Aim To Rank For Long Tail Keywords
When new bloggers start out writing about their favorite topic, they are excited and just writing away. They then start to investigate why they don’t really have much traffic, and they start learning about search engine optimization (SEO). So, they start targeting their main keyword. Let’s say it’s a blogger writing about his debt, and how he hopes to end his debt through blogging. He starts to target the keywords “debt management.” After doing some SEO basics, and maybe a little bit of link building, he still is frustrated by not being in the top few pages on Google for “debt management” so he starts to give up. Instead of giving up, he should aim for long tail keywords.
His problem was that he was trying to blog about a keyword that many people are competing for. When there’s a lot of competition, it’s harder to rank higher in Google, therefore less visitors from Google. So, how can this problem be solved? By using long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are groups of keywords that are not too common when they are by themselves, but when they are grouped, they will be able to draw more customers to your website. Also, since those groups of keywords aren’t as popular, then it will be a lot easier to rank higher in the search engines. And since you’ll be targeting a fairly specific set of keywords, the people searching for those keywords will be more valuable customers since their search results will be laser targeted.
So how do you find long tail keywords for your site? The first step is to dive into your site statistics. Most statistics programs show you the keywords that were used to find you in the search engine. Start looking at some of the longer phrases that were used to find your site, and then write an article about that topic specifically. Also take a look at where you stand in the search engines already for those phrases. That will give you an idea if you really need to target that phrase with a few pages about that topic, or if one page will do. Make sure that you link to this new page from a couple of your other pages and external pages, using that long tail keyword as your anchor text for the link.
Another way is to use a free online tool from Google. (You can find it at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) You can search for the generic term that you want to use and it will often give a nice long list of popular searches, with a rough estimate of how many searches a month. (To see a more accurate monthly search volume, change the “Match Type” from “Broad” to “Exact”. Try searching the term “debt management” to get an ideas of long tail keywords.
The thing to remember when targeting long tail keywords is the value of small things when multiplied. Sure, it’d be awesome to rank first for a keyword that gets 300 searches a day. But, that will be a little bit harder. If, instead, you focus on 10 long tail keywords with 30 searches a day each, you’ll still get about 300 visitors to your site, but it’ll be a lot easier since you’ll probably rank higher for those keywords since they are long tail, and therefore less competitive.
Keyword Phrases
In order to receive traffic from search engines you need to target the right keyword phrases and include those phrases throughout your content. Using the proper keyword phrases and maintaining strong keyword density will help you obtain the best search engine ranking position possible.
Let’s discuss some examples. If I target a keyword phrase, I am basically targeting everyone who searches Google for that particular phrase. For example, if my website sells fake christmas trees and christmas tree decorations; I would be targeting the phrase fake christmas trees and christmas tree decorations.
I would first create a page titled fake christmas trees and set it up on my website as domain.com/fake-christmas-trees.html. I would mention the exact phrase fake christmas trees about 5 times or so throughout the content. In addition I would also mention the keywords fake, christmas, and trees but not in the same order. For the keyword phrase christmas tree decorations I would do this exact same thing.
It’s important that you limit how often you mention the keyword phrase you’re trying to target on each web page. Most experts would agree that limiting the use of the keyword phrase to 5 times or less will prevent you from encountering any search engine penalties. If you mention any keyword or keyword phrase too often on a single page you risk being tagged as spam and will count negatively toward your search engine ranking position.
In order to receive the best search engine rankings possible you need to stick to this system so Google and other search engines understand what keywords you are trying to target on each page. Once you’ve established keywords and keyword phrases throughout your content you need to move on to the next step. The next step is creating meta keywords and meta description that match the keywords or phrases you are trying to target in your content.
If you understand this concept but are unsure what keyword phrases you need to target you need to check out our article on keyword research tools so you can do some keyword research before choosing your keywords.
