Long tail search terms are keywords that attract few regular searches but
are highly targeted and extremely specific to the content of a page. The visitors
generated through long tail search results are usually very active because
they are so well targeted and this means a greater chance that they will convert
to a customer. While an individual long tail search term may only provide one
or two visitors every month, the combination of long tail terms can provide
a powerful and profitable source of traffic in a short space of time.
Targeting Long Tail Keywords
Targeting long tail keywords is very difficult and may prove implausible for
some websites. They tend to appear naturally within relevant content and are
difficult to locate in a lot of keyword research software because they attract
so few searches. Patterns can also change regularly and with small search figures
this may mean that a term sees no searches for weeks or months and then gets
several in a short space of time.
Website Content
One of the best approaches to long tail search engine optimisation is through
the addition of organic, naturally written content. Web content will naturally
include some long tail keywords and, for most websites, the first they know
of such a keyword is when checking their traffic logs. Traffic logs also represent
another method of optimising for the long tail.
Using The Data You Collect
As part of any SEO campaign you should be tracking data and statistics pertaining
to your traffic and search engine rankings. You should be able to develop a
greater understanding of the search terms that people are using to find your
site and the logs will inevitably throw up one or two terms that may be similar
and relatively easy to combine on a new content page.
Blogs And The Long Tail
Blogs attract a lot of long tail search because of the amount of content they
collect. The nature of blog content also means that it is more inclined to
talk about a topic in the same way that a potential lead would search for it.
Including one or two long tail search terms in some of your new posts may lead
to other highly targeted keywords in the future as well.
Generating Search Engine Traffic
The more content a site has, the more likely that it will generate long tail
search traffic. Some of these search terms may be very good niche keywords
that have very little competition and a reasonable number of searches. Tracking
data and acting on that data to research further keywords and more opportunities
offers superb opportunity for the proactive search engine optimisation professional.
SEO And The Long Tail
SEO is the act of optimising the content of a web page so that it ranks highly
for your most important keywords. Regularly searched terms often prove the
most competitive and difficult or more time consuming to rank for. In these
circumstances it may be down to less popular but highly targeted keywords to
generate traffic for your pages. The long tail of search is difficult to optimise
for but creates targeted and active traffic.
