What is long-tail SEO?

Building an SEO strategy means looking at the techniques that actually move the needle. Long-tail SEO is one of them. The long tail is a core idea in search. What is this ranking technique that lets you sell a wide range of products in smaller quantities? How can it improve a page’s ranking? This article is here to give you the keys to long-tail SEO.

Long-tail SEO: a full definition

Coined in 2004 by Chris Anderson, then editor-in-chief of Wired, “long tail” means ranking your site on low-competition keywords. Unlike top keywords, low-competition terms attract fewer visitors. Used at scale, the approach still lets a company grow traffic and, with it, revenue. The point of the long-tail technique is to convert better and see a noticeable benefit sooner.

Long-tail SEO also saves time in a search strategy. You focus on lower-competition keywords, which take less time and work to reach the top of Google’s results. For example, it is easier to rank for “twingo 3 essence 5 portes lyon” (39,000 results) than for the generic term “twingo 3” (3,700,000 results). The longer the phrase, the higher the conversion rate on the landing site. In that example, “twingo 3 essence 5 portes lyon” is more likely to convert.

A long-tail keyword is made of several words or groups of words. Long-tail SEO took off because that structure is much easier to rank for.

History of long-tail SEO

In the past, when SEOs wanted to find a keyword, most of them used three selection criteria:

• Search volume: how often a keyword is searched over a given period. The higher the volume, the more traffic it can generate.

• Competition: how hard it is to rank for the keyword.

• Relevance: the more relevant a keyword is to a product, the more people will find your products.

Since the web passed 1 billion websites, ranking techniques have changed a lot. SEO experts use another trick to show up at the top of results without pouring money into paid search. That is how long-tail SEA was born. The main advantage is that the technique fits SMEs and small online stores.

What is a long-tail keyword?

How do you know a keyword is long tail? What sets it apart from the rest?

Long-tail keywords are keywords that contain between 3 and 7 words.

They are characterized by lower search volume and lower competition. Most of the time they generate very little traffic, but that traffic is higher quality and more targeted.

That is why they matter for conversion and for ranking a site on Google. They also help you understand what users need. The generic word “jewelry” does not point to a specific need. The phrase “where to buy minimalist jewelry with tourmaline?” already implies an expectation and targets people looking for specific information. For a company, it can also be a way to show specialization.

Which long-tail keywords should you use?

There is a wide range of long-tail keywords you can use on your site. The more you lean on this technique, the better you can rank on Google. Once you have found your long-tail keywords, spread them across a large number of pages.

Before you do that, a few practical tips:

• Use keywords tied to your area of expertise

• Go to the Google Ads Keyword Planner, click “Find new keywords,” then enter your “head” phrase

• Then run a search for each composition. Among the sample phrases, pick the ones with the highest search volume

• After that, try to find every variation of that phrase.

To define long-tail phrases, you have to look at user intent and need. Start by mapping what your users actually need. That is the starting point of any optimization that works. It will also help you write the key phrase correctly.

Behind every keyword there is an intent, the latent need that sends people to a search box. Web marketing experts have grouped that intent into three categories:

• Navigational need: the searcher is trying to find a particular website.

• Informational need: the searcher wants a specific piece of information.

• Transactional need: the user wants to buy something or do something else online, such as subscribe or download a file.

Where to look for long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords can be researched in several places. Google Ads and Keyword Planner are two of them, but they are not the only ones. Plenty of other tools can surface long-tail phrases.

Ubersuggest is one example, a well-known keyword research tool. It is capable, free, and simple to use, and it can generate thousands of keyword variations in a single click. Enter your general phrase and click “suggest.” The tool does the rest.

KeywordTool is another free tool for long-tail keyword research. Unlike Ubersuggest, it also has a paid version.

Why long-tail keywords help rankings

Today, more than 70% of web queries are made of long-tail keywords. That is less surprising when you see the conversion rate: 2.5 times higher than for generic terms.

By choosing long-tail keywords, you give your site a better chance of ranking on one or more keyword groups. If you want to rank for “air conditioning,” you now have to beat the competition and outrank about 502 billion web pages, including giants such as Home Depot, Lennox, Lowe’s, Best Buy, Carrier, Walmart, or LG Electronics.

With a long-tail keyword such as “air conditioning Doubs” (if you operate in that area), the number of competitors drops by 9 digits. With well-planned organic SEO, you can appear on the first page of Google results.

If you add up all the traffic generated by keywords of this type, you quickly see that these long tails can generate as much traffic as a highly competitive generic keyword.

In 2004, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, published his famous article “The Long Tail,” in which he predicted that in the near future there would be only a limited number of generic “head” keywords, and billions of long-tail variations.

Long-tail keywords in the service of a better conversion rate

Conversion rate is one of the main advantages of long-tail SEO. Contrary to what some people think, the most profitable keywords are not the most searched. They are the ones that signal intent most clearly. When someone searches for the specific phrase “air conditioning repair Doubs,” the intent is clear and unambiguous.

Gary Beal, one of the early adopters of a long-tail SEO strategy, managed to double his click-through rate and cut his AdWords campaign costs by a million dollars by replacing generic keywords with long-tail phrases.

This type of keyword also fits new stores that struggle to rank on Google’s first page. To get there the hard way, they have to run complex ranking operations, including outranking every competitor using the same head keyword.

Between the start of SEO work and a first-page result, months can easily go by because of how Google’s algorithms work. An effective SEO uses the combination of long tail and quality content.

A few optimization techniques for your long-tail keywords

By choosing keywords with different levels of competition, you can improve your click-through rate and your conversion rate. To get the most from this strategy, pick high-quality keywords in each of the following categories:

• “Head”: popular, highly competitive, and broad. Usually one or two words, such as “search marketing.”

• Mid-tier or “torso”: slightly longer keywords with average traffic volume and average competition.

• “Long tail”: the longest and least popular keywords.

Another way to improve your site’s ranking is to build a smart navigation structure, or information architecture. Optimize the most popular pages with the longest long-tail keywords, and the less-known pages with the other keywords.

Those strategies rest on the fact that popular articles often have more links than the others. When people visit them, they also find the rest of the site’s products and services.