Long Tail Keywords: What Are They and Why You Should Use Them
Posted by Yvette | Under Online Marketing Tuesday Apr 13, 2010
Long tail keywords are the keywords phrases that usually utilize more than a few words and are therefore, more specific. For instance, someone might search for “laptop” this is a very generic search term. “Dell laptops” is a little more specific. However, a keyword phrase like “Dell Latitude D520” is quite specific. When people search for very specific keywords it’s clear that they know what they want. They’re not looking for generic information. Oftentimes, they are ready to buy.
To be clear, phrases at the top of the graph like “shoes” are being searched for millions of times a month. Phrases like “men’s shoes” that appear in the middle of the graph are generally searched for tens of thousands of times each month. Phrases that appear in the long tail represent phrases that are searched for between 0 – 10 times per month. However, the long tail makes up the bulk of what people are searching for. If you need a pair of running shoes, which of the three above keywords would you search for?
The problem that many businesses run into is that they put so much time and effort into common, simple keyword phrases. While ranking for those phrases is very possible, it can often take 6-9 months of diligently building a strong SEO portfolio of blogs, links, viral marketing, and much, much more. You could spend hundreds of man hours trying to rank for 4 or 5 common keywords. On the other hand, if you spend those same man hours trying to rank for dozens or so long tail keywords, you’d see a drastic increase in your ROI.
If long tail keywords have not been a part of your marketing strategy they need to be. You’ll convert more prospects while doing less work. What makes more sense than that? For a look at how SurchSquad used long tail keywords to get a #1 listing on Bing, check out this post.
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