how to do long tail keyword research

• Keyword Research Strategies

Long Tail Keywords

Written by Brian Dean

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are search terms with relatively low search volume and competition levels. Also, long tail terms tend to be longer in length (3+ words) than most other keyword types.

Even though few people search for individual long tail queries, when you add them together, long tails actually make up a large chunk of all Google searches.

(And that’s especially true now that more and more people are using voice search )

In fact, one report states that 92% of all keywords get 10 or fewer searches per month.

In other words, 92% of all keywords that people type into search engines are long tails.

Why are Long Tail Keywords Important For SEO?

There are two main reasons that you might want to focus on long tail keywords:

Reason #1: Long tail keywords aren’t that competitive

When it comes to SEO, long tails are MUCH less competitive than shorter “head terms”.

(Which makes them easier to rank for)

For example, a short tail keyword like “ link building ” has over 6 billion results in Google:

So if you want to rank #1 in Google for that query, you need to outrank 6 billion other sites.

On the other hand, look at a long tail version of that keyword, like “best SEO link building software”.

That long tail keyword has a lot less competition than the head term “link building”.

This same idea also applies to Google Adwords (PPC). Long tail can be cheaper to bid on than super popular head terms.

Reason #2: Long tail keywords have high conversion rates

Long tail searches aren’t just longer.

They’re also more specific.

In other words:

People that search for long tail terms tend to be much further along in the buying cycle compared to folks searching for head terms.

For example, take a keyword like: “keto diet”.

Someone searching for keto diet is probably trying to learn what is it. Or how it works. Which means they’re not ready to buy anything.

But someone searching for a longer version of that term (like “keto diet supplement”) is MUCH closer to making a purchase.

Bottom Line? The traffic that you get from long tail terms tend to convert really well

How to Find Long Tail Keywords

Here are 9 ways to find long tail keywords .

1. Google “Searches Related to…”

Ever notice that when you scroll to the bottom of Google’s search results there’s a section called, “Searches related to…”?.

Well this little area is a gold mine for long tail keyword research .

Here’s exactly how to use it:

First, type in a keyword that you want to rank for.

Second, scroll to the bottom of the page. And take a look at the “Searches related to…” for that keyword:

And you’ll get handful of GREAT long tail terms that you can target.

Pro Tip: Take one of the keywords from the “Searches related to…” area and pop that term into Google. Then, check out the “Searches related to…” results for THAT keyword. Rinse and repeat until you have a massive list of awesome keywords.

2. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a helpful keyword research tool that generates question-focused keywords.

To use it, type a broad keyword into the field and click “Get Questions”:

The tool will then show you questions that people tend to ask about your topic:

And because question keywords tend to be long, they’re pretty much automatically long tail terms.

You can even sort the data alphabetically:

And download the data as a CSV:

3. Forums and Boards

Forums are one of my all-time favorite places to find new keyword ideas.

Think about it:

Where else can you find hundreds of people asking and answering questions about your site’s topic?

After all, if someone asks a question on a forum you KNOW that there are other people out there searching for that same question in Google.

To use forums for keyword research, head over to a forum where your target audience hangs out. You may know a few of these already.

If not, just use these handy search strings to find them:

• “keyword” + “forum”
• “keyword” + “board”
• “keyword” + “powered by vbulletin”

You can also search for your keyword + discussions:

Then, once you find an active forum, look at the titles of of the latest threads.

Don’t forget to check out the words and phrases that people use in the thread itself.

Easy, right?

4. Google Autocomplete

You’ve probably seen Google Autocomplete in action before.

And it’s probably my favorite way to find long tails.

Because the suggestions that you get come straight from Google.

To use Google Autocomplete for keyword research, you can JUST enter a keyword:

You can type in a keyword plus a letter:

The only problem with this approach is that typing in “keyword a”, “keyword b” etc. is a GIANT pain.

Fortunately, long tail keyword generators like Ubersuggest and keywordtool.io both scrape Google Autocomplete data for you.

They both work pretty much the same way.

Just enter a seed keyword and click “search”:

And the tool will spit out hundreds of suggestions:

Soovle is a free tool that collects keyword suggestions from Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask.com, and YouTube.

Which means you can uncover untapped terms that are SUPER hard to find with any other keyword tool.

(Not to mention that the fact that you get keyword ideas from sites that your competition probably overlooks)

With that, here’s how to use it:

First, head over to Soovle and enter a broad keyword into the search field.

For example, if you were looking for coffee-related keywords, you could use the keyword “coffee”:

Soovle will automatically display suggested results from different websites:

You can also download the results in a CSV file by clicking the download icon in the top left corner of the page:

6. People Also Ask Boxes

This is another easy way to find question keywords.

First, search for a keyword in Google search.

And keep an eye out for a “People also ask…” box in the SERPs.

These are questions that people ask around the topic of the keyword you typed in.

And if you expand one of the questions, you see an answer… plus Google will show you even MORE questions.

7. Google Search Console Performance Report

Sometimes the best keyword is one that you already rank for.

What do I mean?

If you’re like most people, you have a handful of pages sitting on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th page of Google.

And sometimes you’ll find that you rank in Google for long tail keywords that you’re not even optimizing for.

And when you give these pages some extra SEO attention, they’ll usually hit the first page within days or weeks.

You can easily find these 2nd and 3rd page keywords in the Google Search Console (GSC).

First, login to your GSC account and go to the Performance Report.

Scroll down until you see “Queries”.

These are keywords that you rank for on Google’s first page.

To find 2nd and 3rd page keywords, sort the list by “Position”:

And set the number of rows to show to “500”.

Keep scrolling down until you start to see positions 10-15.

Then, take a look at the keywords that are ranking in those positions:

Put any promising keywords into the Google Keyword Planner to check their search volume.

If you find a keyword that makes sense for your site (and has decent search volume) click on that keyword.

And click on the “pages” tab:

This will show you the page on your site that currently ranks for that keyword.

8. Google Trends

Google Trends is one of my all-time favorite keyword research tools.

About to kick off an SEO campaign ? You definitely want to know whether or not interest in your keywords is growing (or falling).

Here’s how this works:

First, head over to Google Trends, and enter the keyword you want to rank for into the search field:

The tool will show you “interest over time” based on search volume and news headlines:

In this example, search volume for this term is pretty stable.

But for other keywords, like “Snapchat”, interest picked up suddenly and has now tapered off:

And other terms, like “Google Keyword Tool”, have a steady down trend:

The best case scenarios is when you find a keyword (like “keto diet”) that’s trending up.

Pro Tip: Scroll down to “Related Queries”:

Most of the keywords listed under “Queries” are little-known keywords that you won’t see in most other keyword research tools.

Quora is an extremely popular crowdsourced Q&A site.

It’s similar to Yahoo! Answers. But with Quora, people’s responses are actually helpful 🙂

To use Quora, you need to create an account.

Once you’ve logged in, enter a broad keyword into the search bar at the top of any page:

Like with forums, Quora will show you the most popular questions on that topic:

Some of the questions will be high-volume keywords that you can copy and paste into your list of potential keywords.

And others can help you brainstorm new keyword ideas in your niche.

For example, in our baking example above, this question is probably too long to be a popular keyword:

But when I entered the shortened version of the question, “bake without eggs”, into the Google Keyword Planner, I found a list of keywords that could easily be used as the topic of a high quality article. They also have relatively high search volume:

This is where Quora shines: giving you laterally related keyword and topic ideas that you may not have thought of on your own.

Bonus: Use ChatGPT

Well, you actually never thought we could leave this amazing trend! Using ChatGPT for SEO continues to gain traction. Click on our guide to learn the best practices to leverage this innovation for your SEO.

How to Use Long Tail Keywords

When it comes to using long tail keywords in your content, you have two options:

Option #1: Create a Piece of Content Optimized Around That Term

Your first option to create a new blog post that’s optimized around the long tail keyword that you just found.

For example, a few months ago I found the long tail keyword: “how to get more YouTube subscribers”.

And I created a post that was optimized around that long tail term.

Because that keyword wasn’t that competitive, it quickly cracked Google’s first page.

(And it currently ranks in the top 5 for my target keyword)

The downside of this approach is that you need to pump out A LOT of content.

For example, the keyword “how to get more YouTube subscribers” only gets around 3k monthly searches.

Even if my post got 100% of the clicks from people searching for that term (which is impossible), that post would only increase my traffic by 3k visitors per month… MAX.

And in reality, I probably only get 500-700 clicks per month from that keyword.

So to make this approach worthwhile, I’d need to bang out dozens (or even hundreds) of articles optimized around long tail terms.

Option #2: Sprinkle Long Tail Keywords Into Your Content

Your other option is to optimize your page around a short tail or “Medium tail” keyword. Then, incorporate long tail keywords into your content.

For example, I recently published this list of my favorite free SEO tools .

Obviously, I used on-page SEO to optimize my page around my main keyword: “free SEO tools”.

But I also sprinkled in long tail keyword phrases into my content.

And because I used a bunch of long tails in my post, it currently ranks in Google for 1,100 different keywords:

Advanced Keyword Research Tutorial (5-Step Blueprint) : Learn how to find long tail keywords, short tail keywords and everything in-between in this video tutorial.

How to Choose Keywords for SEO : So you’ve found a bunch of long tail keywords. Now what? This guide will help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

On Page SEO – 9 Actionable Techniques That Work : This video will show you how (and where) to use long tail keywords in your content.

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Long-Tail Keyword Strategy: Why & How to Target Intent for SEO

Learn the benefits of highly targeted search terms packed with intent. Here's how to find long-tail keywords and use them to your advantage.

Standalone broad keyword strategies belong to the past. In 2021, the combination of Google’s focus on user experience and intent, alongside the rise of conversational search and applications such as voice search, means that long-tail SEO strategies are more crucial than ever.

Years ago, hunting for long-tail keywords with low search volume might have seemed like a waste of time and effort.

However, according to ThinkwithGoogle :

“The long tail could provide an untapped opportunity to connect with potential customers. Invest in these areas and see volumes grow.”

If you don’t have a long-tail SEO strategy, you’re missing out.

It’s never been easier to research long-tail keyword opportunities , target low-competition keywords with high conversion rates, and use long-tail keywords to boost your content.

This guide will show you how to do just that.

What Are Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords are highly targeted search phrases that specifically serve searcher intent. These keywords typically have low search volume, low competition, and high conversion rates.

We call these keywords long-tail because if you were to plot your keywords by their search volumes, these would be on the “long tail” end of the search demand curve, which means few people are searching for these terms each month.

However, despite the lack of search volume, long-tail keywords are often easier to rank for and result in higher conversions than seed keywords.

This is because long-tail keywords communicate a clear customer need that you can solve — they’re intent-driven.

When you understand search intent, you can create content that specifically addresses queries and converts.

For example, a user searching for [Nike Air Max 270] indicates a clear intent to purchase. Comparatively, a search for [shoes or trainers] is a lot less clear.

The user might be looking for more information about what’s on offer, searching for different brands, or just seeking out of interest.

Note that the actual length of these keywords technically doesn’t matter. Long-tail keywords tend to be at least three words long due to their specificity, but precise low-volume searches that are only one or two words long (such as many brand names) are also considered long-tail keywords.

Why Long-tail Keywords Are Important in SEO

Let’s do a social experiment: log into your Google Search Console account right now and scroll through the search terms. What do you see? I’m willing to bet that most of the terms you rank for are long-tail.

According to Backlinko’s analysis of 306 million keywords, 91.8% of all search queries are long-tail keywords.

Now imagine what you could do if all those highly-targeted queries funneled new leads directly to your high-converting assets.

There are three main benefits to targeting these precise keywords.

1. Less Competition

Long-tail keywords are specific to your business and your niche, and as a result, search volume is low.

The upside of this is that it doesn’t take nearly as much effort to rank well for your targeted long-tail keywords.

Some simple on-page SEO and link building should catapult your landing pages into a place of prominence if your targeted terms are specific enough.

2. Higher Conversions

A little long-tail keyword sleuthing will help you discover search intent.

With search intent, you’ll be able to identify queries that indicate buyer’s intent (e.g., [buy Canada 150 collector’s coins]) and a need for additional information (e.g. [how to target long-tail keywords]).

You can use this knowledge to usher highly qualified leads into your sales funnel and complement your content marketing efforts.

3. It Helps You Optimize for Semantic, Conversational & Voice Search

Long-tail keywords are an integral part of optimizing for semantic search .

We live in an age where 55% of millennials use voice search daily.

When these users query these platforms, they use long-tail keyword phrases such as questions ([what are the best sushi restaurants nearby?]) and commands with clear intent ([compare the price of the dresses from Blush and Sherri Hill]).

Try to predict the intent behind naturally spoken and voice search questions so that you can provide answers about your business and services and better target these long-tail keyword phrases.

Remember, if you target high-converting long-tail keywords even when search density is low, these keywords can still be incredibly valuable for your business.

How to Find Long-Tail Keywords

Ranking for the right long-tail keywords might be better than striking gold.

Discovering new long-tail keywords is easy, and you can create a substantial list in minutes.

First, grab the long-tail keywords that you know you rank from your Search Console.

Now download the same information for your PPC campaigns, Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube videos, Instagram, and any other metrics you can think of that might reveal new terms.

Next, try to discover new long-tail keywords in your niche that you could rank for. Here’s how to create a list of potential long-tails manually:

Prepare a list of seed keywords. Use a keyword planning tool to generate a list of seed keywords but try to stay away from Google AdWords. While this free tool is excellent for developing a list of commercial terms to target, it intentionally steers away from long-tail terms with lower search volume, making it not very useful for our purposes.

Look at Google’s autocomplete suggestions. Type each seed keyword into Google and write down its autocomplete suggestions.

Rinse and repeat for Bing Search Suggestions and any other search engines you want to optimize for.

Add these potential long-tails to your target list. Group all your terms and get ready to start pruning your list.

Advancements in SEO technology make this entire research step easy!

• The best programs will even sort through multiple search engines for you, and they may discover long-tails you overlooked. Many other programs intuitively discover and sort through long-tail keywords on your behalf.
• Now that you have a comprehensive list of all of your potential keywords, it’s time to begin pruning your list. Weed out any terms that don’t clearly communicate user intent. For example, in the “long-tail keywords related search results” listed above, the query “short tail keywords” isn’t specific enough.

When you’ve trimmed your list down to the strongest candidates (anywhere from half a dozen to a few hundred long-tails), you’ll be ready to start optimizing your pages and adding them to your content.

How to Build Content Around Long-Tail Keywords

Now that you have a list of long-tail keywords you can optimize for, what do you do with that information? The answer depends on how many long-tails you’re targeting and how closely their topics intersect.

• Conventional wisdom dictates that you need to create a dedicated page per long-tail if you can, great! But this isn’t always feasible.
• When you have hundreds of long-tails to target, you need content other than dedicated landing pages that you can optimize for your long-tails.
• Break down your list of potential long-tail keywords into an easy-to-understand list organized by searcher intent.

For example, if you wanted to target keywords about [noise canceling headphones], your list might look like this:

Organizing your keywords by topic allows you to find natural places for them to live.

If this content already exists on your site, you might be able to insert these long-tails into your copy naturally. If not, you now have ideas for what your following pieces of content should focus on.

Whenever you publish new content, don’t forget about internal links . These are some of the best places for you to include some of the long-tail terms you so thoroughly researched.

Final Thoughts

Now you know how to discover long-tail keywords and use them to your advantage. But remember: Your long-tail targeting is only as strong as your content.

In 2021, if you aren’t recognized as an authority in your niche, it’s time to start creating high-value assets, blogging about your industry, and rewriting your web copy to communicate your unique value proposition (UVP) to your customers.

While you’re creating your content and optimizing your pages to include your new long-tail keywords, don’t forget to measure your rankings and traffic.

As you do so, you may discover even more keyword phrases you can target, and that will help you continue to build your reputation and improve your on-page SEO.

More Resources:

• Why Keywords Are Still So Very Important for SEO
• 6 Unique & Free Keyword Research Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed
• How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: The Ultimate Guide

Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, June 2021

Aleh Barysevich is Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at companies behind SEO PowerSuite, professional software for full-cycle SEO campaigns, and ...

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Long-Tail Keywords: A Must-Have For Your SEO Strategy

Long-tail keywords should be a part of any SEO strategy .

From bringing relevant organic visitors to your site to getting your content to #1 spot on Google search results, long-tail keywords will help you level up.

In this post, we’ll get into what they are, how you can find them, and what you need to implement them to build a winning SEO strategy.

What are long-tail keywords?

Long-tail keywords are search queries that have lower monthly search volumes and tend to be longer and more specific than high-search volume keywords. Although each individual long-tail keyword may have a low search volume, collectively, they make up a significant portion of all online searches, making them highly valuable for your SEO efforts.

Now, you might be wondering why they’re called long-tail keywords. It’s a common misconception that the name is due to the length of the keywords, but, in fact, it’s because they are less popular terms that fall on the tail end of the search demand curve.

Why are long-tail keywords important?

Here are six benefits to using long-tail keywords in your SEO efforts:

1. Ramp up your conversion funnel

The more specific a keyword is, the more likely the searcher is further along the buyer’s journey. Someone searching for a highly specific term like ‘ best laptops for students on a budget ’ is likely closer to making a purchase than someone searching for a generic term like ‘laptops .’

While broader, higher-volume keywords may drive more overall traffic, the quality and intent of long-tail keyword searches often result in more effective lead generation and sales.

2. Lower competition

Unlike popular, high-volume keywords like ‘ shoes ’ (which currently gets 764,391 monthly searches), low-search volume long-tail keywords face less competition for the top search engine results. With fewer websites vying for these longer, more specific phrases, it becomes easier to achieve higher rankings, thereby increasing your website’s visibility in relevant searches.

3. More in-depth understanding of user intent

Use long-tail keywords to guide your content creation strategy. By understanding the specific searches your target audience is making, you can create content that directly addresses their needs. Because of the specific nature of this content, it’s more likely to resonate with your audience and establish you as an authority in your field.

4. Increased website traffic

As we mentioned above, individual long-tail keywords may have lower individual search volume collectively but represent a significant portion of all online searches. By strategically incorporating various relevant long-tail keywords, you can reach a wider audience interested in specific aspects of your offerings, leading to an overall increase in website traffic .

5. Support for your pillar content

As SEO has evolved, the focus has shifted from ranking individual keywords to ranking for broader topics. One approach to topical SEO is to create a topical map outlining your pillar content and supporting pieces. Your pillar content targets core terms, which are high-volume, short-tail keywords at the top of the demand curve.

However, ranking for these competitive terms requires supplementing the pillar pages with content that targets middle and long-tail variations. The more comprehensive your topical coverage with long-tail content, the higher your topical authority will be on the subject, increasing your chances of ranking higher.

6. Increase your topical authority

Google categorizes websites based on the topics they cover. This allows Google to rank sites with the highest authority for each topic higher in search results. To establish your site as the leading authority in your niche, you should aim to comprehensively answer more user intents than your competitors. By identifying and targeting as many long-tail keywords as possible, you can build your site’s authority and potentially achieve substantial improvements in rankings and organic traffic.

The 2 main types of long-tail keywords

Not all long-tail keywords are created equal. There are two main types: supporting keywords and topical keywords .

1. Supporting keywords

Supporting long-tail keywords fit into a bigger topic. For instance, if you were writing content about dog training, supporting long-tail keywords could be:

• dog aggression training
• training pads for dogs
• dog training harnesses

Since these keywords fit into a broader topic, you can use them to support your rankings for the topic in general. Add them to your blog posts if they fit naturally, or create new pages and add internal links to your head term content.

By doing this you are likely to rank both for the long-tail keywords as well as boosting your rankings for your short-tail head terms.

2. Topical keywords

Topical long-tail keywords are low-volume keywords that don’t fit into a broader topic. If you find topical keywords, we suggest targeting them, especially if your site is new. Due to their low traffic potential, they aren’t that competitive, but you can rank for them on the SERPs with relative ease. If you rank for enough of them, you can generate a significant amount of targeted traffic without many links.

How to find long-tail keywords

1. use your keyword research tool.

Using a keyword research tool is the quickest and most accurate way to find long-tail keywords because, with a few filters, you can find keywords at scale.

One example of a keyword research tool is the Similarweb Keyword Generator .

Let’s say you were trying to rank a short-tail dog training blog post by adding some long-tail supporting content. Instead of trying to imagine how your audience would search for long-tail phrases, just drop your head term (dog training) into the keyword generator. This will give you a massive volume of both short-tail and long-tail keywords to consider for your post.

Using the Similarweb Keyword Generator, we see the core keyword produces 70,828 related keywords, with a mix of both short-tail and long-tail.

As mentioned earlier, long-tail keywords have a lower search volume because they represent highly targeted keyword phrases – because of this, you can quickly find some easy-to-rank-for keywords using the Keyword Volume filter.

Below we set the filter only to show keywords that get between 0 and 500 searches a month, but this can vary depending on your industry.

Another filter (and general metric) to consider is Keyword Difficulty (KD) – this will tell you how competitive a keyword is by analyzing the backlink profiles of the top-ranking results.

Now you have a vast number of keywords to create supporting content or add to your short-tail blog post.

You can also use your keyword research tool to find:

• Question queries: which you can use for informational searches and FAQ pages
• Related keywords: have a similar search intent to the seed keyword and can be used to create supporting content for your short-tail content

2. Make the most of Google’s autocomplete

Google’s autocomplete is a great way to find keyword modifiers – how about we stick with our ‘dog training’ example and show you?

There are four ways to find keyword modifiers, including:

• Long-tail keywords: Type your head term into your browser and add any letter of the alphabet (eg. dog training b… )
• Longer-tail keywords: Type your long-tail keyword into your browser and add any letter of the alphabet (eg. dog training books g… )
• Pre-keyword modifier: Type a letter before your head term (eg. a… dog training )
• Google wildcard: Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to see a variety of random – but related – keywords to target

3. Find your keyword gaps

Another way to find an almost infinite number of long-tail keywords is through competitor keyword gap analysis .

With a competitive research tool , you can see:

• Which keywords do the top websites in your industry rank for
• Where your site is lacking
• What to target to grow your search market share

Using the Similarweb Keyword Gap tool , let’s take thesprucepets.com and three of its competitors as an example of what you can do with your own SEO competitor analysis .

The color of each circle represents the site, and the size of the circle represents the amount of keywords the site ranks for. The bigger the circle, the more ranking keywords a site has. The overlap of the circles represents where sites rank for the same keywords.

With the Keyword Gap tool , you’ll also find keyword lists that show:

• All keywords : Any of the keywords considered in the visual
• Core keywords: Keywords shared by all competitors
• Wins : Where your site wins the biggest share of traffic for a keyword
• Opportunities : Where your competitors are getting traffic, but you’re not)
• Losses : Where you get less traffic than you competition

The opportunities filter can be particularly interesting, and you can use this keyword data to build a content strategy that allows you to increase your search market share one keyword cluster at a time.

The opportunity keywords suggested for thesprucepets.com, using a lower search volume filter to produce more long-tail keywords.

4. Use Google’s People Also Ask boxes

Google creates People Also Ask boxes by compiling common queries that users ask about a topic. This means, in general, PAA questions are great ways to add topical relevance to your content, and they can be a great source of long-tail keywords.

You can find them on almost any keyword if you type it into your browser.

5. Examine the Google Search Console performance report

Search Console performance report data is powerful. It shows you all of the queries that your content is ranking on, which shows you how Google understands what your content is about. If you see keywords that are irrelevant to your content, you’ve confused Google, and you should rewrite it.

Taking this further, Google might rank your content on relevant keywords that don’t appear in the text itself. This happens more often than you think because Google analyzes the context of your content to determine its meaning . If Google believes your content answers a user query that isn’t explicitly mentioned, you’ll see unexpected queries in the Queries report.

Use this to your advantage.

Carefully review the report, starting from the bottom, with the aim of finding keywords that are tangentially related to your content. Don’t worry if the query is getting relatively few impressions. These tangentially related queries are often long-tail keywords that can be used to increase the relevance of a piece of content. If a particular query doesn’t fit into the content you’re analyzing, consider creating a new piece of content and include an internal link back to the original content.

For instance, in an article about situational awareness exercises, Search Console displays queries like:

• Challenges in achieving situational awareness
• Situational awareness training in the workplace
• Quotes about situational awareness

How to integrate long-tail keywords into your content

As we’ve mentioned before, there are, in essence, two approaches to integrating long-tail keywords into your content:

• Optimize existing content
• Create new content

1. Optimize existing content

As mentioned, adding long-tail keywords to your existing content is likely to improve the relevance of your content – but that’s not the entire story.

Understanding the user intent behind each keyword is vital to your content’s relevance.

This might mean targeting multiple but related user intents in your long-form pieces of content. Be aware that if you do target different intents, you should create a new section in your content and should try to include the query in the header.

For instance, if you were writing a blog post that answers the query ‘ dog obedience training, ’ you can add sections that answer long tail keywords like:

• stop dog from jumping on people
• teach dog not to bark excessively
• leash training for dogs
• housebreaking a new puppy
• how to stop dog from chewing furniture
• puppy socialization and obedience training

Since each of these keywords represents a user question that needs to be answered, you should include the query in a header and answer that query in the body text.

2. Create new content

New long-tail keyword content that you create should ideally be used to support your short-tail or pillar content, meaning – when you plan this content – you need to think about your content hierarchy.

Ask yourself:

• What topical cluster is this page supporting?
• Where does this content fit on your topical map?

This is important as you should already be planning your internal links and site architecture. The best way to do this is to mention these long-tail keywords in your pillar content briefly and then link out to the long-tail, more specified content.

Not only does this give readers the option to click through to find out more about a topic, but it will show search engines that these pages are related. You should also include a link from your long-tail pages back to your pillar page.

The best keyword data for the best SEO strategy

The key to finding the right long-tail keywords is to have the right keyword data. A high-quality keyword research tool will help you find a large volume of keywords that:

• Covers every aspect of your topic
• Brings your site traffic

Similarweb’s Search 3.0 keyword data combines real-user metrics with powerful SERP data to provide insight into keyword performance (including zero-click searches ), allowing you to target the right keywords for the right audience.

Outrank and outperform your competitors

Get the freshest, most accurate keyword data now.

Long-tail keywords are terms that have a lower search volume and are less competitive. For example, a short-tail keyword is ‘travel deals’, and the long-tail keyword would be ‘summer travel deals in LA’.

Why use long-tail keywords for SEO?

Even though long-tail keywords have low search volumes, they allow you to focus on the keywords that bring in high-quality traffic.

How do I choose long-tail keywords?

You can choose long-tail keywords with SEO tools. Similarweb’s keyword generator tool will collate a list of long-tail keyword suggestions specific to your strategy.

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Digital Marketing Strategy: A Beginner’s Guide

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Long Tail Keywords: How To Find Them + Examples

Learn what long-tail keywords are, how to find them, and how to use them to increase your search traffic.

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What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords examples, benefits of targeting long-tail keywords, how to find long tail keywords, how to use long tail keywords, getting started with your long tail seo strategy.

Long tail keywords are search queries that are longer and more specific than commonly used keywords. They usually contain three or more words that produce more specific results. Long tail keywords have a higher conversion rate but relatively low search volumes and less competition.

They are called “long-tail” because if you plot all the keyword searches on a search demand curve, these would appear at the “long tail” end of the graph, representing less common, more niche search terms.

For example, look at the search demand curve below. Long-tail keywords have low monthly search volume, but when combined, they represent billions of searches per month.

Here are some examples of long-tail keywords to help you understand the concept better. The first column shows very competitive head keywords, and the second column shows long-tail, less competitive keywords but with a very specific intent.

Notice that the long-tail variations include the head keyword and are longer in length.

Here is another example. Let’s take the keyword “SEO”.

This is a very popular keyword, and according to Semrush, it has more than 165,000 exact keyword searches per month. It is also a highly competitive keyword with an average CPC of 14.82 USD.

If you search for this term on Google.com, you will find websites like Wikipedia.org, moz.com, and Google websites in the first positions, making it almost impossible to outrank them with a normal website or blog.

So, if it is impossible to rank for “ SEO ” what is the next step?

You go one step further by adding tails or tails to the existing keyword to narrow your competition.

If you add the word ‘tips’ your keyword now becomes “SEO tips”, which is less competitive than the head keyword (SEO), but it is still very difficult to target.

The top results are dominated by large and well-known websites.

So, what do you do?

Add another word, and it becomes “ SEO tips for beginners ”.

Certainly, the number of people searching for this keyword per month is less compared to “SEO” and “SEO tips,” but the benefits gained from ranking long tail keywords are much more than the traffic difference.

Long-tail keywords are important because they allow you to target niche demographics. These keywords have less competition and a higher conversion rate than head keywords.

Other benefits of using long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy include the following:

Long-tail keywords match the user’s intent – To understand the benefits of long-tail keywords, you need to understand the concept of intent . Put yourself in the searcher’s shoes momentarily while you think about the customer journey.

A section of it might look something like this:

• The prospect becomes aware of their need and searches head keywords to find out more.
• The prospect becomes aware of a potential solution and searches a long-tail keyword with the intent to buy it.

This is a simplified explanation but nicely sums up the idea of intent.

For example, someone looking for ‘SEO’ is probably looking for a broad definition, while someone looking for ‘SEO Services’ intends to buy services from a provider.

For this reason, it’s worth targeting long-tail keywords because the traffic that they bring in is targeted and will be far more likely to convert. The searchers are no longer in the ‘discovery’ mindset. They’re ready to move into buying mode, and even though the volume won’t be as high, it’s well worth it.

Long tail keywords are easier to rank than non-long tail keywords – Provided you have a high-quality website, long tail keywords are easier to rank, especially if you choose low-competition keywords.

There are more long tail keywords than head keywords – There are nowhere near as many head keywords as long tail.

Long tail keywords have higher conversion rates – If you think about it for a second, those users that use long tail keywords to search for something can be considered more targeted because they already made an effort to make their search terms more specific.

If we are talking about ‘buying’ or ‘action’ keywords, those are more likely to convert or perform an action.

Long tail keywords help you build website authority and trust – A first-page ranking of any keyword indicates website authority and trust. One of the ways to get your website ready to target more important keywords is to get as many first placements as you can for long-tail keywords.

Of course, this is not the only factor that will help you build authority, but several first-place placements and a solid SEO strategy can work in that direction.

You will get more traffic than the suggested search volume – The various keyword research tools estimate the traffic you can get if you secure a top position for a specific keyword.

Regarding long tail keywords, their estimates are not 100% correct. This is because the volume for long tail keywords and their sampling are low, so they underestimate.

Here are the most proven techniques for finding long-tail keywords for your website.

• Utilize Google Search Features
• Try ChatGPT or Other AI Tools
• Use Keyword Research Tools
• Find Your Competitor’s Keywords
• Explore Popular Forums
• Try Google Ads Keyword Planner

1. Utilize Google Search Features

You can use certain Google search features to get ideas for long-tail keywords. Although the process is manual, it is still an effective way to understand your niche.

The first feature is the Google Autocomplete . Go to Google and enter your head keyword into the search box. While typing, you’ll get many ideas of related keywords.

Not all suggestions will be long-tail keywords, even though they might be over 4-5 words. The reason is that Google is showing suggestions based on what other people search, and you might end up with very competitive keyword phrases.

The best way to overcome this is to create a list of possible phrases and check their search volume and keyword difficulty using a keyword research tool .

People Also Ask – Another place to look for long-tail keywords is the ‘people also ask’ section. These are usually question-based keywords that are great candidates for targeting with content.

Use the dropdowns to analyze a keyword further and get more suggestions.

Related searches – Another nice Google search feature is the “Related searches”, shown further down the page. Google might show 6-8 searches related to your primary search.

2. Try ChatGPT or Other AI Tools

A faster way to find long-tail keywords is to use ChatGPT or other AI tools (like Google Bard). You can try different prompts to create a list and export them into CSV. You can then import them into a keyword research tool and see which AI suggestions are a good fit.

For example, we’ve asked ChatGPT to create a list of 10 long-tail keywords for “best dog food” and gave us the following suggestions.

We then analyzed them in Semrush. As you can see below, some have low keyword difficulty and a decent monthly search volume, making them ideal long-tail keywords for our campaign.

3. Use Keyword Research Tools

One of the easiest ways to identify long-tail keywords is to use a tool like Semrush or Ahrefs.

In the example below, we’ve used Semrush Keyword Magic Tool to search for “best dog food”. We’ve then selected “Broad Match” and used the “Advanced filters” to show search queries of 4 words or more.

We’ve also used the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to show keywords that have less than 40% KD and are thus easier to rank for.

As you can see below, all queries meet all the criteria for long-tail keywords.

4. Find Your Competitor’s Keywords

There is no niche without competition, so finding your competitor’s keywords is a good approach to understanding their tactics and strategies.

You can reverse engineer their rankings and find for which long-tail keywords they rank on Google.

The process is straightforward. You enter a competitor’s domain in a keyword tool and analyze the keyword rankings. You can use the advanced filters to see which long-form queries they rank for and how much traffic they get.

Once you identify these keywords, compare them to your content. Look for gaps where you could create content that’s more detailed, user-focused, or up-to-date. This approach can help you outrank your competitors on specific long-tail queries by offering better or more relevant information.

Remember, it’s not just about matching their keywords but about understanding the intent behind the search and addressing it more effectively in your content.

Here is an example of how to identify long-tail keywords by analyzing the domain of a competitor:

5. Explore Popular Forums

Another way to find question-based queries is by looking at popular forums like Reddit, Quora, or niche-specific forums. When you execute a search on Google, it displays popular questions in the  “Discussions and forums” sections.

A nice trick to find popular questions on individual forums is to perform a search using the “forum name target keyword.” Look at the example below. It shows the most popular Reddit questions related to dog food.

6. Try Google Ads Keyword Planner

Google Ads Keyword Planner

Once you’ve identified a list of long-tail keywords to use in your SEO campaigns, the next step is to incorporate them into your content strategically.

Target Long-Tail Keywords With New Content – Create content targeting each long-tail keyword. Ensure the content aligns with the search intent and addresses your audience’s queries.

For instance, if you have a long-tail keyword like “best organic dog food for allergies,” create content that uses this keyword and provides in-depth insights about organic dog food options, allergy considerations, and nutritional advice.

Group Related Content Into Topic Clusters – After creating content for each long-tail keyword, you can organize these pieces into topic clusters. Clustering helps establish authority on the subject, allows you to rank for head keywords, and enhances the user experience by providing comprehensive information in an organized way.

For example, let’s say you’ve identified several long-tail keywords related to SEO. You can create individual pages targeting each long-tail keyword like “Top Benefits of SEO,” “How Does SEO Work,” and “SEO Tips For Beginners.”

Then, you can create a pillar page titled “SEO Guide” to provide an overview of SEO and link to the cluster pages. Here is a visual representation of how to structure your topic cluster.

Use Keywords In Your Content –  Another essential strategy is to use these keywords in key areas of your content:

• Put the keyword at the start of the headline (and title tag!)
• Use the keyword in the URL.
• Make sure your title is in an H1 tag
• Use the keyword throughout your H2 subheadings
• Use the keyword in the first 100 words
• Use a few variations of the keyword throughout the body of the article.

What’s the next step you can act on right now?

Pick a head keyword, find the low-hanging long-tail fruit, and get targeting with content or ads that recognize the intent behind the search term .

There is no way to get traffic and good rankings for new or not-so-big websites than working with long-tail keywords. The competition for high-volume keywords is vast, and winning one of the top positions isn’t easy.

The best way to start building a solid website is to consistently provide top-quality content for long-tail keywords to gain rankings and traffic and then gradually move on to more general terms and establish your presence.

Alex Chris is a digital marketing consultant, author, and instructor. He has more than 18 years of practical experience with SEO and digital marketing. Alex holds an MSc Degree in eCommerce and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies in different industries. He blogs regularly about SEO and Digital marketing, and his work has been referenced by leading marketing websites. Connect with Alex on Twitter and LinkedIn .

11 Comments

May 14, 2019 at 12:24 pm

I really love your explanation of Long Tail Keywords Alex. It’s well articulated and will help many bloggers get a clear definition of the words and their SEO implications.

May 14, 2019 at 4:00 pm

Thanks a lot for your nice comment.

All the best Alex

May 12, 2020 at 10:15 am

Excellent article about long tail keywords. Thanks for the post.

June 25, 2022 at 6:44 pm

Thanks for your comment.

September 2, 2021 at 7:37 am

Wonderful post about long-tail keywords. It was helpful to me. Great post sir keep uploading content!

Thanks for your comment. Glad I could help you understand what long tail keywords are.

July 5, 2022 at 5:33 pm

It’s SEO gospel that you use keywords in the title and once every 100 words after that. So do you do that with long-tail keywords? I think it would be overdoing it to keep repeating “SEO tips for beginners.”

July 5, 2022 at 6:22 pm

There is no need to repeat keywords once every 100 words, that’s actually the definition of keyword stuffing. Adding your keywords in key places (title, headings) and a couple of times naturally in the content is enough.

I hope this helps Alex

July 5, 2022 at 7:16 pm

Umm… Yes, actually, that is keyword stuffing. So how often should keywords be used, including the title and headings?

July 5, 2022 at 7:43 pm

I suppose I should mention that I’d like to know how often to do it for 500- and 1000-word pieces.

December 27, 2023 at 1:26 pm

Write naturally for your users and you should be okay. There is no need to overthink this.

Thanks Alex

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About Reliablesoft

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How to find long-tail keywords (and why they’re important)

Everybody wants to drive relevant visitors to their website.

One of the best ways to do it is to target long-tail keywords:  specific phrases your audience is already searching for.

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at:

• What are long-tail keywords
• Why are they important for businesses
• 5 ways to do long-tail keyword research
• What makes a “good” long-tail phrase
• How to target long-tail terms on your website

What are long-tail keywords?

Long-tail keywords are search terms that are more specific (and usually longer) than a standard search query.

They tend to have a higher conversion because the search intent is more straightforward (e.g. a user searching for “best running shoes for kids” is more likely to buy than someone searching for “shoes” ).

The key characteristics of long-tail keywords:

• they consist of more words (which means they are more specific )
• they usually have lower search volume , but also lower keyword difficulty
• they tend to have higher engagement and conversion
• they are responsible for most of the organic traffic (about 70%)

People use long-tail keywords to find specific things online – like you, who likely searched “what is a long-tail keyword” , to find this post. Other examples of long-tail keywords include:

• “best charger for MacBook Pro”
• “how to change a tire”
• “women’s Nike running shoes size 12”

How many words does a long-tail keyword have?

Hands up if you’ve heard this phrase: A long-tail keyword means a phrase 4+ words long.

That’s not entirely accurate; a long-tail keyword just means a more specific search term than another. It doesn’t matter how many words it has.

Let’s put that into context. The phrase “men’s blue swimming cap” is more specific than “swim cap” – that’s what makes it a long-tail term. Granted, the fact it is longer in length is a common factor of a long-tail phrase, but not the defining factor.

Long-tail just means it’s more specific than a standard search term.

Tip: Don’t forget to check out our ultimate guide to keyword research where you’ll find everything about keyword research, inlcuidng a ton of useful tips and a quiz!

Why are long-tail terms important?

We’ve already touched on the fact that long-tail keywords are more specific than standard search terms. This usually means they have more attention invested in the search results and are thinking about doing something with their result.

For example: A person searching for the short-tail term “marketing blog” has much less specific search intent than someone searching for “how to set up a blog for free” .

The latter, long-tail version has more drive. They want to do something – be that start a blog, purchase a domain, or build an email list. The short-tail term is likely just someone searching for very top-level marketing advice.

So, why is this important for your business?

The answer is simple. By targeting these long-tail phrases on your site, you’re attracting people who want to take action , whether that’s:

• purchasing a product
• signing up to an email list
• visiting your brick and mortar store

This is likely to boost your content marketing’s ROI  – especially if you’re able to rank well for popular (and relevant) long-tail keywords.

How to do long-tail keyword research

Now we’re on the same page about what the term “long-tail keyword” is (and why it’s important to your business), it’s time to put the work in to find those you can target on your website. Here’s a simple five-step guide to long-tail keyword research:

1. Find your base term(s)

Let’s start with a simple question: What term best describes your website?

Your answer should be related to your product/service offering, such as “sales software” or “CRM” . This is your base term. (Or terms; you might have a handful depending on how many features or services you offer.)

All of your long-tail keywords span from this base term.

For example: From the base term “CRM” , you could target the following long-tail variations:

• “best CRM for small businesses”
• “how to add contacts into a CRM”
• “HubSpot vs [(YOUR COMPANY)”

Unsure what your base term(s) should be?

Shoot a survey out to your existing customers in their purchase confirmation emails. Ask for one word that best describes you or the word they think of when they see your product/brand.

This is usually your base term – and how people who’ve completed a huge goal (purchasing from you) would describe you.

Remember: Your goal is to attract more people similar to those who already are your customers. Take their input on board.

2. Use Google’s Related Queries feature

Let’s be sure we’re not missing anything by going straight to the horses’ mouth: Google. A suggestion box pops up when you begin typing a question into Google.

Add prefix/suffix to your base term, such as:

• What is (BASE TERM)
• How to (BASE TERM)
• Best (BASE TERM)
• (BASE TERM) for
• Why does (BASE TERM)

Then take a look at those suggestions. Make a note of the long-tail phrases your customers might be searching for:

You can also find long-tail keywords in the People also ask box for that base term:

Another source of related queries on Google’s results page is the bottom panel with related searches:

Tip: If you click on any of the questions in the People also ask box, more new questions will appear.

Both of these methods show you what other questions/search terms people usually search before or after the SERP you’re viewing.

Think about whether you can add these to your target list.

3. Plug the base term into a long-tail keyword research tool

How do you go from those basic one-word phrases to a bunch of long-tail variations?

Head to our keyword finder tool – KWFinder and enter your base term. You’ll see a bunch of related keywords alongside important keyword information, like search volume and a list of competitors currently taking the top spots in a Google search result for that phrase.

Scroll through the list and tick any phrases that are:

• Relevant to your base term
• Likely to be searched by your target customer

Here’s what that looks like for the base term “CRM” :

Besides the main suggestions, you can use the “Autocomplete” or “Questions” tab to show more relevant long-tail keywords containing your seed keyword.

Google limits autocomplete to a maximum of 10, so you’ll need to play around with it to get a decent amount of suggestions. However, KWFinder shows them all in one list:

In the example above, you can see how the base term can be used to find new long-tail keyword opportunities by adding a prefix/suffix – we used the seed keyword “best crm for” .

Alternatively, you can find long-tail keywords using free keyword research tools . However, they only serve as keyword suggestion tools, you don’t get any metrics like search volume or keyword difficulty.

My personal favorite is AnswerThePublic . Follow the same process and plug your base term into the tool. You’ll see a list of popular questions that people search for, containing your base term:

4. Dig through your site’s analytics

You don’t have to start targeting long-tail keywords with a new piece of content from scratch.

Find what you’re already ranking for, and the terms people are searching to find your website, using the performance report inside Google Search Console .

Head to Performance > Google Results , then organize your rankings by position.

Click through until you’re viewing keywords you’re ranking on page two (and beyond) for:

Granted, you’re already ranking for those long-tail terms. But import them back into your long-tail keyword research tool and see what keywords would be worth pursuing (more on that in the next chapter ).

Here’s what that looks like for the keywords from the previous screenshot:

5. Look for long-tail terms in customer feedback

Customer feedback is invaluable to businesses.

Ask yourself: What terms or phrases do your customers ask during the sales process, or after they become a customer? We want more people like them to arrive on our website, solve their problems, and give them a spot on our purchase list.

Tip: Put together a quick survey that you can include in automatic email confirmations.

Ask questions like:

• What were you looking for when you decided to search for a product like ours?
• Which terms did you search for to find us?
• Which piece of content did you read before purchasing?

You might find answers like “I searched for ‘best CRM for small businesses’ ”, or the fact they read your comparison guide before becoming a customer. Whatever you find, plug those terms into a keyword research tool. You might find similar, related phrases you can target to attract more potential customers to your website.

What makes a “good” long-tail keyword?

There are billions of long-tail keywords you could pick from, as you’ll see during the keyword research process.

How do you know which you should hone in on; those with the most value?

Generally, a “good” long-tail keyword considers these three things:

• Popularity (search volume)
• Keyword difficulty

1. Search volume

The search volume of a keyword tells you how many people search for the phrase each month. It’s shown in most long-tail keyword research tools (including KWFinder.)

The tricky part?

A “good” search volume depends on the industry you’re in. (For example: 3,900 people search for “b2b marketing strategies” versus 450k for “how to lose weight”.)

Generally, for keywords with a search volume of…

• <50: Avoid or group together (unless you’re trying the Keyword Golden Ratio technique)
• 50-250: Group similar terms together
• 250+: Use as a standalone focus keyword

Let’s put that into practice and say you’ve got these keywords with search volumes:

• “Blogging tips for beginners” (10): Merge with similar phrases like “how to start a blog” and “blogging advice” .
• “Grow your email list” (180): Merge with similar phrases like “email list builder” or “ways to grow your email list”.
• “How to start a blog” (116,000): Create a standalone guide to target this long-tail keyword

2. Keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty is an SEO metric that describes how hard it will be to rank for a specific keyword.

Each phrase has a score out of 100, with the low end indicating it’s easy to rank for it. Keywords on the higher end of the scale indicate you’ll need to put more effort into SEO optimization to rank on page one for.

So, what keyword difficulty score should you aim for?

Just like any SEO answer, the truth is: It depends.

Your approach to this depends on the size and authority of your website.

Smaller sites without much authority should start small with low keyword difficulty. It’s low-hanging fruit – there aren’t many other websites trying to rank for the term, so it should be relatively easy.

Large sites with SEO weight can start tackling the phrases with a medium/high difficulty score. They’ve already built some trust with Google, and they’re able to outrank some of the competition, so it’s more likely they’ll rank well for the term…

3. Relevance

If you don’t offer a product/service that someone searching a long-tail keyword would be interested in, don’t pick it.

Sounds obvious, right? But it can be harder than it sounds.

For example: If you’re a car mechanic, “why isn’t my AC working ” is a more relevant long-tail keyword than “how to become a car mechanic” –  even though the latter is an exact-match term.

The first is something a potential customer would search for. The latter is likely being searched by a student who doesn’t need a service the mechanic offers, so it doesn’t make sense to target it on your website.

You’re able to find this by taking a look at what Google already thinks a keyword means, and the companies behind each spot.

Search your long-tail keyword and analyze the top results for it.

Let’s look at that using the “why isn’t my AC working” long-tail keyword example:

The three organic results are from home service companies that offer this as a service.

Plus, we can see that two of the high-ranking results are question-based; the other is a listicle. Consider following the same format with content. (Those formats are ranking well for a reason.)

Now, let’s take a look at how to work with the search intent…

How to use your long-tail keywords

You’ve whittled down your list of long-tail keywords, and are confident that your ideal visitors are searching for them.

The next step is using them on your website. This tells Google that you’re talking about something related to that long-tail keyword, increasing your chances of ranking well for it.

Tip: Never try to use the keywords artificially in your content only to rank for them. Google is clever enough to find out. Instead of keyword stuffing , write the best content on the topic and write naturally.

Use the focus keyuword wisely in the main elements (like title, heading, paragraphs, alt text ) but don’t forget about the common sense. If you focus on a super long-tail keyword like “the best content management system for small businesses” it would be unnatural to use it 5x in a short blog post.

We talk about the focus keyword optimization in our guide to on-page SEO .

Think about search intent

The biggest mistake when you’re targeting long-tail keywords is to assume a blog post is the answer. All you need to do is pick your term, write a 1,000-word post and publish it to your blog, right?

Not necessarily.

The absolute first step in targeting your long-tail keywords is to decide on the type of content you’ll use, based on the intent behind the phrase.

Search intent describes the motivation of the person searching for the term. It can tell you how to package your content, and is usually broken into four categories – know, go, do, and buy – as explained by Google :

Here are some long-tail keyword examples alongside the search intent, and the content you might create for each:

1. I want to buy

Example: “men’s black vans sneakers discount”

Long-tail keywords that are specific to a product or service, like the example above, show a searcher’s intention to buy.

They usually consist of a (PRODUCT/SERVICE)  +

They’re probably not looking for a blog post that collates the best shows, so in this case, it’d be best to target the phrase on your product page. This is where you want people searching this term to end up, and likely the best way to give them what they’re looking for.

2. I want to go

Example:  “best Chinese food in LA”

Location-based long-tail keywords show an intention to go somewhere. Again, the ideal place for these keywords might not always be a blog post.

For example: If you think you offer the best Chinese food in LA, add this to your homepage or title tag.

But what if you’re a food blogger without a physical restaurant in LA for people to visit? In this case, you could create a round-up of best restaurants to rank for that term.

The searcher wants to go somewhere; they’re looking for information that gets them there. Tie this in with the product or service you offer.

3. I want to know

Example: “what’s the best CRM for small businesses”

The person searching for this keyword wants to find the best solution for their problem. They want to compare different CRM software, so a comparison guide is likely to help them get what they need to know.

Put together a comparison post that compares your CRM to other popular options. What features do you have that they don’t? How does your pricing compare? How many team members are allowed an account?

These are all questions the searcher would likely be interested in when searching for “what’s the best CRM for small businesses.” If you can answer all of them in one comprehensive guide, there’s no reason why you couldn’t impress Google and potential customers.

4. I want to do

Example: “how to train for a hike”

This person – or anyone searching for “how to…” –  wants advice on doing something.

They’re high on the sales funnel and don’t necessarily have an intention to purchase a product even if you’re recommending one in the content.

So, you could package your advice in an easy-to-digest piece of content, such as a:

• detailed step-by-step guide
• video tutorial

Group similar long-tail terms keywords

What happens if you’ve got a list of long-tail keywords that all have the same intent, similar search volumes, and ask the same question?

Creating a single post for each long-tail keyword wouldn’t make any sense.

Let’s put that into practice. The long-tail keywords “how to set up a blog” , “how do I start my own blog ” and “how to create a free blog ” all have a similar intent.

If you were to target them with three separate blog posts, you’d likely use all three terms in each piece. Because you’ve got three pages essentially discussing the same topic, Google wouldn’t know which to rank highly – so all three are pushed down.

However, if all three terms were bundled together in a single blog post, Google knows exactly what they should rank you for.

Their LSI algorithm works by finding relevant terms to the page’s main keyword. If they can find multiple related long-tail keywords in a single post, it increases the chances of ranking for more long-tail phrases.

Improve keyword rankings on already-published pages

Remember how earlier, we mentioned you don’t need to start from scratch when doing keyword research? You can dig through your Google Search Console data to see what you’re already ranking on page two (and beyond) for.

A similar concept applies to content creation; you don’t need to create a brand new blog post for each long-tail keyword you’ve already got on your list … Especially if you’re already ranking for it.

Here’s what that looks like for Mangools’ SEO guide . It covers the basic terms like “what is SEO”   but has a separate section targeting the long-tail keyword “how can I learn SEO ”:

And here’s the SERP for that keyword:

So, instead of creating a brand new blog post, edit the page’s content to reference the new long-tail term. This can be as simple as adding a short section answering the question.

But because Google knows you’re answering that on a page about a relevant topic, there’s a high chance they’ll bump up your rankings for that phrase.

There are hundreds of long-tail keywords your audience is searching for.

Follow the steps we’ve shared in this guide to find them, then start targeting them on your website to tell Google (and your customers) that your information is valuable to anyone searching for them.

You’ll soon start to see steady growth in organic traffic.

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The step-by-step guide to finding good long tail keywords for your business

Lukas Rasmussen

Unlike other SEO activities, keyword research is one of those things that’s worth spending the time upfront. And that’s mainly because for tasks like link building you can actually see the backlinks , track KPIs, and make quick adjustments. Keywords, however, require a longer period to display their full effect, and it might even take a new website some 6 months to properly rank for a keyword. Additionally, although it might not feel like a complicated task to many, it is one of those things that you can easily get wrong without even noticing. But chances are, you won’t rank for most head terms because of the competition. That’s where long tail keywords come in.

Feel confident and want to skip ahead? Use this table of contents to jump to any section of this guide:

• Brainstorming
• Industry-leading websites
• Competitors
• LSI keywords

Ubersuggest

Keywordtool.io, google trends, google suggest.

• Answerthepublic
• Limitations
• Good filters
• Keywords everywhere
• Filtering in Excel
• SERP metrics

Implications of Keyword Research & Using Long Tail Keywords

First off, let’s start by clarifying WHY good keyword research is CRUCIAL to SEO. Here are some of the main implications:

• Mediocre keyword research will only bring you mediocre results
• Poor research will waste you a TON of time (a couple of months best case scenario)
• Strong keyword research will boost all of your other SEO activities
• Proper keyword research brings a unique understanding of your target market and their problems, questions, and ideas
• You will never run out of content ideas if and when you find a good source of keywords
• Proper keyword research helps you present your products and build profitable offers

As you can see, there’s plenty of benefits (or otherwise downsides) of putting in the time for keyword research upfront. Now that we have that covered let’s take your SEO to the next level with these few actionable steps.

1. How to find seed keywords

To have a good search engine optimization process, you need to start by finding seed keywords first. Your task here is to generate a big list of words that are related to your industry. For this guide, we’ll be using an example of a graphic design website. Following these steps, you will see that for many of our tasks, we use free tools. However, for this one, it is critical that you begin by brainstorming. That’s because those tools come with certain limitations that we’ll cover a little later in this section.

Don’t know what seed keywords are? We got you covered. Learn more about what keywords are here .

Brainstorming seed keywords

When brainstorming, it’s important to understand one simple yet core principle – there are no perfect keywords. Everything you come up with that’s somewhat related to your business might help you fill that content gap and gain valuable visitors. If you are having a hard time identifying any, you can insert generic keywords into a keyword research tool to get ideas to work with.

Here’s how:

• Make a new excel document
• In the first column, write down as many one/two-word phrases that are used in your industry
• Save that document as you have to continue adding to it in the next steps

Brainstorming example for our design business:

After that process, it’s time to find some sweet niche terms with the help of a couple of tools and websites. Here are some ideas where you can find words that you could have never thought of:

Amazon – Find head keywords by exploring products related to your niche

Take a look at the description — here you can see that we are able to uncover keywords right away. In this example, I found the seed keyword “ creative thinking ” in the second sentence.

To emulate my success, try:

• Go to amazon.com
• Type in your keyword
• Scan through the products for potential keywords
• Open some of the products
• Read the description
• Add the good keywords you find to the spreadsheet

For additional in-depth research, you can check out the review section and see some of the keywords customers use when they’re communicating.

Clickbank – Search for seed keywords by offers in your niche

Another great source for keywords is Clickbank because of the hot products people might be searching for.

To find the best keywords for you:

• Visit clickbank.com
• Explore the niches (you might find hidden gems in different sections)
• Click on a product and read the description – In this example, I found the keyword “ portfolio ” which I had initially missed out
• Add them to the spreadsheet
• Explore the related products and keep adding keywords

Remember that this is the discovery stage and there are no bad keywords – you will have to confirm them in your research in any case.

Reddit – find a niche subreddit, sort by top & all time

Next up is Reddit. This is an excellent place for finding keywords, and I tend to recommend it every time someone is in need.

To make the most out of Reddit do this:

• Head over to  reddit.com
• Type in your industry in the search bar to the right (“design” in this case)
• Open the Design Subreddit (usually the first one, typically looks like “r/industry”)
• Look through the latest posts – as you can see, I already stumbled upon a great keyword here – “revisions”)
• Now navigate to the top posts and set the date range to “all time” as shown in the image below
• Add them to your list

Immediately, I was able to find what I was looking for — the keywords “ redesign ” & “ poster .”

Lists from industry-leading websites (e.g., list of exercises)

This example might be harder to mimic in your industry, and you’ll probably have to put in some creativity.

This is how you can get started:

• “Your keyword” + list
• List of + “your keyword”
• Types of + “your keyword”
• “Your keyword” + types
• Open one of the websites in the search results
• Read through and mark some good keywords that you find relevant.

For our design example, I searched for “types of graphic design,” and I was able to find “ typography ,” “ layout ,” and “ composition ” right away.

Browsing your competitors’ websites

If you’re just starting out, this step might be harder as you still might not have the full knowledge of who your competitors are. However, if you’ve been in business for some time, this should come naturally.

For this example, I stumbled upon the website Onextrapixel.com which turned out to be a great source of keywords.

Here are the steps to replicate my success:

• “Your topic” + blogs
• Top + “your topic” + blogs
• Open one of the results
• Go through the list and open some of the blogs (tip: good keywords hide where you don’t expect them to be – in other words, don’t judge the book by the cover in this step)
• Read through headlines (and even the posts if you have the time)
• Collect all keywords that seem relevant — I found “ footer ” & “ design thinking ” in my case

Selecting the right competitors for your business is very important. A good rule when you are starting off is to stick to the major websites in your industry.

Seed Keywords Examples

To sum up, here’s the list of keywords I’ve found so far from all types of sources:

• illustration
• color palette
• graphic design
• creative thinking
• footer design
• design thinking

2. Generating Long Tail Keywords From Tools & Main Limitations

Once you have a good list of seed terms, it’s time to generate some long tail keywords. In this step, we’re aiming for quantity rather than quality (this part comes later), and therefore it’s best to utilize a tool to help us out. Because of that, there’s really not that big of a difference when it comes to free vs. paid tools in this step. Where paid tools might prove useful is in the next step where we are going to explore how to filter your keywords effectively.

In this guide, we’re using free  keyword tools which work great, but if you’re a more advanced user feel free to use your own (paid) sources.

Good practice for this step is to look for sources that provide you with keywords appended not only after the seed keyword but also at the beginning because often users will organize the words in different ways when searching.

After getting familiar with these tools, we’re going to look at some of their limitations.

Here are some of the best free tools online:

LSI Keywords

This is an incredibly simple and useful tool.

All you have to do is:

• Visit lsikeywords.com
• Type in your keyword (or keywords – up to 10)
• Select a country
• Select type of keyword you’re after — Long tail in this case
• Click “Generate Keywords”

• Download the list of long tail keywords as either Excel or CSV through one of the buttons in the middle

Some users have experienced issues in the past so make sure you select both the country and type of keyword in any search. Alternatively, if this doesn’t work, try opening the tool in an incognito mode in your browser.

Ubersuggest recently got acquired by Neil Patel who is one of the best digital marketers in the world.

With this makeover, the tool works smoother than ever, and you can generate thousands of keywords in a matter of seconds.

• Go to neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
• Enter your keyword
• Select the type of resource that the keywords should be extracted from.
• Select a country & language
• Click the white “Look Up” button
• Go to the bottom of the page
• Click the “Export to CSV” button to get a file containing all keywords

Keywordtool.io is a simple and powerful tool for keywords which can be used both as a free or paid version. Similarly to the rest, this tool provides an extensive list of long-tail keywords related to your search query. The only downside, in this case, is that you won’t be able to see search data about the keywords unless you have the paid version.

• Visit keywordtool.io
• Type in your seed keyword
• Select a search engine of choice (or just keep it as Google if you feel intimidated)
• Pick your language
• Click the search icon
• Click the Export All button to the right to get your long tail keywords suggestions (and/or questions)
• Once ready, download them as a spreadsheet

Google Trends is an excellent tool in the sense that it provides you not only with keyword suggestions but also queries that are rising in search volume. This means that you can uncover trending topics for your content strategy that might simultaneously not have a very competitive environment.

• Go to trends.google.com
• Select the country of choice & time range
• Go to related queries right below the map

Most of the tools you find online will offer keyword suggestions based on the Google Suggest queries. That’s because it’s so good – and free. In fact, I am sure you’ve “accidentally” used it in the past when browsing.

• Go to google.com
• Search for your keyword
• Navigate to the bottom of the page
• Collect the search suggestions
• Open some of them and repeat the process

Answerthepublic – Find questions related to your niche

Answerthepublic is a very, very powerful tool. As you already know, search queries are formed differently than everyday writing and speech (if you feel like you’d like to refresh your knowledge on the topic, read chapter X). This tool helps you find some of the most common questions and phrases once you enter your keyword of choice.

• Go to answerthepublic.com
• Click “Get Questions” and hold still for it to load
• Once loaded, scroll down to the first section (don’t get scared — yet)
• Explore the tool by clicking on “Data” in the upper left corner (of each section)
• Once you’re done, you can download the data by clicking on “Download CSV” in the upper right corner

Main limitations of keyword research tools

Now let’s look at some of the main limitations when it comes to using keyword discovery tools:

The main issue with using such tools is the fact that they are limited only to your imagination. This means that if you take the time to brainstorm good keywords, you’re going to get relevant results.

The opposite is also true, and you will find keywords that you expect. In our example of the design blog, looking for suggestions based on “color palette” will return results containing the seed keyword almost exclusively.

For that reason, brainstorming and using tools are actions that should be combined if you want the best results — neither will work on its own.

Two main factors will determine the quality of results you get from research tools:

• you need good seed keywords as a starting point
• you need good filters for your keywords

We already covered the first one. Let’s look at how to set up good filters for your keywords.

3. Setting up good keyword filters for effective research

Don’t know how to set up filters for your keywords correctly? Don’t worry — we got you covered. There’s plenty to be done after reading this sections.

What are good keyword filters in SEO and how to set them up?

Being able to filter and sort out your data properly is a skill you must develop if you want to do effective keyword research for your business. Fortunately, all you have to know to get started is covered in this guide. There are two ways to make use of filters – before and after downloading your keywords. For more advanced users, I always recommend starting by filtering your keywords before you download the spreadsheets because it will save you a ton of time. However, if you’re just getting started, feel free to filter your freshly generated long tail keywords only after downloading. For this guide, we’re looking only into filtering after you download the spreadsheets.

Before we begin, you need to understand what a good keyword looks like so that you can set effective filters.

Two main factors come into play when you’re looking for good keywords:

• You have a chance to rank for that keyword
• It will bring the right people (a.k.a. your target audience)

Keywords Everywhere

Let’s begin by collecting all of our keywords in one place and getting accurate metrics for them.

To do that, we’re using the free tool called Keywords Everywhere:

• Go to this bulk upload page
• Enter all of your keywords (quite speedy processing, go ahead)
• Click on Get Metrics
• Export your file

Sorting in Excel

• Open a spreadsheet with the keywords you just downloaded

• Monthly Volume – Number Filters – Between
• More than 50 searches/mo
• Less than 1000 searches/mo

• Competition – Number Filters – Less Than
• Less than 0.3
• Repeat for all seed keywords you have extracted (the rest of the spreadsheets)

4. Analyzing the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)

For this step, you’ll have to use some tools and your intuition. Below you can also find the most important metrics that you need to be looking at if you want to have a guarantee of success.

The Moz Bar

Now continue by installing the MOZ Bar Chrome Extension.

Follow these steps:

• Go to the chrome extension store
• Search for “Moz Bar”
• Install and enable the extension
• Make an account with Moz once you’re prompted
• Search for your keywords
• Look for weak sites – few links, low Page Authority and Domain Authority (see below for explanation) or Pinterest, Quora, Yahoo Answers, etc.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP) Metrics

It’s time to look at the several factors that would help you determine and rank for those potentially successful long tail keywords.

We’ll look at these 4 factors:

• Page Authority
• Domain Authority

Page Authority (PA)

Although this metric is not entirely precise, it can give you a good rough idea of whether you have a chance of ranking for the particular keyword you’re looking for. Since we’re focused on getting the most out of our SEO , it’s best that you look only at the PA of the results on the first page.

Domain Authority (DA)

Your best-case scenario here would be to see domains that have low domain authority. Sometimes Google prefers very authoritative domains for some queries, and you’ll meet massive websites. But don’t give up just yet. By being more relevant and acquiring more page-specific backlinks , you can often beat those large names.

Here, the main question you should ask yourself is – are the results relevant. Are the results that you find in the SERP answering the search queries? Chances are, the less relevant the results are, the higher the chance you have for beating them by answering precisely.

This factor means you should look for pages that resemble yours – if there are more small pages that rank for a particular keyword, it’s highly likely you can rank for that keyword as well.

That’s it for now, folks. Keep an eye out for some of our other guides that are about to come soon if you’d like to learn how to actually implement those keywords in your content strategy. Meanwhile, we’ll try to keep this guide up to date and add some more information from time to time.

Oh, and if you’d like to start implementing this knowledge, head over to https://morningscore.io and start your free trial.

I have been working with SEO for 5 years now. I love seeing top rankings being conquered and helping users get solutions for their search queries. It’s not just about selling, but also helping.

SEO doesn’t have to be complex. For most types of businesses, you don’t have to be an SEO expert to succeed.

How long does SEO take to work: Stats from 75 experts [2024]

Inbound links - the backbone of your seo success.

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“Morningscore is the easiest SEO tool I've ever seen and used – and I've tested so many of them. The charts and data may be comparable to those of competitors, but the fun part comes in when you make use of the many ways to play 'catch me if you can' with a competitor.”

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How to Find Long Tail Keywords For SEO (10 Ways to Identify)

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This search engine optimization (SEO) guide explains how to find long tail keywords for SEO.

Below, you’ll learn how to find long tail keywords for free in a variety of ways, giving you ample opportunities to uncover great keywords to use in your SEO strategy.

There’s also a section with additional resources that explain more about the fundamentals of long tail keywords and methods to implement them in your content for maximum effect.

Table of Contents

How to Find Long Tail Keywords For SEO

1. use google autocomplete.

The first way for how to find long tail keywords is to use Google Autocomplete, which is a feature in Google Search that makes it faster to complete searches as you type.

Think about a term or phrase that best describes the subject or product you want to rank for and start a search query that begins with an interrogative pronoun (what, which, when, where, who, whom, whose, why, whether, and how), followed by the term or phrase.

For example, if you owned an ecommerce store that sells screwdrivers, then you might start a search with the words “which screwdriver”. As you can see in the example below, Google’s Autocomplete technology shows you the most popular long tail keyword search queries beginning with those two words.

The Google Search results reveal that many people search for screwdrivers compatible with gaming consoles, giving you plenty of new long tail keywords to start with for SEO content.

Of course, you’re not limited to question-based long tail keywords here. You could also try combining the subject of your keyword with other words, such as “best” or “how to”. As you can see in the example below, Google Autocomplete is finding long tail keywords for the phrase “best electronic lawn mower”.

You’ll also notice that the system is intelligent enough to correct the search phrase by replacing “electronic” with “electric”, which is the most popular term that people use to find electrical-powered lawn mowers. This subtle, yet important difference, is crucial for targeting long tail SEO keywords you want to rank for in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

2. Review People Also Ask

Once you have a list of possible long tail keywords from Google Autocomplete, the next step to finding more ideas is to simply pick one to search for and look at the “People Also Ask” snippet for that search query.

This method shows you a list of questions related to that query that people want answers to.

Expanding any of the People Also Ask results not only shows you the type and quality of content that ranks for those questions but also reveals even more long tail keywords to target. Each time you click on a question, three or more new questions will appear that are closely related to that result; giving you endless possibilities of new long tail keywords to identify for SEO.

3. Identify Keywords In Forums

Forums that are related to your niche can prove to be an untapped goldmine of long tail keywords.

For example, let’s say you want to attract more visitors to your home improvement blog. A quick search on forums related to fixing things will show you the kind of questions, answers, and solutions people are specifically asking for online, all of which can be used as long tail keywords to target on your website.

As you can see in the example below, there are people on Reddit asking questions about how to fix the gap in a garage door, sagging floor joists, flexing stairs, and brick walls; all of which are excellent ideas for long tail keywords to target on a home improvement blog.

4. Explore Social Media

The next step in learning how to identify long tail keywords is to examine social media groups where people are talking about your niche.

For local service-based businesses, this may mean joining local Facebook groups and paying attention to posts that are relevant to your industry.

If you’re a dog groomer, for example, then finding posts from people searching for a dog groomer not only gives you the opportunity to reach out to that person as a potential new client but also reveals a wealth of possible long tail opportunities to target on your site, such as:

• “Best mobile dog groomer in…”
• “Dog groomers in…
• “Local dog groomers specializing in older dogs”

5. Do Keyword Research on Semrush

If you want to know how to find long tail keywords free of charge using one of the most powerful SEO platforms on the market, then you should sign up for a free Semrush account and take advantage of its excellent Keyword Magic Tool. (Note: SEO Chatter readers get an extended free trial period using that link which gives you access to the Pro version of the software. After the trial ends, you’re limited to 10 free keyword searches per day.)

With the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, you can enter any keyword and get an extensive list of related keywords, including long tail options and questions.

The best part about using Semrush to discover long tail keywords is that the platform provides you with valuable data about the search volume and keyword difficulty of each long tail keyword opportunity. This can help you make better informed decisions about which keywords are worth targeting to improve your website’s SEO.

Even if you never upgrade to a paid Semrush plan, you should make this software part of your SEO toolkit. Semrush has one of the largest keyword databases in the world and also gives you access to other powerful SEO tools for competitive research, link building, content optimization, and more. Sign up for a free Semrush account .

6. View Questions in Ahrefs

Another top SEO tool for doing long tail keyword research is Ahrefs . However, you don’t have to pay for an Ahrefs subscription to get access to quality keyword data. The Ahrefs platform offers a free Keyword Generator that shows you the search queries people make for a specific keyword, along with a breakdown of volume and difficulty.

The one thing we like best about Ahrefs Keyword Generator is that it’s simple and quick to use. Plus, it generates a list of keywords based on phrase match and questions, which helps you identify long tail keywords to target for SEO.

7. Review Queries In Google Search Console

If your website is connected to Google Search Console, then an easy way for how to find long tail keywords for SEO is to navigate to Performance > Search Results > Queries tab.

This Google Search Console report reveals a list of all the terms people who visit your site search for, along with details about how many impressions you earned for that term and the average ranking position.

This keyword data can provide a valuable opportunity to improve your content strategy for long tail keywords by building on the existing topical authority. As mentioned in the first step of this guide for how to find long tail keywords for SEO, you can use type those seed keywords into Google Search along with interrogative pronouns like what, which, when, where, who, whom, whose, why, whether, and how, to identify relevant questions for new SEO content.

For example, taking the data in the Google Search Console report for the SEO Chatter website above, we could easily expand the topical authority on Ezoic and Google Sites by publishing more content that answers common questions about those two products.

8. Use Google Analytics

If you’re a regular user of Google Analytics, then you can put it to work as a long tail keyword finder by syncing it up with Google Search Console. (See this related guide with instructions on how to see keywords in Google Analytics which walks you step-by-step through the setup process.)

Once your accounts are connected, you can view the keywords that users searched for to find your content by navigating to Acquisition > Acquisition Overview > Google Organic Search Queries .

This method will show you the type of search queries your website is already ranking for and gaining traffic from, giving you a list of seed keywords to use in a keyword research tool like Semrush (mentioned previously) to uncover related long tail keyword ideas to target to capitalize on topical authority.

9. Find Long Tail Keywords In Answer the Public

Answer the Public is a free tool developed by well-known digital marketing expert Neil Patel that shows you relevant long tail search queries relating to a particular keyword.

For example, if you’re a cloud hosting provider, you could type in “best cloud hosting” and get a visual representation of the most popular long tail keywords with a search volume of at least 1,000.

Clicking on any of these keywords takes you directly to the search results page for that term so that you can assess the kind of content that’s most likely to help you rank highly for that term.

Note: The public version of Answer the Public only gives you 1 free keyword search per day. If you register for an account, then you can get 3 free searches per day. Individual plans start at $9 per month for 100 searches per day. See this related guide with good Answer the Public alternatives to find comparable tools or long tail keyword research.

10. Analyze Your Competitors’ Keywords 

Last but not least, if you want to learn how to find long tail keywords for free that you can focus on to outrank your competitors, the best approach is to look at what they’re doing and figure out how you can do it better.

There are several ways for how to find competitors keywords by analyzing their ranking data with tools like Google Keyword Planner, Screaming Frog, KWFinder, and even looking at their sitemap.

From there, you just need to inspect each potential keyword to identify the phrases that are most valuable to your business. You also want to check the keyword difficulty score and ask yourself if you can create better content for the user. If so, then you should go after that keyword phrase.

Look for the long tail keywords your competitors are targeting in their content, including titles, headings, meta descriptions, and throughout the body text. Then, make sure you’re targeting the same phrases with proper on-page SEO.

Following this step can speed up the keyword research process for finding long tail keywords for SEO content. Instead of guessing what works, you can pick off the top-performing keywords from your competition to maximize the return on investment for new SEO content.

Learn More About Long Tail Keywords

The links below explain more about long tail keywords and how to use them effectively for search engine optimization. Use these resources to expand your knowledge on the subject.

• Benefits of Long Tail Keywords
• Long Tail Keyword Examples
• Long Tail vs Short Tail Keywords

Find Long Tail Keywords for SEO Summary

We hope you enjoyed this guide explaining how to find long tail keywords for SEO.

As you discovered, you find long tail keywords for free using a variety of methods and tools such as Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, forums, social media, keyword research tools, Google Analytics, Search Console, and by analyzing your competitors’ top-ranking keyword data. Following these guidelines on how to identify long tail keywords can help you discover the best search queries you should be targeting to improve your website’s online visibility and organic traffic.

The Editorial Staff at SEO Chatter is a team of search engine optimization and digital marketing experts led by Stephen Hockman with more than 15 years of experience in search engine marketing. We publish guides on the fundamentals of SEO for beginner marketers.

How to Effectively Conduct Keyword Research for Long-Tail Keywords

Are you tired of seeing your website buried in the depths of search engine results? It's time to give your online presence a boost by understanding the power of long-tail keywords. These hidden gems have the ability to drive targeted traffic to your site and skyrocket your search rankings.

But how do you effectively conduct keyword research to unveil these elusive phrases? Fear not, because we're here to guide you through the ins and outs of finding those precious long-tail keywords that will unlock the full potential of your online success. So grab your detective hat and let's dive into the world of keyword research!

Understanding Long-Tail Keywords

Understanding long-tail keywords is crucial for effective keyword research . These keywords are longer and more specific phrases that target niche topics and have lower search volume. They are important because they help businesses reach highly targeted audiences and improve conversion rates.

For example, instead of targeting "running shoes," a long-tail keyword could be "men's trail running shoes for flat feet." By incorporating these keywords into your content and SEO strategy, you can attract more qualified traffic and increase the chances of converting visitors into customers. Remember to focus on relevance and user intent when selecting long-tail keywords.

Importance of Keyword Research for Long-Tail Keywords

Increased relevance and targeted traffic.

Using long-tail keywords in keyword research can lead to increased relevance and targeted traffic. Long-tail keyword s are specific phrases that have lower search volume but higher conversion rates. By incorporating these keywords into your content, you can attract users who are actively searching for a particular product or service.

For example, instead of targeting "running shoes," you can use a long-tail keyword like "women's trail running shoes with arch support." This way, you narrow down your audience to those who are more likely to convert. By focusing on long-tail keywords, you can improve the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and drive relevant traffic to your website.

Lower Competition and Cost-Effective Advertising

When conducting keyword research, it is important to consider long-tail keywords . These keywords are more specific and typically have lower competition. This means that it is easier to rank for long-tail keywords and attract relevant traffic to your website.

Additionally, advertising with long-tail keywords tends to be more cost-effective as the competition for these terms is lower, resulting in lower advertising costs.

For example, if you are selling running shoes, targeting the long-tail keyword "best long-distance running shoes for women" will likely yield better results and cost less than targeting the broader keyword "running shoes."

Improved Conversion Rates and User Intent

Improving conversion rates and user intent is a crucial aspect of keyword research. By targeting long-tail keywords, you can attract highly motivated users who are more likely to convert. Long-tail keywords are more specific and less competitive than generic keywords, allowing you to better match user intent.

For example, rather than targeting "running shoes," you could focus on "women's trail running shoes with arch support." This not only improves your chances of attracting relevant traffic but also increases the likelihood of users taking the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting Keyword Research for Long-Tail Keywords

Define your goals and target audience.

Before diving into keyword research for long-tail keywords, it's crucial to define your goals and target audience. This step will help you identify the specific keywords that will be most relevant and useful for your content. For instance, if your goal is to attract more organic traffic to your blog, you need to understand who your target audience is and what they are searching for.

By knowing your audience's interests, demographics, and pain points, you can tailor your keyword research to effectively reach and engage them. This will ensure that your content aligns with their needs and helps you achieve your goals.

Understanding the Purpose of Your Website

Understanding the purpose of your website is vital. It determines what your website aims to achieve and who it caters to. By knowing your purpose, you can tailor your content and design to meet the needs of your target audience.

For example, if your purpose is to sell products, your website should be designed to showcase your products and drive conversions. On the other hand, if your purpose is to provide information, your website should focus on delivering valuable and educational content. Understanding your website's purpose allows you to align your goals with your audience's expectations, leading to a more effective and successful website.

Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is vital for effective keyword research. Understanding who you are targeting will help you choose the right long-tail keywords to reach them. Start by creating buyer personas, detailed profiles that represent your ideal customers. Consider their demographics, interests, and pain points. Use tools like Google Analytics or social media insights to gather data about your existing audience. Analyze this information to identify common characteristics and preferences.

For example, if you sell fitness products, target fitness enthusiasts who prefer home workouts or seniors looking for low-impact exercises. Knowing your target audience ensures your keyword research is precise and helps you create content that resonates with them.

Brainstorm Seed Keywords

To begin your keyword research for long-tail keywords, it's important to brainstorm seed keywords. Seed keywords are the foundation of your research and act as a base for generating more specific and targeted long-tail keywords. By brainstorming seed keywords related to your topic, you can uncover new keyword ideas and potential niches to focus on.

For example, if your topic is "healthy recipes," some seed keywords could be "easy healthy recipes," "quick healthy meals," or "low calorie dishes." These seed keywords will then serve as a starting point for expanding your keyword list and optimizing your content.

Identifying Broad Themes and Topics

• Begin by conducting thorough research to understand your target audience and their interests.
• Analyze existing content in your niche to identify common themes and topics that resonate with your target audience.
• Look for patterns and recurring keywords within popular articles, blog posts, social media discussions, and customer feedback.
• Use keyword research tools to identify long-tail keywords related to these broad themes and topics.
• Long-tail keywords can help you discover specific subtopics that may have less competition, allowing you to target a more specific audience.
• Use these broad themes and topics as a foundation for creating valuable and engaging content that meets the needs and interests of your target audience.

Using Tools to Generate Initial Keyword Ideas

One of the first steps in conducting keyword research for long-tail keywords is to use tools that can generate initial keyword ideas. These tools provide valuable insights into what people are searching for, helping you identify relevant keywords to target.

For example, keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool, and Moz Keyword Explorer can provide a list of related keywords along with important metrics like search volume and competition. By exploring these suggestions, you can uncover unique, specific, and less competitive long-tail keywords that have the potential to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Expand Your Keywords with Long-Tail Variations

When conducting keyword research, it's important to consider long-tail variations. These are longer and more specific keyword phrases that target a niche audience. By expanding your keyword list to include long-tail variations, you increase the chances of attracting highly targeted traffic to your website.

For example, instead of targeting the broad keyword "running shoes," you could also include long-tail variations like "best lightweight running shoes for women" or "affordable running shoes for beginners." This helps you reach users who are more likely to convert into customers or take the desired action.

Using Keyword Research Tools to Identify Long-Tail Keywords

Keyword research tools are invaluable for identifying long-tail keywords. These tools provide data on search volume, competition, and variations of keywords. By analyzing this data, marketers can uncover specific and niche keywords that have lower competition but higher conversion potential.

For example, a keyword research tool might reveal that "best noise-cancelling headphones under $100" has a decent search volume yet low competition compared to more generic keywords like "headphones." By incorporating long-tail keywords into their content, marketers can attract highly targeted traffic and improve their chances of converting visitors into customers.

Analyzing Competitor Keywords for Inspiration

Analyzing competitor keywords can provide valuable inspiration for your own keyword research. By examining the keywords that successful competitors are using, you can gain insights into what works in your industry. Look for patterns and common themes among their keywords to identify opportunities and generate new ideas for long-tail keywords.

For example, if you notice that multiple competitors are targeting a specific niche within your industry, you can consider including related long-tail keywords in your strategy. This approach can help you stay competitive and improve your organic search rankings by leveraging the success of others in your industry.

Assess Keyword Metrics and Relevance

When conducting keyword research for long-tail keywords, it is important to assess their metrics and relevance. Metrics like search volume, competition, and cost-per-click can help determine the potential value of a keyword. Relevance, on the other hand, ensures that the keyword aligns with the content and intent of your website.

For example, if you're a fitness blogger, targeting long-tail keywords like "best at-home workout routines" or "healthy meal prep ideas" would be more relevant compared to generic keywords like "fitness" or "nutrition." Assessing these metrics and relevance will enable you to prioritize and target the most beneficial long-tail keywords for your website, ultimately improving your search engine visibility.

Evaluating Search Volume and Competition

To effectively conduct keyword research on long-tail keywords, it is important to evaluate search volume and competition. Search volume helps to identify how often users are searching for a particular keyword or phrase. This information allows you to prioritize and focus on keywords that have a higher search volume, indicating more potential traffic. On the other hand, assessing competition helps to determine the level of difficulty in ranking for a specific keyword.

By analyzing the number andquality of competing websites for a keyword, you can make informed decisions on which keywords to target. For instance, a keyword with high search volume and low competition is generally more favorable for optimizing your content.

Determining Keyword Relevance to Your Content

When determining the relevance of keywords to your content, consider the following:

• Search Intent : Understand what users are looking for when they use specific keywords. Tailor your content to match their intent.
• Content Alignment : Ensure that the keywords you use align with the main theme of your content. Relevance is key to engaging your target audience.
• Topic Coverage : Optimize your long-tail keywords to cover various aspects of the main topic, providing a comprehensive resource for users.
• Competition Analysis : Analyze how your competitors incorporate keywords into their content.

Find ways to stand out by offering a unique perspective or more detailed information.

Remember, relevance is crucial in attracting the right audience and driving organic traffic to your content.

Organize and Prioritize Your Keywords

To effectively conduct keyword research for long-tail keywords, it is crucial to organize and prioritize your keywords. Start by grouping similar keywords together based on relevancy or intent. This will help you identify patterns and themes in your keyword research. Once you have organized your keywords, prioritize them based on their potential impact and relevance to your target audience. Consider factors like search volume, competition, and user intent.

For example, if you have an e-commerce website selling shoes, prioritizing keywords like "affordable running shoes for women" over generic terms like "shoes" can lead to more targeted traffic and conversions. Remember to update and refine your keyword list regularly based on changing trends and market dynamics.

Grouping Keywords into Categories or Themes

Grouping keywords into categories or themes is a fundamental step in long-tail keyword research. By organizing your keywords, you can identify patterns, uncover user intent, and create targeted content. Start by analyzing your keyword list and identifying commonalities or shared characteristics. Group related keywords together based on their topic or meaning.

For example, if you are researching keywords related to gardening, you might group keywords such as "how to grow roses," "best fertilizer for tomatoes," and "container gardening ideas" together. This approach helps you prioritize content creation and ensures you are addressing the specific needs and interests of your target audience.

Prioritizing Keywords Based on Potential Impact

When conducting keyword research for long-tail keywords, it is important to prioritize based on their potential impact. Here are some practical ways to do this:

• Consider search volume : Focus on keywords with higher search volumes as they have the potential to attract more overall traffic to your website.
• Analyze competition : Look at the level of competition for each keyword. Lower competition keywords can offer higher chances to rank well in search results.
• Evaluate relevance : Choose keywords that are highly relevant to your content and audience to ensure you attract quality traffic.
• Assess intent : Understand the search intent behind a keyword. Opt for keywords that align with the goals and objectives of your website.
• Analyze conversion potential : Identify keywords that have a strong likelihood of converting visitors into customers or achieving your desired outcome.

By prioritizing keywords based on their potential impact, you can optimize your long-tail keyword strategy for better results.

Create High-Quality Content Optimized for Long-Tail Keywords

To rank higher in search engine results and attract targeted traffic, it's important to create high-quality content optimized for long-tail keywords. Such keywords are longer and more specific phrases that users typically search for. By targeting these keywords and incorporating them naturally into your content, you can increase the relevance and visibility of your website.

For example, if you have a website about gardening tips, optimizing your content for long-tail keywords like "how to grow tomatoes in small spaces" or "organic pest control for roses" can attract users searching for these specific topics. This approach not only improves your search engine rankings but also ensures that you're providing valuable information to your audience.

Crafting Compelling Headlines and Meta Descriptions

Crafting compelling headlines and meta descriptions is crucial for effective keyword research. A catchy headline grabs the reader's attention and encourages them to click on your page. It should be concise, keyword-rich, and provide a clear preview of what the content offers. Similarly, meta descriptions provide a brief summary of the page's content and entice users to visit. Use action words, relevant keywords, and a sense of urgency to make your meta descriptions compelling.

For example, "Discover the best tips for keyword research and boost your website's visibility in search results." In short, writing engaging headlines and meta descriptions can significantly improve your click-through rates and attract more organic traffic to your site.

Integrating Long-Tail Keywords Naturally in Your Content

• Incorporate long-tail keywords seamlessly to enhance the relevance of your content.
• Use these specific phrases in a way that flows naturally, without compromising the readability or user experience.
• Ensure that the content provides value and answers the user's query, while including long-tail keywords in headings, subheadings, and throughout the body.
• Avoid keyword stuffing and focus on creating high-quality, informative content that resonates with your target audience.
• Conduct thorough research to identify long-tail keywords that align with your content goals.

Monitoring and Refining Your Long-Tail Keyword Strategy

Regularly tracking keyword performance.

Regularly tracking keyword performance is important for effective long-tail keyword research. By monitoring how well your chosen keywords are performing, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your content strategy. Here's why it matters:

• Identifying high-performing keywords : Tracking keyword performance allows you to identify which long-tail keywords are driving the most organic traffic to your website.
• Refining your keyword strategy : By analyzing the performance data, you can refine your keyword strategy and focus on the keywords that are generating the most conversions or engagement.
• Tracking competitor keywords : Monitoring keyword performance also helps you stay updated on how your competitors are ranking for relevant long-tail keywords, enabling you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Adapting to changes : Regular tracking enables you to adapt your keyword strategy quickly in response to shifts in search trends or algorithm updates.

Remember, tracking keyword performance provides valuable insights to improve your long-tail keyword research efforts and achieve better visibility and traffic for your website.

Adapting to Changes in User Behavior and Trends

Adapting to changes in user behavior and trends is vital for effective keyword research. By staying up-to-date and responsive to how users are searching, you can uncover valuable long-tail keywords that connect with your target audience.

For example, the rise of voice search has prompted a shift in keyword strategies towards more conversational and natural language queries. Similarly, the growing popularity of mobile browsing necessitates considering shorter and more concise keywords. By understanding and adapting to these changes, you can optimize your content and stay relevant in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Experimenting with New Long-Tail Keywords

Experimenting with new long-tail keywords can provide valuable insights and opportunities for improving your keyword research strategy.

• Start by exploring variations and combinations of existing primary keywords to identify potential long-tail options.
• Utilize keyword research tools to find long-tail keywords that have decent search volume and low competition.
• Analyze competitor websites and content to discover long-tail keywords they may be targeting and find gaps to capitalize on.
• Consider user intent when selecting long-tail keywords, ensuring they align with the specific needs and queries of your target audience.
• Monitor and track the performance of your chosen long-tail keywords, making adjustments as needed to optimize your strategy.

Key takeaways

Keyword research is a crucial aspect of SEO strategy, especially when it comes to long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific search terms that generally have lower search volumes but higher conversion rates. To effectively conduct keyword research for long-tail keywords, start by brainstorming potential search terms that relate to your content. Utilize keyword research tools to analyze search volumes and competition for these keywords.

Look for keywords with low competition and high relevancy to optimize your content. Long-tail keywords can help drive targeted traffic to your website and improve your overall search engine rankings.

How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

Published: April 04, 2024

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

In this post, we’ll define what keyword research is, why it’s important, how to conduct your research for your SEO strategy, and choose the right keywords for your website.

Table of Contents

What is keyword research?

Why is keyword research important, elements of keyword research, how to research keywords for your seo strategy, how to find and choose keywords for your website.

Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose, often for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of these queries, their ranking difficulty, and more.

Keyword research helps you find which keywords are best to target and provides valuable insight into the queries that your target audience is actually searching on Google.

Insights from these actual search terms can help inform your content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy.

People use keywords to find solutions when conducting research online.

So if your content is successful in getting in front of your audience as they conduct searches, you stand to gain more traffic. Therefore, you should be targeting those searches with content that features those keywords in a meaningful way.

Additionally, inbound methodology focuses less on creating content around what we want to tell people. Instead, we should be creating content around what people want to discover.

In other words, our audience is coming to us for helpful content that provides the answers they’re looking for.

In a nutshell, all of this starts with keyword research.

Conducting keyword research has many benefits, the most popular being:

Marketing Trend Insight

Conducting effective keyword research can provide you with insights into current marketing trends and help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is in search of.

Traffic Growth

When you identify the best-fitting keywords for the content you publish, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results — the more traffic you’ll attract to your website.

Customer Acquisition

If your business has content that other business professionals are looking for, you can meet their needs and provide them with a call-to-action that will lead them into the buyer journey from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.

By researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that most people in your audience want answers to.

Keywords vs. Topics

More and more, we hear how much SEO has evolved over just the last 10 years and how seemingly unimportant keywords have transformed our ability to rank well for the searches people make every day.

And to some extent, this is true, but in the eyes of an SEO professional, it’s a different approach. Rather, it’s the intent behind that keyword and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we’ll talk more about intent in just a minute).

But that doesn’t mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics actually are among your audience.

The operative term here is topics, plural. By researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics or buckets that you want to create content on.

Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target.

Keyword Research Template

Build your SEO strategy with this free template.

• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

There are three main elements I have discovered that you should pay attention to when conducting keyword research.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content for relevance.

This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the searchers’ needs.

In addition, your content must be the best resource out there for the query. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it provides less value than other content that exists on the web?

2. Authority

Google will provide more weight to sources it deems authoritative.

That means you must do all you can to become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, informative content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks.

If you’re not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword’s SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can’t compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you have a lower chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional.

You may end up ranking on the first page for a specific keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not result in traffic to your site. It's like setting up a shop in a ghost town.

Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences.

• Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.
• Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.
• Understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly.
• Research related search terms.
• Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

I’m going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting.

That way, you’ll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

Step 1. Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets.

You’ll come up with about five to 10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you’ll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

If you’re a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they’re the topics that come up the most in sales conversations.

Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas . What types of topics would your target audience search that you’d want your business to get found for?

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Discover opportunity for growth in your keyword strategy with this easy-to-use template.

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

How to do Long Tail Keyword Research (Easy to Rank Keywords)

Do you find yourself constantly fighting to rank on the front page of Google? I know how frustrating it can be. You are not alone in this struggle, and from what your competitors are doing around you, they too have a hard time ranking high competition keywords. That is why today we’ll be talking about using long tail keyword discovery for competitive terms!

What are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are words or phrases that have a low volume of searches and little competition. These can be very specific to what you’re selling, resulting in more targeted potential customers for your product!

Why Should I try to Rank for Long tail Keywords?

Customers who use specific keywords when they search for a product are more likely to buy than people doing generic searches. When you want people to find your website or purchase something from it, using words that will attract their attention is key in boosting business and converting customers into sales leads.

Searching for long tail keywords is much easier than searching the common ones because fewer websites compete to get high rankings and your audience will be able to find you more easily. If you want quick traffic, it will also help if you focus on some of those specific niche keywords that are not as popular but still need attention and get decent traffic.

Finding your niche is important for your online business. One must carefully identify their audience and use more specific terms to get in front of their potential customers searching online.

For example, if you are the owner of a furniture recycled goods shop, it’s best to rank with “furniture made from reclaimed materials” because that phrase targets customer’s furniture made from reclaimed material, not something vague such as “furniture.”

How to Research Long tail Keywords

This is by far the trickiest part of any SEO campaign. If you’re not careful, it can easily turn into a black hole that sucks up all your time and energy without delivering anything in return.

We’ll walk through how to do this process by focusing on “keyword discovery and research” that is fast and works.

• The first thing to do is head over to do keyword research using  keyword tools  like the SEO tools listed in the next section.
• You will want to use one of them to start doing keyword discovery. For each tool listed below, we will provide the pros, cons, and features.

SEMrush has the Keyword Magic tool which can generate a ton of new ideas for keywords to research. The keyword generator is constantly being updated with more words, so you’ll never run out of options.

“SEMRush assembles all your favorite SEO tools (search engine optimization) in an easy-to-use interface that takes minutes instead of hours or days.” With over 18 billion different keywords generated by these 118 databases, there’s no way any marketing professional could ever find themselves at a loss when conducting long tail keyword discovery!

You can use the SEMrush by entering your keyword in its search bar, and then the interface will present you with a keyword overview report.

You can then locate all the data SEMrush has about the keyword you have entered.

The information provided includes:

• Monthly search volume
• Cost per click
• Number of search results
• The competition level of the keywords you entered

Questions, keyword variations, and related keywords are previewed and give you a more comprehensive range of keyword ideas. A click on any one of these widgets will open for you the keyword magic tool.

• Provides a lot more detailed information about traffic, competitiveness, and other factors than Google Keyword Planner
• Checks for broken links on a domain or page in seconds. It also shows if there is anything that could be improved like images, content
• You can search for keywords without having to go through a process of elimination
• The tool is fast and reliable, with keyword suggestions coming in seconds
• SEMrush offers traffic estimations, estimates on how much traffic a keyword receives, and where that traffic is coming from
• Competitive intelligence allows you to know who you are competing with
• Helps you to figure out what keywords you can rank for in the search engines
• SEMrush does require a monthly subscription to use their service – but they do offer a 15-day money back guarantee if you do not like what you see after that time
• Pricing also starts out rather expensive at $99 per month

Google Keyword Tool

The Google Keyword Tool is a vital tool for all marketers. It’s an important part of the AdWords advertising platform and it also makes keyword analysis easy to do on top of helping you with your SEO goals!

This tool is a part of the AdWords platform and proves to be an invaluable SEO research resource. It also provides insight into pay-per-click advertising campaigns, which you can use for competitive analysis as well as cost-per-click information.

With this one program, you can analyze large volumes of monthly searches, determine competition levels in your own industry for PPC marketing, or even get real-time data on what people are searching for near where they live!

You can do your searching based on websites, keywords, or a category. You will be able to get numerous alternative terms instead of just one search volume from the single term you are given relevant to your keyword research.

Google Keyword Tool has become an invaluable resource for marketers who want to learn more about individual words or products before starting a campaign or writing anything online.

• You can explore related long tail keywords and phrases
• Discover what volume of searches each word gets on a monthly basis
• Get comparable search volumes from other countries (e.g., how many times per month does “car” get searched in Germany?)
• Using the tool is free
• Does not provide negative keyword list
• Search volume estimates you can’t trust
• Other tools show keyword difficulty where Google Keyword Tool shows keyword difficulty for ads

Long Tail Pro

According to renowned SEO experts, Long Tail Pro is one of the best long tail keyword search tools in the market. First launched in 2011, long tail pro works by generating a list of particular long tail keywords based on the root keyword suggestion you are looking for.

By proposing a single keyword or several root keywords related to a topic or niche, the system automatically generates a list of long tail keyword suggestions for you to use.

Using Long Tail Pro is advantageous because it offers suggestions based on what people have already searched for online. It saves time by not having to figure out which words or phrases would work best.

• Finding low competition but highly targeted long tail keywords for your business
• Generating new content ideas quickly with their brainstorming feature (Make sure you check out all the different ways they can help generate blog post content!)
• You can get keywords suggestions in bulk to make things quicker
• Really cool is the competitor analysis screen helps you to see what it will take to outrank your competitors
• They have a score for keyword competitiveness that is extremely helpful
• It would be great if they increased the limit on manual and seed keywords
• There is also an annual fee and monthly subscription fee once you have reached certain levels in the program
• Does not have an intuitive interface for newbies

Searching for keywords manually can consume so much time. Ahrefs is a professional SEO and keyword search tool that helps you find keywords that you can target to rank for quickly.

Ahrefs is one of the most popular tools out there for online marketers that want an easy way to find new keywords without having to do a lot of manual work. With Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer tool, it only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish (depending on how many keywords you’re looking up) in order to come up with 100+ long tail keywords related to your topic or niche site.

You can also use Ahrefs for SEO purposes – including backlink analysis (which tells us who’s linking to our competitors), their unique Rank Tracker tool (which tells you what keywords are ranking for any given page), and the ability to see which pages on a site have broken links.

• AHREFs has a large database of keywords
• The company is extremely responsive to customer feedback, which helps them keep up with the latest trends and changes in SEO best practices
• It can take a while to weed through all the keywords and find what you need
• There isn’t any prediction on how well a particular site will rank – only search volume and difficulty score information is provided by AHREFs’ Keyword Tool

The Growthbar keyword tool is a simple to use and robust piece of software. It helps you find the most profitable keywords online. The software was created by an SEO expert who wanted to bring some consistency back into his life when marketing products or services.

GrowthBar Keyword Tool works by doing all the hard work for you behind the scenes so that anyone – be they marketers, bloggers, journalists, new business owners with little experience developing content.

• The interface is pretty easy to use
• Has a Chrome extension that is very helpful
• GrowthBar is a simple keyword tool that can be used by beginners
• Great software to do short tail keyword and long tail keyword research
• Growthbar is a slimmed down version of other keyword tools
• Other SEO tools have more analytics capabilities

This SEO tool called MOZ has been around for over a decade and is one of the best-established companies, with their search engine optimization tools. Moz Pro can provide you access to keyword research software, competitor analysis features, detailed reporting capabilities, and backlink analysis data.

You also have an extension that displays keywords on your computer screen when browsing online or using Google organic search – making it easier than ever before to see what is being searched!

The keyword and SEO tool remain one of the oldest providers in this industry they have had plenty of time perfecting their product line. There is something great for everyone at every level here: whether you want some basic SEO reports (free!) or if you need more advanced features such as rank tracking.

• You can access the short tail keyword and long tail keyword research tool, a competitor analysis tool, detailed reporting features, backlink analysis, and rank tracking software
• There is also a free chrome extension that displays keywords and competitor analysis data
• The interface is easy for beginners and very simplistic
• Limited integration capabilities for blogging platforms like WordPress or self-hosted blogs
• Pricing options limited and cost is high

How to Write Content Using the Selected Long Tail Keyword

Writing to target long tail keywords is a surefire way to get ranked on the internet. Here are some tips for writing effective content that will rank highly and be relevant:

• Use simple, declarative sentences; this makes it easier for your reader’s brain to process information quickly
• Write concisely with clear instructions or explanations if necessary so there’s no confusion over what you’re trying to say

Define the Purpose of Your Content

Do you know what makes a blog post successful? Well, the answer is so easy: it is engagement. No one wants to read boring things over and again without any reason or meaning behind them. There should be something that piques your curiosity in each paragraph of every story, if not then there might as well have just been an essay with no real point!

The secret to keeping people’s attention spans for long periods of time lies within captivating headlines that make your readers want more than ever before (check out these 10 tips).

Don’t forget about asking questions too – they’ll keep people on their toes, waiting eagerly until someone answers those burning issues which can also increase comments because let’s face it, we all like some form of validation.

What is the purpose of your content to provide instructions on how to do something, an opinion, or a story? Make the content engaging and fun but also make sure it is content your readers would be interested in reading.

Understand Your Buyers

Know your target audience. Writing will be meaningless if you don’t know who you are writing to. This will also determine whether they read your blog posts as your topics may or may not be relevant to them.

• Know your buyers, you are not writing for yourself.
• Do market research and find out what is trending at the moment in order to stay relevant.
• Tap into information that people want or need (or both) so they will be more likely to read it rather than skip over it.

Research on Long Tail Keywords

It is essential that you select the correct long tail keywords if you want your search traffic to grow.  If you don’t know what long tail keywords are, they’re simply the more specific and in-depth long tail keyword phrases that will help people find your site.

For example, if you wanted to create a website about “dogs,” it would be a good idea to include long tail keywords and answer questions like “best small dogs” or even just “do golden retrievers shed.”

People who search for these terms on Google might end up at your small dog niche blog website!

In order to rank well within Google, make sure not only do you have the basic keywords in your site’s content, but also include long tail keywords that are specific to what you are talking about!

How to get Tons of Search Traffic from Long Tail Keywords

Using long tail keywords that have decent traffic and producing content that helps the user find what they are looking for will help drive traffic.

For example, the term “best restaurants to visit in Salt Lake City” generates around 540 searches monthly on Google while its more specific counterpart of “restaurants with gluten-free menus in Salt Lake City” gets only one or two per month.

Researching and using the right long tail keywords can get you some easy traffic. Using a long tail keyword that does not have any volume will get you no traffic.

Understand Your Unique Selling Proposition

First, you need to understand how your business is different from all the others. What do you offer that they don’t? Why should customers choose what you have over everything else out there?

The long tail keywords in your content will help define these differences and provide a better understanding of why people should be spending their money with you instead of bothering with someone who just does “good enough.”

Know What Your Target Audience Wants and Needs

To get anyone interested in what you are selling, it is important to know their concerns and pain points. Asking these questions is the first step before deciding on any solutions or strategy for your business’ marketing plan.

Knowing this information will also allow you to strategize well with long tail keywords that are going to be most effective when writing articles and blog posts.

Do Research on Long Tail Keywords

Searching for the perfect words to capture potential customers can be tedious and time-consuming. Fortunately, you do not have to search too far when doing keyword research.

Just think of what kind of long tail keywords would attract your target customer base and plug those into one of the keyword tools in this article. You can also research the phrases your competitors use so that you’re able to get an edge on their marketing strategies as well.

Keep User Intent in Mind

Once you have come up with a list of long tail keywords that you want to use, think about why people would like to use them in their search. What needs do they hope to satisfy, at what stage of buying are they?

Once you use a keyword, ensure that the answers to those long tail keywords are provided in your article. You are likely to lose potential clients if they visit your site and find that your content does not meet their needs.

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Long-Tail Keywords: How to Research and Use Them For Blog’s Traffic Growth

Written by Ankit Singla

3K Followers

Last Updated on:

by Ankit Singla

Here, I will tell you all about long-tail keywords .

What are they and what makes them different from short-tail keywords?

I will teach you their benefits, how to find and use them, and more.

Let’s begin!

Comprehensive Guide To Long-tail Keywords

• 1. What are Long-tail Keywords?
• 2. A Quick Comparison Between Long-tail and Short-tail Keywords
• 3. Benefits of Long-tail Keywords (and Why You Should Use Them)
• 4. How To Find Long-tail Keywords
• 5. 6 Best Long-tail Keyword Research Tools
• 6. Template For Keyword Research
• 7. How To Use Long-Tail Keywords
• 8. Conclusion

What are Long-tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords are keyword phrases that contain four or more words .

“Best fps games for ios” is an example of a long-tail keyword.

You will see later on the value of optimizing your site using this type of keywords. Without giving much away, their biggest advantage is their more specific nature compared to other keyword types.

A Quick Comparison Between Long-tail and Short-tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords have less than three words in their search phrase.

“ Best fps games ” counts as a short-tail keyword .

Unlike long-tail keywords, this type is much broader . It also has a higher search volume than its counterpart in general.

However, don’t write off long-tail just yet!

Here’s the thing:

If users search for this phrase, they will get pages about the best FPS games from all gaming systems.

This makes optimizing your content for short-tail keywords very difficult.

You’ll have to go up against pages that discuss the best FPS games for PS4, XBox, Nintendo Switch, Android, and more.

This reason is what makes long-tail keywords more valuable!

Instead of optimizing for the best FPS games in general, “best fps games for ios” lets you focus your energies on a specific gaming platform .

Therefore, you don’t have to compete with other pages covering different systems. All you need to worry about are pages talking about the games exclusive to iOs.

Therefore, ranking on top of organic search for long-tail keywords is much easier due to lower competition.

According to Advanced Web Ranking, the first three positions on organic search generate 29.48%, 14.69%, and 10.15% click-through rates on desktop, respectively.

So imagine if you rank on top of organic search, you can generate almost 30% of clicks to your site!

Therefore, long-tail keywords are the better option.

Benefits of Long-tail Keywords (and Why You Should Use Them)

There are other reasons why you should optimize for long-tail keywords. As if the explanation above shouldn’t be reason enough.

Did you also know that long-tail keywords are behind 70% of all web searches ?

So, if you don’t want to miss out on the massive group of web searches, you know what to do.

WPBeginner researched for the best long-tail keywords to optimize their site.

After two months, their site increased its organic traffic by 20% .

Its secret, of course, is the use of long-tail keywords. With HitTail on its side, it bathed in success!

You can also take it from KISSmetrics.

It received 142,149 visitors because of long-tail keywords!

But, the benefits of long-tail keywords do not end there.

Here are some more:

1. Better Targeted Traffic

For an artist to sketch a picture of what you have in mind, you give him a description. And as you talk to him, you get down to the details and use the most specific words .

The better you are at describing, the better the results get.

That’s how long-tail keywords work, too.

They come with more relevant keywords, and therefore, are more descriptive .

If you want to target specific people, it should come easy.

What you need to do is optimize your site for those specific long-tail keywords.

For example , you want to target new lifestyle bloggers in California. So, your keywords, in this case, should be something like:

“new lifestyle bloggers California”.

Now, if your keywords are “new bloggers”, do you think you can reach the people you’re after?

2. Better Conversion Rates

The reason?

People who search the web using long-tail keywords are in the brink of making a final decision .

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you are in the business of selling water bottles. You need to optimize for keywords with a transactional search intent.

Ultimately, your goal is to sell water bottles. In leveraging organic search, you can drive highly-targeted visitors with the intention of buying your site. And it all boils down to your choice of keywords.

Because of this reason, optimizing for the keyword “water bottle” won’t suffice.

From here, you can tell that the user doesn’t know what he wants to buy yet. He may still be looking for the right size, color, kind, and brand of water.

There’s even a possibility he doesn’t want to buy a water bottle at all! For all you know, he’s just bored and googled for a random item.

Meanwhile, the second searcher used the words “5L blue reusable Outland water bottle for sale”.

From this search phrase, you can tell he already knows what he wants. And by the looks of it, he’s looking for a store where he can buy the product!

So, if your site is optimized for said key phrase, you got yourself a customer!

3. Perfect for Competitive Niches

As mentioned, long-tail keywords are less competitive because they are more specific.

For instance , you own a restaurant in San Francisco. It’s a new one and you want to it to make a name for itself online.

The problem is you have competitors. You’re up against famous and big names such as Cala and Tartine Manufactory.

You can compete against them, of course. But, the odds of you winning is small .

There are two reasons for that.

The restaurant industry is highly competitive. And you’re in the best food city: San Francisco!

So, you have to accept the fact: you can’t beat the competition .

You’re going on a match with names who have thousands – if not millions at their disposal.

But, you don’t give up.

The solution is to optimize your site using long-tail keywords!

For example, forget about “San Francisco restaurant”.

You can rank for “new San Francisco [seafood] restaurant” instead.

4. Optimize for Short-tail Keywords

It’s like hitting two birds with one stone!

When you use long-tail keywords, you are already using short-tail keywords.

For instance, my short-tail keyword is “cute puppies”. And my long-tail keyword is “Bichon Frise cute puppies for sale”.

Notice how the keyword “cute puppies” is still in there?

How To Find Long-tail Keywords

You can search for long-tail keyword suggestions from a short-tail keyword related to your niche.

For this example, we’ll be using the tried-and-true free keyword tool for ages: Google’s Keyword Planner .

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial:

Step 1 : Go to Google Keyword Planner. Choose Find new keywords .

Step 2 : Use your seed keyword. Example is “freelancing”.

So, type it in and click GET STARTED.

Step 3 : On the results page, choose a relevant keyword idea. In this example, I will choose freelance projects .

Step 4 : Search for that keyword idea to expand on it.

Step 5 : Now, you have long-tail keyword variations!

6 Best Long-tail Keyword Research Tools

While Google Keyword Planner is sufficient enough to help you come up with different ideas, it’s not the best out there.

There are two primary reasons why:

• It only shows the range of the average monthly search volume, i.e. (1k – 10k)
• It doesn’t compute for keyword difficulty or competitiveness.

To help you conduct your keyword research effectively, it’s time to use premium tools that possess the features above and then some!

Enter these tools:

If you want “ all the essential keyword research tools one could ever ask for in one place ”, turn to this.

For starters, its Keyword Magic Tool is, for a lack of a better word, magical !

A seed keyword is all you need.

And you can already build a keyword empire based on it!

For example , here’s what you’ll if you enter “freelancer” as the keyword:

On the left sidebar, you can filter the results to contain the words in the list. This is useful if you want to narrow down your search and group long-tail keywords together.

On the right, you will see the keyword data of each result. The most important to look at are the Volume and KD (Keyword Difficulty) column.

Ideally, you want to choose keywords with relatively high search volume and low competition. Both columns make choosing which long-tail keywords to target much easier.

Another great thing about SEMrush is its Content Template feature.

It helps bloggers optimize their content by analyzing their competitors’ content!

It does so by indicating useful information such as:

• Recommended word count
• Recommended LSI keywords
• Readability
• Backlink sources

Here’s an example of SEO Content Template in action for the keyword “security guard services:”

Another feature to look into SEO Content Template is the text length .

It provides the recommended number of words based on the average word count of the top ten results for the keyword.

Seriously, I could go on and on with SEMRush. It’s really that great of an SEO tool.

However, we’ll have to stop here for now and introduce other tools. It wouldn’t be fair to equally great tools.

But if you are interested in learning more about SEMrush, then read this in-depth review and tutorial (free 30-day trial included).

Its Keywords Explorer tool can lead you to a gold mine of long-tail keywords!

This is what you do:

Step 1 : Launch Keywords Explorer and type in your seed keyword. In this example, the seed keyword is “ blogging. “

Step 2 : You will land on a page with keyword ideas and an overview of your keyword.

Focus on the left and choose a report.

Here, I went with All .

Step 3 : You will get thousands (or more) of keyword ideas.

You can use the filtering system to narrow them down to only include long-tail keywords.

In this example, my seed keyword “blogging” got 50,025 hits.

Then, I used the word count feature to include results with 3 to 6 words. So, from 50,025 keywords, it came down to 37,364!

It also features a Content Explorer tool .

It lets you dip your toe into a pool of the best and most shared content .

All you need to do is enter your keyword in Content Explorer .

Here, I’ll go with “ how to start a blog ”.

You will then land on a page with the top content revolving around that keyword.

For my chosen keyword, there are 28,424 results !

3. Keyword Revealer

If you’re after the global search volume of long-tail keywords, this is the tool!

It means that with Keyword Revealer , you can get the data on the amount of searches all over the world!

This is useful for bloggers who want to target a wider audience.

Here’s how you use it:

Step 1 : Launch Keyword Revealer. Then, enter your keyword and hit Search .

Step 2 : Set the Search Location to All Locations .

This is what I went with because I’m after the global search volume of my keyword. If you want to set it to a specific location, go ahead.

Step 3 : Once you get to the list of results, use the filter to only include a certain number of words in them.

Here, I will go with a minimum of 4 words and a maximum of 6.

Step 4 : Choose your long-tail keyword from the list!

Keyword Ideas are not the only results you will see. There’s also the number of monthly searches, Cost Per Click, Profit, and more!

To learn more about Keyword Revealer, consider reading its review here .

4. AnswerThePublic

It’s a visual keyword research and content ideas tool.

It will help you find potential questions that you can use to optimize your content with.

Its approach is rather different from the tools mentioned above. And this unique angle that AnswerThePublic shoots for is the reason why it’s such a hit .

Sure, it’s not the most advanced keyword research tool . But, no doubt, it’s clever.

According to the rules of SEO, keywords are best inserted naturally , right?

Well, is there any “ more natural ” than using questions that actual people are asking?

No, there isn’t.

So, if you want to start finding questions using this tool, let me help. I will show you a step-by-step process.

Step 1 : Launch AnswerThePublic.

Then, type in your keyword on the search bar and click Get Questions .

In this example, I’ll go with “blog” as the keyword.

Step 2 : Choose a question from the list of results.

Here, I’ll go with “what is a blog.”

As a keyword research tool, AnswerThePublic helps you unearth possible questions to optimize for your blog.

However, it doesn’t provide SEO data like search volume and keyword difficulty. Therefore, you have to depend on any of the tools above to get these data.

Once you picked the question, you need to verify it with the keyword tool of your choice.

If you’re wondering whether this is necessary, the answer is “YES ”.

This approach is how you can understand your keyword-based question, SEO-wise.

Like I said, AnswerThePublic is not an advanced tool . That is why another tool should come into the scene.

You can use any tool you want. But, I’ll go with SEMrush .

SEMrush makes for more effective keyword research.

It goes deep into keyword analysis. And it also identifies new keyword opportunities.

Step 3 : Enter a keyword into the Keyword Magic Tool .

Again, my keyword is “blog”.

Step 4 : On the results page, click the Questions tab.

There, you can verify if your chosen question is one of the top question-based keywords.

Now, back to the example.

According to SEMrush, the question “what is a blog” fits the description!

You can also view relevant data for that question. This includes Volume, Keyword Difficulty, Cost Per Click, and Competition .

Again, it’s off to the questions that people are asking.

And Quora is one of the most popular Q&A sites .

What you do is search for questions about your seed keyword.

I’ll show you with this step-by-step process.

Step 1 : Enter your keyword in the search bar.

In this example, my keyword is “ newbie blogger ”.

Step 2 : From the results, choose some questions that you can expand on with a keyword research tool later.

Here, I’ll go with “ What is your advice to a newbie blogger? ”

Now, I’ll expand on it.

Step 3 : I copy that exact question from Quora to another tool. Again, I’ll go with SEMrush .

A brilliant thing about it is its filtering system. You can use it to find long-tail keyword combinations with the matches that you want.

You can choose whether you want broad, phrase, exact, or other related matches.

And if you want to analyze your keyword more thoroughly, SEMrush also has your back.

On the same page, a bit to the upper right, you can choose to Go to Keyword Analyzer .

The Keyword Analyzer is some sort of keyword repository.

It not only offers the benefits of deep keyword analysis to you. This feature also lets you integrate with other tools.

6. Ubersuggest

If you’re looking for more ideas for your long-tail keyword, use this tool. Neil Patel recently purchased it.

Ubersuggest provides lots of keyword ideas and suggestions using Google search.

Beyond that, it also gives you other important data about your keyword.

This includes search volume , Cost Per Click, and Google SERP results!

And it’s free!

Want to see it in action?

Just enter your keyword in the search bar.

In this example, I’ll use “ what is a blog ”.

And voila! You’ll get results.

FREE Template To Manage Your Keywords

Keyword research should be vital to your content and marketing strategies.

They shape the articles you write and content you create. They also empower your marketing efforts!

And that is why you need to track and organize your list of keywords.

If you’re using any of the suggested tools above, there’s an option to export the data and save it for future reference. From there, you can organize the data to help you group common keywords and identify low-hanging fruit keywords.

But what if you’re using multiple tools?

Exporting and organizing all the sheets on a single sound like a nightmare!

However, it doesn’t have to be.

All you need to do is make sure the vital information is found on the site like:

• Search Volume (indicate location if necessary)
• Keyword Difficulty

For the keyword difficulty, you can break them down according to tool. Not all will provide you the same score for each.

But instead of creating this template from scratch, you can download the sheet here !

All you need to do is paste the data there and compare the results from the different tools you’re using.

How To Use Long-Tail Keywords

Once you’re done gathering the keywords to optimize for your blog, it’s now time to let them work their magic.

Here’s how you could do that:

1. Create a Brand New Blog Post Using Long-tail Keywords

Start fresh!

You have the long-tail keywords that can help you draft your content.

This is important : make sure not to optimize for only one long-tail keyword.

It’s an old method you can’t get much from.

Nowadays, it’s best practice to let loose. And it’s by optimizing for as many long-tail keywords as you can in one post!

The surefire approach is to focus on your topic and not on your keyword.

Take it from Brian Dean.

Sure, he was targeting a particular keyword. But, he knew better than lose sight of the topic.

The result?

Search traffic increased by 348% . And he made it happen in just seven days!

So, do the same. This way, you can optimize your content for multiple long-tail keywords.

To do this, you need to implement topic clusters .

These are content pieces in a group. And they all relate to a central topic.

Topic clusters are good for SEO.

They let you take matters with a proactive approach.

Know how Google needs to understand your relationship to a topic?

By using topic clusters, you are giving it what it needs !

There are benefits for you, too.

You can showcase your expertise with this approach. And you get to reach more people while at it!

It’s an incredible time-saver, too! You research once and you can already get going.

So how do we pull out topic clustering using long-tail keywords?

Let me just start off by saying this:

Don’t optimize your content with just one long-tail keyword.

Considering that this keyword type have a low search volume, it’s best to optimize as many keywords as possible.

This way, you’re optimizing your blog post for different long-tail keywords at once.

This also means you have to identify keywords related to each other.

Manually parsing through your list will eat lots of your time.

So instead, use SERanking’s Keyword Grouper feature.

Here’s how the tool explains this feature:

“Keyword grouping is automatic distribution of keywords into groups based on SERPs results similarity. Keywords are united into clusters if these are delivering similar URLs in Google top 10 SERPs. Keyword grouping allows distributing keywords wisely across the pages of the website which is particularly important for landing pages’ SEO and contextual advertising.”

Once you’ve signed up for an account, click on Tools > Keyword Grouper.

Upload your list and the tool will jump straight to grouping your keywords.

It’ll take time for the tool to group the keywords together. Once done, you’ll see something like this:

As you can see, the tool groups together similar keywords. Using this information, you can create a guide about “how to start a blog” as your main keyword. Then include the other related keywords in the post to optimize your content and help generate more organic traffic.

2. Update Old Blog Posts

Focus on every part of a blog post. From your title, meta description, and subheadings to your content and images.

And sprinkle a few long-tail keywords into them all!

This technique will boost your ranking and traffic.

I will break this down for you.

Step 1 : Choose a well-researched long-tail keyword.

Here, I’ll go with “how to start a blog”.

Step 2 : Study the most popular and viral titles.

What are the types of headlines that most people seem to like and share with others?

Your job is to observe and notice the number of shares for a particular post.

Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are some places to do this.

You can also use Buzzsumo for this.

Head over to its website.

Then enter your keyword on the search bar and hit go.

As you can see, among the most popular hits for my keyword are these two:

Step 3 : Use these titles as the basis for your own title.

Find out what is common in them.

In this case, they both talk about how to make money . And they also feature the year .

Step 4 : Create your title!

My choices are as follows:

• How to Start a Blog to Make Money in 2024
• 5 Smart Ways on How to Start a Blog and Make Money in 2024
• The 2024 Guide: How to Start a Blog and Make Money

Meta description

You can use almost the same process above for this.

You shouldn’t go overboard with meta descriptions. Their function is to serve as an advertising copy.

Besides, if you go beyond 160 characters , Google tends to truncate them.

So, you need to be wise in choosing the words you will include.

Go with informative words.

And be short and sweet, and clear and concise.

Here’s how LinkedIn approached this matter:

Now, here’s another example:

My keyword is still “how to start a blog”.

And I went with the title “5 Smart Ways on How to Start a Blog and Make Money in 2024”.

Content/body

It’s no secret that content is king .

In fact, people share a whopping 27 million pieces of them every day !

So, if you want your blog post to rule , you need to be an expert when it comes to content creation . And incorporating your chosen long-tail keywords!

And if you want to fuel up your game in this area, go for long-form content.

The logic behind it is like the logic behind the effectiveness of long-tail keywords.

Like long-tail keywords, long-form content is also more descriptive. And a person who’s serious about a keyword will want that .

It contains in-depth information, that’s why!

Backlinko can support me on this. It found out that the more words a blog post contain, the better.

And of course, it means that its chances of ranking is higher!

In the same study, it also discovered that the average top results are posts that contain 1,890 words.

So, make your content long and informative as you add your long-tail keywords.

Remember, though, avoid keyword stuffing.

Use them as alt tags!

You can also refer to these “tags” as alternative texts, alt attributes, or alt descriptions.

They are important because they make for an accessible web design .

Let’s say your visitors are unable to identify your blog’s visuals. Well, with alt tags, they can still appreciate its content.

By reading what these alt tags say!

They are the solution to browsers and screen readers that block images.

Not only that, they also add points to image SEO .

Sure, search engines can “see” images well due to technological advancements. But, you can’t say the same for search crawlers.

And if search crawlers can’t see your site, it’s not your problem – not theirs.

It’s possible that this can be the cause of a missed opportunity for ranking.

So, edit your images before letting them go live. And add your long-tail keyword.

You can do this manually. It’s so easy to do!

Just click on a picture to edit it.

Or, you can upload a new one.’

Either, you will land on a window where you can edit the Alt text.

But, if you have a hundred images, the manual way is time-consuming . It means you have to go through them one at a time.

So, to come to your rescue is a plugin like Media Library Alt Fields .

This tool is an open source software. It lets you edit image alt text in batches!

Subheadings

Inserting long-tail keywords into them is one thing.

Writing them using intent-based keywords is the other important one.

This means you should craft your subheadings by targeting the right intent.

You see, most people scan a blog post before reading an entire article.

It’s only practical. It’s an easy way to avoid wasting time on an article that does not contain what they need.

And apart from the title, what do you think is the first thing they see?

The subheadings!

Of course, it’s because subheadings tend to be bolder and bigger than the normal texts.

Let me show you an example. It’s from The Ultimate Keyword Research Checklist at the SEMrush blog.

You can spot a subheading more easily, right?

So, the idea here is to write subheadings that appeal to your target audience.

The simple way of doing this is to make sure they are relevant to your topic.

For example , your blog post’s title is the one above:

Your subheadings, then, should highlight those “5 Smart Ways”. If not, they should, at least, have something to do with how to start a blog.

Another way is to incorporate LSI keyword phrases.

These keywords, short for Latent Semantic Indexing, are “the other words”. They are somehow the synonyms of your original keywords.

For instance, you are targeting the keyword phrase, “make money with your blog”.

So, the examples of its counterparts should be these:

• Can you generate income with your blog?
• How will your blog make money for you?
• Who are the famous people who made money with their blog?

So, that’s what long-tail keywords are. And that’s how you can make the most out of them!

If you’re new to this whole blogging industry, these keywords will help you start on the right foot .

In particular, they can help you familiarize yourself with how things work. And that they do work , if you put it in the effort!

With lots of established bloggers out there, you can’t expect to outrank them at your level.

What you can expect, though, is to find the information you need to help you.

Once it’s in your hands, you’re free to learn the craft!

So, be willing to learn. And don’t be afraid to approach matters rather differently.

A great starting point?

These long-tail keywords and there are plenty of data to back it up!

Ankit Singla

Ankit Singla is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, author, and public speaker. He founded and leads Master Blogging . With over 13 years of blogging expertise, he has assisted numerous aspiring bloggers in achieving their dreams of creating successful blogs.

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