New bloggers know that getting steady traffic to a website is an uphill battle for the first few months, and getting any significant traffic from search engines can take even longer. Carefully crafting content that focuses on long tail keywords gets a new site ranked faster.
Basically, long tail keywords are more specific and less used search terms. All that means is fewer people bother to type a bunch of words into the search engine, but those who do are really zeroing in on what they’re searching for.
It can seem counter-intuitive to target keywords with less search traffic. After all, if the term “weight loss” receives a quarter-million hits per month, shouldn’t your blog vie for a position with those searchers?
The more general the search term, the more big blogs and websites appear on the first three or four results pages. Big sites have better page rank simply because they have more volume–in posts, in hits, in just about every area.
Small blogs that target long tail keywords and achieve high page rank for specific searches boost the blog’s overall rank (also known as authority). Over time, this could bring the blog into high page rank for more general searches, too.
So, where do you find these long tail keywords? Begin with Google’s keyword planner and spend some time playing with the tool. Learn its nuances and try different things until you find a method of using the keyword tool that works for you.
Next, look at your blog’s analytics and pay attention to search terms that led visitors to your blog. If you have enough traffic, there should be several search terms listed that you may want to target in the future.
Finally, use Google’s autofill capability. Simply begin to type your keywords into the search box and make a note of long tail terms that Google, Bing and Yahoo suggest.
Start with long tail keywords when your blog is new, and then gradually shift your focus to more general search terms with higher clicks. It will still take some time to achieve page rank, but you’ll be better off overall.
Autofill! That’s a genius idea. Thanks, Tom. Your blog is always a wealth of information for me.
This is a really good idea. I’ve been struggling to rank my blog because the keywords are so competitive. Maybe I need to narrow it down and find some of these long tail keywords to reach for instead.
Yes! I’m going to spend some time brainstorming long tail keywords for my website. The more specific the phrases are, the more targeted the users may be too, right?
Thumbs up. Playing around with Google’s keyword planner is a solid suggestion for finding long tail keywords. You can even save it out as an Excel file and continue to filter them until you find the right candidate.
I think there’s an argument to be made that long tail keywords are more fruitful than broad search terms. If a user is searching for something very specific, chances are, they know what they want and are ready to take action — whether it be to buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, or just browse your website for other related things.
You are right Sammie, they are typically less competitive and more qualified/targeted.
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