Long tail keywords for relevant traffic

Long tail keywords

Attract more traffic by including long tail keywords in your content. This post takes you in detail about long tail keywords and why you should use them where relevant.

What are long tail keywords?

Long tail keywords are key phrases that may go up to 3-4 words and even more, these are very-very specific and descriptive key words that a searcher types in to describe what they are looking for. Because of the specific nature of the search words used, long tail keywords have the highest conversion rates.

If you are not including long tail keywords, descriptive and specific keywords in your content, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to attract traffic and convert visitors!

Do you have a product that a potential customer wants but they can’t find it?
What is stopping them from finding it?

Is your content optimized for relevant long tail keywords ?

Before going further, I would like to share my personal experience on this.

A couple of days back, I was looking for a particular shade of nail paint from a well-known brand. I had looked for it in every mall and store and it seemed to be out of stock. I thought I would check if it was available online. So I went ahead and typed in “ brand name nail paint no 421”, got some results from the brand’s site, but could not get the exact same shade:(

I found another site  slightly lower in the search results but the exact same long tail keyword was in the title. So I went to the site and  found a colour that was almost a 100% match! Before placing my order I checked whether it was secure to buy from there, and then went ahead and purchased it. I have that site bookmarked so that I can go back there again.

Isn’t this amazing?

This unknown site had optimized its content for long tail and descriptive keywords and had relevant content to back it up, which is why I found it in the first place! This happens all the time and yet we sometimes fail to see the huge opportunity that is right there for us to grab. I wanted to share this experience because to me this is a real life example where the positive impact of  optimizing content for long tail keywords can be seen and experienced.

But how many of us are taking advantage of this knowledge?

It is NOT true that big brands have the advantage. Today there is an immense potential for small business owners  to start taking advantage of the conducive conditions and gain a considerable share of the market.

One of the main things that we need to focus on is Keyword research. Keyword research needs to be an essential part of the SEO content optimization process. The best keyword research tool that you can use is Google AdWords keyword planner. Keyword research on each of your specific products will not only provide the volume of search, it will also show you the competition, that way you can determine, if it is worthwhile focusing on that keyword. For many of the long tail keywords, you may not see a high count, but include them anyway because remember these are ready to convert.

For example, if you sell cosmetics and have a lot of relevant content on nail paints. You may want to do a through keyword research and optimize your content to include specific long tail keywords such as “light pink shades for nail paints”. By doing so, your site may be one of the few to come up on the top search results. The number of searches with long tail keywords have gone up significantly today, more and more people are typing in long tail keywords so that they get to what they want as soon as possible. More often than not, these potential customers have made up their minds and are seeking to buy it.

I have purchased several times from completely unknown brands, online, I find them by searching with specific keywords from my mobile device and am pleasantly surprised to bump into these unknown sites. More often than not, I end up buying from these sites.

Here are some of the reasons, I continue to purchase from unknown, and non-branded sites:

1. I found the website on searching from my mobile device
2. The website loaded fast, and displayed the exact same thing that I was looking for
3. It answered my query in the fastest way with the most relevant results.
5. It was encrypted therefore I felt secure buying from the site.

Is your website providing the end user what they need in the fastest possible time?

Another things that you may wish to consider is extending your website’s keyword content strategy to your  Social Networking presence as well. Try your best to describe your products, the benefits, and USPs using long tail keywords on the social networking sites. Pinterest is a great place to showcase and sell your products. You may want to dedicate a board for each to your products, and optimize these boards by including long tail keywords and descriptive keyword phrases. Enabling buying from Pinterset would be the best way to maximize the benefits of having a presence in Pinterest. Following and sharing on a regular basis is highly recommended.

In summary,

1.Long tail and descriptive keywords need to be a part of the your content optimization best practices. Not including these keywords would mean missing out on traffic that may be in the last stages of converting!

2.  Mobile friendly and AMP enabled are no longer good to have features, they are a must have for every website.

Today more and more people are buying from their mobile devices and they do not have the patience to wait for a site to load. What matters to potential customers today is not a well-known brand, but relevance matched with faster, more effective, efficient sites that have all the trustworthy elements.