The Benefits of Long-Tail SEO Keywords

Keywords are a fundamental part of SEO. Keywords are the phrases people type in to marjor search engines, like google.com, yahoo.com and bing.com to discover relevant site. Discovering the best keywords to target is an essential starting point for your search engine optimization program. Don't over look long-tail keywords!

The competition for favorable keywords can be difficult. Sometimes, no matter how good your SEO is, it can be awefully difficult to secure first page ranking when targeting the most sought after keywords. The reality is, if your website does not rank on the first page of the search engine results, then you are unlikely to create high volumes of traffic from SEO. One option is to target long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keyword phrases are blocks of three or more words that web users may be using when searching for your service, while short-tail keywords are comprised of only one or two words. “Womens coats” is a very competitive example of a short-tail keyword. Trying to get on to the first page of Google’s search results for this keyword is exceptionally difficult. However, a long-tail keyword, such as “ladies warm winter coats” will attract less competition and may be a lot easier to increase your SEO ranking.

Because competition for long-tail keywords is less difficult, it is quite easy to get your site to appear on page one when searchers conduct online searches using your long-tail keyword. The downside of long-tail keywords is that fewer users will be typing in these search terms, which means a fewer number of visitors attracted to your website.

Lower visitor numbers are balanced by the fact that online retailers often find that they achieve higher rates of conversion when users visit the site following an online search using long-tail keywords. This is due to the fact that the visitor has more specific needs that are demonstrated by the use of the long-tail keyword. Online visitors who have used a longer search term are also likely to be further along in the buying cycle, making them more likely to convert into a customer when they get to your site.

Long-tail keywords are quite often viewed as the poor cousins of short-tail keywords because they generate less traffic numbers, in theory. However, in reality, if a short-tail keyword ranks your site on page 50 of the search results, your search engine optimization efforts have been in vain.

It is worth analyzing keyword variations to determine which work best for your product. You may find that it is more profitable to attract 200 visitors using long-tail keywords if 10% of these visits lead to a conversion. This is a better result than generating 1,000 new visitors with a short-tail keyword with a conversion rate of 1%.

SEO of long-tail keywords is also extremely important. On-page optimization of long-tail keywords was found to improve the ranking of a website by six places in the search engine results in a study conducted in Dec 2011. The study explained that long-tail keywords were 2.5 times better at converting visitors into customers than short-tail keywords. This demonstrates that long-tail keywords have a huge amount of potential.

With SEO, the key to securing high rankings remains the publishing of interesting content. Quality content will help you generate higher volumes of visitors. Long-tail keywords are a little more difficult to work into your content without having them look odd. However, with some care, you can work them seamlessly into your SEO program.

I am an internet marketing consultant. I specialize in content creation and publishing, SEO, SEM, website design, and conversion optimization. Request an SEO Proposal here! SEO Buffalo NY