How to Boost Website Traffic with the Help of Long-Tail Keywords

Do you understand what it means to rank highly in Google search engine results pages (SERPs)?

These compelling stats prove why you have to rank high on the SERPs:

•  90%  of online purchases start with Google searches.

•  Brand awareness improves by 46% if you appear in mobile search ads.

•  Click-through rates increase by 30.8% if you move up one spot on the SERPs.

So what does this mean for you?

Topping the SERPs might assist web-savvy companies in increasing sales, interaction, and brand recognition.

However, achieving these goals is challenging, especially targeting short, high-volume keywords. In addition, these terms are competitive and expensive to bid on.

Long-tail keywords may help you attract highly targeted search phrases more readily and at a lower cost. Is it fascinating? Great!

Let’s get this party started. To attract high-intention searchers, finding long tail-keywords.

Why Do Long-Tail Keywords Matter?

Long tail keywords (made up of three or more words) are more similar to real Google search queries than short-tail keywords (made up of two words).

They’re precise yet uncommon, attracting fewer searches than their shorter counterparts. Low competition.

So then, why should you care about targeting them?

Long tail keywords convert exceedingly well. This is because they are long and detailed, enabling them to match user intentions closely. As a result, they receive more clicks and generate more traffic.

Need evidence?

My recent Instagram environments post has been successful. It’s doing well on Google and fetching a top position on Instagram spaces.

According to the data, this chart shows how much interaction and ranking various head-term (Instagram space) variants have.

The long-tail keyword (“how to space out Instagram captions”) generates more clicks.

In addition, it improves my site’s ranking versus the comparable shorter phrase (“Instagram space”), which is also true for the extended tail term (“how to space out Instagram captions”).

Still not convinced?

Then, check out these data-backed points in favor of long-tail keywords.

They Have Low Competition

Short tail keywords are considered preferable by marketers since they are competitive.

Because they’re at the bottom of the graph, long-tail keywords (also known as “long-tail”) have less competition.

The more competitive a term’s region, the more possibilities it opens up for you to rank.

That is why higher impressions can be obtained via Google Ads with long-tail keyword phrases.

I checked the keyword difficulty (KD) scores of long tail keyword and short tail keyword semantically-similar keywords (LSI) to verify the claim.

As the keyword gets longer, the KD reduces.

That is why businesses that rely on search advertising should employ more extended phrases and outperform the competition.

They Attract Qualified Traffic

However, using longer phrases results in higher-quality traffic that is more likely to convert.

Why’s that?

Keyword phrases that are too general will rarely lead to conversions. Instead, they reveal very little about the searcher’s intent.

The searcher may not be entirely sure what target audience they’re looking for. Are they seeking information, assistance with navigation, or a purchase?

These vague leads might be tough to engage and convert.

On the other hand, Longer queries are employed by those who are certain of their goal.

These searchers are already in the advanced stages of their buyer journeys.

If you build your marketing blueprint around long-tailed keywords, you can efficiently engage these high-potential consumers.

They Are Cheaper

We come to the best part about long-tail keywords.

What’s that?

Keywords with three or more words have a reduced cost-per-click (CPC) than those with two words.

Therefore, even small businesses can afford to pay for advertising using these specific keyword phrases.

Let me provide some evidence to support my assertion. Refer to the CPC comparison from the previous example:

The CPC for the longest keyword (“how to lose weight fast”) is the lowest.

Get my point?

I’m attempting to say that long tail keywords might aid both organic and sponsored marketing.

Drive Website Traffic in Two Steps Using Long-Tail Keywords

As you can see, long-tail keywords are a powerful growth-hacking approach in digital marketing.

But it won’t attract the intended website traffic if you cram them into your content or target them without a clear strategy.

Then what should you do?

Look for the Right Long-Tail Keywords: First and foremost; you must determine long-tail keywords that are relevant to your industry, subject, and audience. There are a variety of methods for doing this.

Google Search: Start typing a relevant broad keyword in the Google search bar and pick one of the longer auto-complete suggestions that appear.

You may also pick keywords from the “Related searches” and “People also ask” sections on the page.

These are more specialized but less common terms on which you may focus.

•Keyword Research Tool: You’ll get more out of Google searches if you reduce the number of words.

Instead, use keyword research tools such as Google to help you find what you’re looking for. Keyword Planner or a comparable platform, such as SEMrush.

Use the keyword seed and add relevant criteria like location, volume, and match type to make things easier.

You’ll get a list of keywords with their search volumes, KD, and CPC so you can compare them side by side.

The next step is to sort the results (low to high) and choose the top super-specific long keywords.

Suggested keyword categories may also be used to lower search volume.

In the above example, “best social media tools” was my broad keyword. I selected an additional keyword term, “analytics,” to get a list of keywords for analytics-based social media tools to refine the results.

Is that all?

One more trick.

When people are seeking information, they frequently ask questions on Google.

So look for a keyword tool with a “Questions” filter to drill down into those exact keywords.

Competitor Research: You can also discover your competitors’ long-tail keywords. Ahrefs, for example, generates keyword reports by domain names.

You may outrun your competitors by analyzing their keyword strategy.

How can you do that?

It’s simple. Learn which organic and sponsored pages are gaining traction.

Then, create reports for the keywords each page is focusing on. Out of these keywords, identify the low-volume ones and incorporate them into your content marketing.

Online Consumer Forums: Look at your consumers’ discussion threads on sites like Reddit and Quora to see how they’re talking about you. Set up alerts for high-potential target audiences.

Take note of how they communicate and the language they use. What are their goals and requirements?

If you can get inside your target audience’s heads, you’ll be able to discover better long-tail keywords. There, you have a list of ready-to-use long-tail keyword phrases to focus on.

Target Long-Tail Keywords the Right Way

Now we get to the nitty-gritty of attracting organic traffic with our handpicked long-tail keywords.

However, not all keywords may be treated in the same way.

Confused?

Let me elaborate on that. The search “demand curve” for each topic is determined by how much people are searching for it, and we can categorize long-tail keywords into two categories: “topical” and “supporting.”

Your targeting will differ depending on the group you choose.

Targeting Topical Long-Tail Keywords

A topical keyword discusses a specific subject. If you search for them in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you’ll notice that their “parent topic” is the same.

For the sake of this research, I used “keyword cannibalization.”

If you can’t access this tool, look at the top-performing sites for this term, and you’ll find that all of their titles contain the key phrase.

What are some examples of search terms that you might use to generate website traffic?

Answer: Create a separate page for each term. Sure, it’ll be difficult, but it’ll be more accessible than competing for popular yet vague keywords. Another fantastic approach is to utilize modifiers to target even more precisely.

For example, “black shoes” has a high KD, but when you change it to “black shoes with khaki pants,” the KD comes down to two.

It’s easy to defeat these two rivals. You don’t even need to produce lengthy, detailed content. Instead, a simple keyword-rich piece of writing can be enough.

Targeting Supporting Long-Tail Keywords 

There’s no point in creating separate landing pages for these long-tail keywords.

Because Google organizes results from various similar-sounding queries together, your sites will be among the crowd.

Then what?

Target the head term. But first, learn to identify supporting keywords. Then, run your keyword through Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and check the parent topic.

If you’re trying to achieve something that hasn’t been done previously, you’ll need to go after the topic’s parent.

But how?

•  Study the top-ranked pages for the head keywords.

•  Examine how well-written and thorough the material is. Try to improve your page based on this information.

•  Front-load the keyword ideas in the page title.

•  Include the term in the subheadings, page URL, meta description, page content, and image file names (if any).

I know it’s an uphill battle to rank for broad terms, but the effort will be worth it.

Ready to Ace Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords provide many advantages, but they are not a magic wand.

They must be attacked methodically and tactfully.

The strategies and tools I’ve described in this post should boost your search engine optimization efforts and website search traffic.