What are long tail keywords?

We all know the immense value of keyword selection in digital marketing, but did you know that long tail keywords attract way more traffic?   And long tail keywords not only attract more traffic, they attract the right traffic that are really interested in what your business has to offer, or the information contained in your blog.

There’s even claims that long tail keywords when used in copy writing for website content or when blogging can outperform your competition if they’re sticking to single keywords.  That’s great news even for the seasoned copy writer or blogger when it comes to digital marketing success.

Focusing on long tail keywords is a really effective SEO tactic and when you’re responsible for a SEO strategy there’s no doubt it will involve in great detail ‘how to use keywords effectively’ so to get a better understanding of the how long tail keywords work and their importance it’s a great idea to complete a digital marketing course with an accredited course provider.

What exactly is a long tail keyword?

Most people think that a long tail keyword is defined by how many keywords they contain, but this isn’t the case.  A long tail keyword is directly linked to the number of keywords used.   The correct definition of long tail keywords is that this form of keyword optimisation is a complete phrase.  Keywords have evolved over the past few years as people now type in specific phrases related to what they’re looking for when searching on Google.

How do long tail keywords work?

With shorter keywords the competition for ranking is aggressive, so the good news about users typing in specific phrases when searching is that the volume of results displayed are much lower, thus the chances of your content showing up increases if you’ve used specific phrases in your long tail keyword choice.

It’s become common practice now to target longer keyword phrases as they rank much better and receive interest from users with precise intention.  Therefore, using long tail keywords improves your chances of connecting with a potential customer.

Did you know that long tail keywords are super voice friendly when searching on Google?

The best thing about long tail keywords is that its super voice friendly when people use their voice on Google when conducting a search.  People tend to speak in phrases and not single words, so it makes sense that single keywords aren’t as effective in voice search.  With more and more people searching on the go by using voice search, long tail keywords are dominating the voice search results pages on Google.

Why use long tail keywords

Although long tail keywords are searched for less frequently there are many benefits to using this form of keyword selection in your SEO strategy.   You’ll have a better chance of success in terms of engagement with long tail keywords, so let’s take a closer look at some of their most obvious benefits.

• Focused traffic – When a user focuses on a specific search by typing in exactly what they’re looking for something magic happens – the traffic you attract are completely focussed on your long tail keywords.
• Increased conversion rate – When your long tail keywords cause you to show up on the search engine results pages, there’s an increased likelihood of the searcher converting to a customer because you’ve provided a match to their question or query.
• Decreased competition – No business wants competition, and this is especially so when it comes to being noticed online. Long tail keywords dramatically decrease the competition – which certainly is a good thing.
• Lower cost – Even better news is that long tail keywords usually work out cheaper than using generic single keywords as there are less people bidding on them which drives up their price for pay-per-click advertising.
• Speeds up the click-through rate – There’s nothing slow about digital marketing and the same rings true for pay-per-click advertising. You speed up your click-through rate by using long tail keywords as people search with certain phrases or questions.
• Increased visibility – By using long tail keywords your content is more likely to show up on the search engine results pages, thereby increasing your visibility and what’s great about this is that you increase your visibility to a target audience that matters.

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