Do you want your site to be featured under the top result of Google?
But the competition in your niche is very high.
As a blogger, I totally understand how competitive it to rank under the top result of the google search.
But if know, how to find long tail keywords then you can ultimately win the game.
The one thing in SEO has been dramatically changed over time and that is keyword research.
About 6-7 years ago there was a time when we can get rank in google just by sniffing the primary keyword many times in the content.
But now that time has been gone,
Google has become smarter than ever and now it shows the search result based on the user’s search intent instead of how many times a keyword has been mentioned in the particular piece of content.
And the competition in almost niches is at its peak.
You have to match the user search intent and overcome the throat-cutting competition to get rank and drive organic traffic.
If you will search the head terms of your topic in google, you will quickly realize the competition.
And if you are totally a beginner, then it becomes very difficult to position yourself in the market under your niche.
So how are you going to do it?
Here is the answer – long tail keyword research
Long-tail keywords will narrow down your focus on a very specific audience base and it will also help you to serve the user search intent as it contains specific queries of users.
Within 3 years of my journey as a writer and blogger, writing for many brands and businesses over the globe, I have gained a lot of knowledge about long-tail keyword research and discovered my long-tail keyword research technique.
I am going to share a comprehensive guide to long-tail keyword research, that took me 3 years to learn.
By the end of this post, you will be able to know
- What are the long tail keywords?
- What are the benefits of long-tail keywords?
- How to find long tail keywords?
- How to use long tail keywords in your content?
Before we proceed ahead, let me tell you one thing…
The purpose to find a long tail keyword is to narrow down the focus to avoid competition and target a specific audience base.
Make sure you don’t choose too long a keyword that has 0 search volume and no specific audience.
If you are still unaware of long tail keywords, and you don’t know whether it will be a good fit in your keyword research strategy, let me help you through it.
Table of Contents
What are the Long Tail keywords?
Long-tail keywords are modified form of short-tail keywords, these keywords contain three or more than four words along with seed keywords.
For example
Short keywords – weight loss
Long-tail keywords – weight loss after pregnancy
Short keywords are very competitive, almost big brands and marketers do constantly try to rank for short-tail keywords to showcase their services and products.
On the other hand, long-tail keywords get less traffic than short-tail keywords but they are less competitive and target a specific audience base.
The traffic comes from long-tail keywords is more likely to convert into leads and sales.
Benefits of targeting Long Tail keywords
Better Traffic Quality and High Conversion rate
As I mentioned above, long-tail keywords generate less traffic in comparison to a short tail keyword but the quality of traffic in long tail keywords is very high in comparison to seed keywords.
Let me tell you an example –
If a user search for a keyword, “shoes”
We don’t know what his /her search intent is.
Whether they are looking for woman’s shoes, men’s shoes, and sports shoes.
It’s not clear, maybe they are just looking for information about shoes.
But if he/she search for a keyword, “best running shoes for men’s”
Now it’s clear he is looking for running shoes for men.
If we know the user’s search intent we can create specific and targeted content so that the chances of conversion rate will be high.
Less Competition
Everyone who is looking for, “best Nike running shoes for men’s” is looking for shoes but not everyone looking for Shoes is looking for, “best Nike running shoes for men’s”
In simple words – when you target long tail keywords, the competition gets narrow down and you don’t have to compete with the big brands who are targeting a broad audience.
Longtail Search helps you rank for difficult terms
If you target long tail keywords in your content, you can boost the traction of pages where you want to target seed keywords, by linking to the long tail keyword-focused pages.
In simple words –
You know how difficult is it to rank a blog post target the head keyword, “Keyword research”
So you can make another blog by targeting the long tail keyword which is easy to rank, such as “long-tail keyword research for SEO”
If I ask you which one of these two posts is easy to rank?
You would definitely say the second one because it targets long-tail keyword.
Now you can mention the link of the first blog post within the content of the second blogpost.
Long-tail search is the most popular type of search.
According to the SEO Company MOZ, 70% of google searches are dominated by long-tail keywords and these graphs continue to grow with time.
Now users started using search engines smartly, without wasting their time looking for information around on the internet, they directly search for a particular quarry and get their answer.
Now marketers and brands have also started to shift on long-tail keywords.
How to find Long Tail Keywords
Almost all long tail keywords are made to solve to very specific quarry and address a specific problem.
By keeping that in mind, I am going to show you 6 methods to find long-tail keywords.
Brainstorm based on your experience
Use your experience in your business and think about the problems and queries your ideal customers ask.
Whatever they may ask directly about your business or at your business site, they are likely to search for the same quarries into the search result to see the alternative of your services and products.
Take a pen & paper and write down the question your customer may ask…
(Add snapshot from Canva – handwriting)
When you are done writing the question… now run those questions through a google search to find the long tail keywords for those quarries.
Note – We are not finding long words to make sure they have enough search volume, once you finish brainstorming the words now convert them into the actual keywords with the help of google and keywords research tools that we are going to discuss next.
Use Google Auto-Suggest
Start typing the seed keywords into the Google search bar but don’t hit enter and start extending your seed keyword with related words, you will see the various version of your seed keywords suggested by google.
The data shown in google auto-suggest is directly exported by the google so we can make sure these are the actual search quarries users are looking for.
Use Google Search Related Terms
Meanwhile, google auto-suggests show you the different version of the same query, Here you can see the other topics related to your search query.
Targeting these search-related terms might be important for your business because these suggestions are generated by Google and direct indicator of what other things users are searching for related to your topic.
Use Keyword Research Tools
Keywords research tools are your best friends in your content marketing efforts.
Because these tools can also show you the data, competition, and CPC of your targeted keyword.
Long-tail Pro is one of the best tools which shows the keywords directly from google’s autosuggestions.
Another best tools are Ahref and SEMrush, these tools provide in-depth analysis of any keyword.
Both Ahref and SEMrush has an option to find the questions reeled to your keywords, this question terms can also be used as long-tail keywords.
This keyword research tool can also be used to analyze the whole site of your competitors and their organic keywords which you can use to build long tail keywords.
Another important feature of these tools is, you can type seed keywords and find all the related search quarries.
Answer the Public.com
Answer the public.com is a keyword research tool that show the search quarries related to your seed keyword.
This website has a collection of question sets such as what, when, why, and, which can be used as long tail keywords.
These phrases are the quarries that users type into the search engine.
Although it is an algorithm-based tool and sometimes the quarries don’t make sense, because it uses the same set of questions for each seed keyword.
You must cross-check any quarries showing here, into the search result and keyword research tools.
QNA sites
Nowadays people are turning on the sites like Quora to find the answers to their more specific query instead of digging into the 2000 words blogpost and find their answers.
QNA sites are a very effective place to find the search quarries people are looking for…
You can ultimately find the language and key phrases that people use to talk about your business or similar to yours.
let me show you how…
head over to Quora and type your topic or keyword into the search bar
Now you will get tons of question answers related to your topic, skim through to content, and pay attention to the words and phrases people are using to talk about your topic.
Conclusion –
Keyword research is the first part of your SEO that opens the path for your content to appears in the search result and serve the need of your targeted audience.
Without strategical keyword research, your content is nothing more than a piece of a new paper of E-book.
And long tail keyword research is the technique to rank your site in a short time and with minimum effort.
I make sure, if you follow this informative guide, you will be able to make the most out of your tail keyword research journey.
How are you going to leverage these strategies into your marketing efforts?
Tell me in the comment section?