There is no doubt about it that long-tail keywords remain to be vitally important when we’re speaking about search engine optimisation (SEO). In actual fact, this type of keyword is the foundation of an efficient SEO strategy.
Don’t believe us? Well, have a look at the stats. Long-tail keywords represent 70% of all searches conducted on the Internet. Using these types of keywords are how you generate organic search traffic to your website. In the words of SEO and content marketing experts, they’re the holy grail of SEO. Thus incorporating long-tail keywords in your blog posts can assist you with maximising your organic search rankings as well as organic traffic.
Keyword stuffing is a no-no
We’ve all heard about keyword stuffing – in other words the overuse of a particular word. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this black hat SEO technique only applies to short-tail keywords. This is not the case. So whether you’re using short- or long-tail keywords you still need to adhere to best practices when it comes to optimising your content.
So before we get further into why long-tail keywords will benefit your blogging, let’s take a look at what the different types of keywords are.
Keywords can be either short-tail or long-tail:
- The term ‘short-tail keywords’ refers to those keywords which are shorter phrases and have a generic meaning. A great example of a short-tail keyword is “men’s shoes”. They are also sometimes call headwords.
- As opposed to this, long-tail keyword phrases are longer search terms which are more specific which better describe a specific thing or concept. To carry on with the men’s shoes idea a long-tail keyword would be “cheap Gucci men’s shoes”.
There is no particular point at which a short-tail keyword phrase changes into a long-tail. It is all relative. Thus, one and the same search term can be referred to as being long- or short-tail. This depends on what other term you compare it with.