What Are Long Tail Keywords And How Can They Drive Search Traffic?

Searching for an easy way to get targeted organic traffic to your website? 

You should target long-tail keywords! 

If a marketer and SEO professional decide to target a highly competitive keyword to drive relevant visitors to their website and ranking in SERPs, it could take a few weeks to several months to finally get any result. 

We often overlook the long tail keywords to get to the top of Google for high-volume keywords. However, nowadays, searchers are typing long-tail keywords to find results in search engines. That’s why with this shift in search landscaping, marketers and SEOs are also putting more effort into long-tail search optimization. 

You’ll be surprised to know that long tail keywords make up 70% of all searches!

Yes, it’s true! 

So, do you want to miss out on 70% of the potential traffic? 

If not, you must integrate long-tail keywords into your SEO keyword research strategy. And if you are new to this and don’t know much about it or are not sure whether this SEO strategy will work for your site, keep reading this blog. 

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the following key things:

• What are long-tail keywords?
• Why are they called long-tail keywords?
• How long should a long-tail keyword be?
• Examples of long-tail keywords
• Why should you integrate long tail keywords in your blog posts?
• How to find long-tail keywords?
• The two types of long-tail keywords
• How to integrate long-tail keywords in your posts

So, let’s first understand what are long tail keywords. 

What are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords or long tail search terms are specific keywords or keyphrases with relatively low search volume and competition levels compared to other keywords.   

These search terms are used by searchers or visitors when they’re closer to purchase or want to look for a particular thing. Most long-tail keywords are usually longer) than short or “head” keywords or standard search queries.

The long tail search terms can be between three to five words and are more specific than generic search terms. With the help of these specific phrases, you can easily target niche demographics and be able to attract more high-quality traffic to your website. This will finally lead to more conversions.

Long tail search queries are more specific, which is why their search intent is more straightforward and has lower monthly searches. This is why these search terms have a higher conversion rate.

Let’s understand this with an example.

If you search for the keyword “meditation,” it will show a search volume of about 211k per month. However, the long tail keyword, “can meditation make you smarter,” gets only 50 searches per month. 

Why Are They Called “Long-tail” Keywords?

Long-tail search terms got their names from their particular positions on the “search demand” curve. 

So, what’s this curve? 

This curve is about having the data of search queries that searchers have performed in Google in a month, and when we order them by their search volumes, it will create a curve like this: 

Here’s another chart by SEMRUSH that shows that, as compared to head terms, each individual long-tail keyword has a low search volume. However, they still played an important role in all searches performed on Google. 

How Long Should a Long Tail Search Term Be?

You may hear this statement, “A long tail keyword means it consists of more than four words or phrases.” 

That’s not true… at least not entirely!  

So, how many words or phrases does a long tail keyword have? 

A long tail keyword simply means that it is a more specific search term than other keywords. So, it doesn’t matter how many words it has. 

For example, the phrase “best running shoes for kids” is more specific than “shoes.” So, the long tail keyword here is “best running shoes for kids,” and it will have a high conversion rate because a user is more likely to buy from these keywords than someone searching for “shoes.” 

So, the long tail search term has a more specific standard search term! 

Here are some more examples of long tail keywords for “running shoes” as short or head keywords: 

• Running shoes for women
• Running shoes for plantar fasciitis
• Best running shoe store in New York

Another important thing about long tail keywords is that there could be one-word keywords with less than 100 monthly searches. On the other hand, long search terms with five or more words can have hundreds of thousands of monthly searches. 

So, you have to understand that no matter how many words or phrases a keyword has, it doesn’t make a long tail. This depends on the search volume of that particular keyword. 

Examples of Long Tail Keywords

Still, struggling to understand what exactly long-tail keywords are?    

Let’s understand this with a few examples. 

“SEO” 

The keyword “SEO” is famous, and according to Ahrefs, it has around 110k searches per month. This keyword is also highly competitive with an average CPC of 11.00 USD.

So, it’s impossible to rank your content with this keyword as it already has many top search results on many search engines. 

To narrow down competition, you can add a tail or tails and make it longer. Just adding the word “tips” to your keyword, which now becomes “SEO tips,” has less competition as compared to the head keyword “SEO.” 

However, it is still a bit challenging to target. So, what to do now? 

Add another tail, and now your keyword becomes “SEO tips for beginners.”

Below you can see the visual representation of all three keywords, including head keywords and long tail keywords:  

Why Should You Integrate Long Tail Keywords in Your Content?

Now you might be thinking, is it really important to include long tail keywords? If yes, so what will be its effects on your website? 

Think about it this way, what do we most want from content marketing? 

The first thing that comes to your mind immediately is the organic traffic and then the conversations!  

Long tail search terms can actually help you with these two and many other things, and finally, it makes a massive difference to your business.  

So, what makes long-tail keywords great? And what are the key benefits of using long-tail search terms? 

Here are some of the reasons why you should start including long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy: 

1. Long-tail keywords are easier to rank.

Head terms are way more competitive than long-tail keywords. These popular keywords also have high search volumes, which can drive more traffic to your website. 

But in reality, there are very low chances that your blog will rank for any of these popular keywords anytime soon! 

So, targeting the long tail keywords is better than these tempting head keywords. 

Here’s an example, the keyword “sushi” has 5.92 billion results:

However, the long-tail keyword “vegan sushi recipes” has only 41 million search results:

From 5.92 billion results to 41 million search results, this is around 98.88% fewer sites. So, you can see how long-tail keywords have lowered the competition and increased the chances of your blog ranking on the first page of Google.  

If you look into the Keyword Difficulty widget in SEMRUSH for “sushi” and “vegan sushi recipes,” there is also a major difference.   

“Sushi” has a KD of 89%: 

However, the KD of “vegan sushi recipes” is only 48%:

2. Long-tail Keywords are more specific.

Compared to head keywords, long-tail search terms are much easier to address. As these keywords are more specific, which allows you to target traffic. This means that if a searcher is using a long-term keyword in Google, he is more likely close to making a purchase. 

Here is an explanation to understand it better. 

The keyword “SEO software” is somewhat close to the searcher’s decision to buy it; even if they want to shop for the best software, it is still close! 

On the other hand, a keyword like “SEO” has more broad results:

3. There are LOTS of Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords indeed have low search volumes but not each one can bring loads of traffic to your website. However, when you start addressing and integrating more and more long-tail keywords, the search traffic will eventually become something substantial.

So, you don’t have to worry about the shortage of long-tail search terms, as there are many in every industry. 

Look at this example where the keyword “best website builder for __” has thousands of them in Ahrefs. 

How to Find Long Tail Keywords?

After reading up here, you know what long-tail keywords are, why they are known as long-tail keywords, and why they are an important part of the SEO strategy. 

So, now we’re on the same page! 

It’s finally time to work on some of the best ways to find long tail keywords to target on your website. There are some ways that are free to research long tail keywords, and for some, you have to pay. Each one has its own advantages, so you can follow whatever works best for your business.  

Here are some of the proven effective strategies to find long-tail keywords for your website: 

1. Google’s Autocomplete Feature

This free feature of Google can be used to get targeted long-tail keywords. Start typing in Google’s search box; you’ll see many drop-down lists of related terms that most people search for. 

You can also add more words after your search terms to get more suggestions. These related terms can be great long-tail keywords.

For example, if you’re searching for long tail search terms for content marketing, type “best content marketing p” in Google’s search box, and you’ll get something like this: 

2. Use Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer

This is another great tool for finding long-tail keywords for your website. The best thing about this tool is that you don’t have to do any manual work. All you need to do is to search for any word related to your niche in Keywords Explorer. You can also use the search volume filter and get thousands of long-tail keywords.

If your site is new and doesn’t have “authority,” you can also use the KD filter, which helps you to find the less competitive long-tail keywords. 

You can also try the “Questions” button to get more options, which will show the long search queries phrased as questions. 

3. Check out your competitor’s keywords 

Another great way to find the long-tail keywords is to see which pacific keywords your competitors are ranking for. You can use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to check the keywords that your competitor’s blogs are ranking for.  

The procedure is simple, first, take any of your competitor’s websites and plug it into Site Explorer. After this, go to the Organic keywords report, where you can see a list of all the long tail search terms that are driving traffic to their website. 

You can repeat these steps with a few of your competitor’s websites to get enough long-tail keyword ideas. 

4. Browse Social Media and Niche Forums

Whenever searchers and visitors visit search engines like Google to get accurate and good answers and fail, they like to ask places like Quora, Niche Forums, and Reddit. 

Today, there are numerous places to get information online, including online forums, boards, and social media. These platforms can help you to find solutions to your problems with your content. 

For example, if you want to get information about “content marketing,” you can get so many related topics on quora: 

5. SEMRUSH Topic Research Tool 

Another effective tool to find long tail keywords is Topic Research Tool by SEMRUSH. You can type the keyword, and this tool will generate topics that are closely related to your keyword. 

You can use these related keyword as long-tail keywords that you can use in your blog content. Just click on a card, and recent headlines and questions related to your topic will appear on the screen. 

How to Use Long Tail Keywords in Your Blog Posts

Finding long-tail keywords and stuffing them into your content isn’t enough! 

You have to strategically integrate them into your high-quality, relevant content to increase the chances of ranking your content on Google’s first page. 

Long-tail keywords are essential no matter what your company and business are about. So whether your site is extremely authoritative or not, you still can’t ignore the long-tail keywords. 

So, let’s move on to the final step.

Here are some of the effective ways and on-page SEO tips to use long-tail search terms in your content:   

1. Place Keywords Naturally

Sometimes, long tail keywords like “best SEO tool for SaaS startups” are clunky. Therefore using them in content isn’t that easy.   

So, you have to get creative and have to adjust the keyword naturally into a sentence. Ensure that the keyword does not look stuffed or forceful on your webpage content. After all, readability and usability always come first! 

2. Include Your Keywords Strategically

Another thing you have to keep in mind while using the long tail keywords is to place them strategically. Include them in your webpage’s title, headers, and subheaders. If possible, use the keywords in the first sentence or at least in the first paragraph.  

3. Consider a User’s Search Intent

One more thing that is required for your webpage to get on top of the SERPs is writing content related to the keywords. Yes, it’s important for you to make your web page’s content that matches the long tail keyword’s search intent so that readers and visitors will get exactly what they’re looking for. 

You can use tools and features like Semrush’s Search Intent to find a keyword’s search intent easily. 

Final Thoughts

Long-tail keyword research has always been an essential part of the content marketing strategy. These keywords are also good for new sites or sites which don’t have authority yet.  

If you successfully integrate the long tail search terms into your webpage’s content relevant to visitors’ search intent, it will give users a great experience. When your website starts getting organic traffic, it will ultimately bring significant results for your website.

So, use the methods and strategies to incorporate long-tail keywords in your webpage to drive more search traffic to your website. 

Hopefully, this blog on long tail keywords will help you to understand this crucial SEO strategy, which will help you to drive more organic traffic to your website and increase its rankings on the SERPs.