if you Google “old coke bottle for sale in Iowa” you know exactly what you are looking for and you’re probably prepared to pay for it then and there.

Now, obviously you will get less traffic with a long-tail keyword that you would with a more common one, but the traffic you do draw will be better, more focused, more committed and ready to purchase your services or product.

Hopefully you now get what Long-Tail SEO is. Now let’s dive into what it can do for you!

High Ranking Potential

I hope by now you have figured out that it is far easier to rank well for a multi-word keyword phrase, which is specific to your niche, than for a generic 1 or 2 word phrase. You should focus on optimizing your content for topics instead of targeting individual long tail keywords. This is because Google is freaking smart. Smart enough to group individual long tail keywords into topics and subtopics.

And guess what? You can rank for multiple long tails without even really trying. It seems that its a bi-product of creating super high quality content with in-depth coverage of a topic… who knew?

Long tails make up a major share of your search traffic. Of all search traffic on the web, long-tail keywords make up around 70%.

How to Find Long Tail Keywords

First you should head on over to Serpstat. All you have to do is enter a keyword you want to expand on into Serpstat’s bar and hit search.

Navigate to Keyword Analysis > SEO Research > Keyword Selection to get a list of relevant keywords.

Now you can use the filter to find long-tail keywords. To find them you can use several parameters, such as search volume, number of results and keyword length.

Start by setting the search volume for related keywords with search volume less than 500. You can use multiple conditions by adding more filters if you would like.

The more results Google finds for a keyword the more competitive it is. When limiting the number of results start with a higher number and work your way down if necessary.

Next you can set the minimum number of words in a keyword for additional precision.

Apply the filter with the three conditions and you have a list of niche long-tail keywords that can potentially be used to promote your website!

How To Use Long-Tails

Now that you have found some of your long-tail keywords you should edit your content and try to use those in headings, subtitles, and even bullet points. If a part of your content directly addresses a certain query, it’s a good idea to use it as this part’s heading. or, if there isn’t a part that addresses that but it can be included – throw it in there!

It is also good to find different variations of the long-tail keywords to use in your content as well. When you do a specific Google search say, “How to use long-tails” check out the picture below:

You can see my search didn’t return my exact phrase but variations of it. So feel free to use variations all over the post to gain more control of your long-tail SEO strategy. Remember Google is freaking smart, it knows what variations are and how to display search results with variations that might be related to the search that was queried.

Thoughts

Some of the so called “Experts” claim there are SEO secrets for improving your search rankings and traffic… that’s just simply not true.

I have been targeting long-tail keywords in my blog posts and gaining organic traffic from them from the start. This search phrase strategy actually works so keep at it!

Remember you are not trying to manipulate the search engines into ranking your web page. Instead you are targeting your audience for exactly what they want. You are answering their questions or providing them a service that is useful to them.

Remember this is a cut-throat competition so you have to leverage long-tail keywords.

They have far less competition, and they are easier to rank for. Most importantly, if you are operating an online store or business, long-tail keywords have the best conversion rates.

Just make sure you are careful. You need to be natural when you are integrating long-tail keywords in your blog posts. You need to think about how searches phrase their queries, when you research for those keywords in your industry or for your product. They might not be as familiar with your market as you are so make sure you are not using slang or buzzwords that might be well known to other marketers and now very well known to the target audience you are trying to engage.