When we bring up the subject of internet marketing and SEO, one of the first things anyone will bring up are keywords.
Countless hours have been be poured into research that yields new keywords for businesses and blogs to target. These days though, a single keyword like “blogging” will have a large volume, but also a monumental competition.
While we want traffic, we also want to garner the right views from people within the proper audience.
Enter long-tail keywords
This term refers to search terms that are more specific and focused than a single broad concept. In most cases, they are three words or more in length.
What’s required is something that focuses on a specific niche. While you may scoff at them for a lower traffic count, you’ll soon find out that they are the incredibly valuable tools in the long-term.
Today we’ll start by discussing why long-tail keywords are important for your success, and then I’ll show you how to find them with some incredible tools at your fingertips that can be used to find these types of keywords.
Why You Need Long-Tail Keywords in Your Marketing Strategy
When someone begins searching for something, specifically a product or a service, they start with broad search terms.
Let’s say they’re looking for something related to the massively popular Star Wars franchise. They’ll start with something like “Star wars.” As they search, they’ll start to narrow their pool of choices. Next could be “Star wars collectibles,” or something similar.
Then, the person will narrow it down to a specific type of item: “Star wars collectible figures.” Now we’re getting into long-tail keywords.
If you’ll notice, as the search terms became more and more detailed, so too did the person searching come closer and closer to their ultimate purchase decision.
While you can pull a lot of people with a broad term, you won’t know if those people are interested in your specific product.
In the end, these types of longer keyword phrases bring specific consumers to your site looking for the things you offer. This results in less potential traffic, but higher conversion and quality of leads.
By the time someone reaches the point where they’re searching long-tail phrases, they are laser-focused on what they want and ready to buy when they find it. By targeting a phrase that speaks specifically to your product or service, you’re pulling those kinds of people to your site.
Beyond receiving targeted traffic, you’re also going up against less competition.
When choosing keywords for a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you’re paying for each click that you receive as a result of that advertising. For broad keywords, the costs are higher, but for long-tail keywords, you’ll notice that the cost-per-click is significantly lower.
If you tried to compete with the litany of websites that are targeting “Star Wars,” you would be swept under the rug, it’s just too tough. Instead, you’re targeting your specific audience and gaining a larger piece of the pie as a result.
In her post covering this same subject, Marieke van de Rakt referenced a book: The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
In this book, he claims that demand exists for every niche in some form. The example she used was a jukebox with 10,000 songs. While some of the songs are played regularly, all of them are played at some point.
This results in a new type of market that caters to every niche and in doing so, creates small, focused-groups of buyers. You could try and shoot for a 1% share a massive pool of potential buyers, or you could instead focus on a grabbing 10% of a much smaller group and ultimately be more profitable as a result.
Another bonus? You got it!
With these types of keywords, you won’t need to worry about ranking high in Google because the competition for these longer keywords won’t be as fierce. You also won’t need to worry about building a ludicrous amount of backlinks to rank for these either.
The domain authority alone will do the trick, and with all of the proper SEO best practices in place, you’ll see posts and pages with these keywords flying high.
4 Tools for Finding Long-Tail Keywords Today!
I know you’re pumped to start grabbing these long keyword phrases by the horns, but first you have to know how to find them.
Even Excalibur required a little finesse to pull the sword from the stone. Keep the energy up, and get ready to find out how you can find these sweet, sweet keywords.
These four tools will help you find long-tail keyword phrases, and find out which ones your competitors are using!
1. Ahrefs Positions Explorer
I just recently got my hands on this fresh new tool from Ahrefs, and let me tell you, it is amazing!
All you have to do is type in your website and you’ll get a full breakdown of all kinds of amazing info, but more importantly, you’ll see who your competitors are.
Search for their reports on here and you can get a sneak peek into what keywords are doing the trick. You may spot some single words, and you may spot some long-tail phrases. Whatever you see, it puts you in a perfect position to launch yourself past them by expanding your findings into specific phrases.
Take a look at this report below:
Now this is just a snapshot of all the things this tool can do for you, but as you can see, I’ve pointed out the main areas you’ll want to focus on:
● Competitors
● Organic Keywords
● Top 5 Pages
This information alone is enough to send you on a very focused mission to find long-tail keywords that fit your niche, and with the competition laid out for you, all you have to do is search them with this tool to get this information about them as well.
2. Google Keyword Planner
Sometimes to get what you need, you have to go to the source.
If you have information that you found using the tool above, and you need ideas on how to expand those keywords you spotted into longer, more specific phrases, then this is the next stop.
You probably have one, but make sure you have a Google account for Gmail and the like before heading to the keyword planner page. You’ll need that account to sign in.
Once you’re in select the “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category” option.
Type in some of the keywords you found from the Ahrefs tool above and select the keyword ideas tab to see a list of related words and phrases.
Take a look at this example:
You’ll see numerous options for long-tail keywords in the list, providing you with the perfect inspiration to reach your target audience!
3. SEMrush
Our final tool offers another resource for analyzing your competition.
Not only does it show what keywords they’re ranking for, but you also get a break down of their backlinks and other useful data.
For those with a budget, the PRO version of this tool expands upon this information immensely and can be a great tool for really getting into the nitty gritty of the competition.
This is an example a report from the tool:
As you can see, even the free version of the tool is very thorough. With these three tools in your arsenal, there isn’t much left standing in the way of you finding the ultimate long-tail keywords for your content.
4. Keyword Difficulty Tool by Moz
When you’ve found some long-tail keywords that catch your eye, the next step is to see how difficult it will be to compete for rankings on that keyword.
While the general consensus is that long-tail phrases carry less competition, that doesn’t mean they’re all going to be easy to rank for.
Luckily there’s a Keyword Difficulty Tool from Moz that gives you a quick synopsis of how much competition keywords have surrounding them.
The score that comes out is a percentage from 1-100%. The lower the percentage is, the lower the difficulty.
Shoot for keyword phrases that fall as low as possible on this scale. “Star Wars collectible figures” for example was 47%. Ideally you’ll want to target terms that are below 50% in difficulty for maximum results.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, internet marketing is an ever shifting playing field. One thing that has always been constant however, is the high competition of single keywords. By targeting your specific audience using relevant long-tail keyword phrases, you’re ensuring that the right people in the right buying mindset are seeing your content. Ultimately, that’s the goal, and this is the way.
How do you find and target long-tail phrases? What tips and tricks do you utilize? Tell me your thoughts and opinions in the comments below and thanks for reading!
