How to Create Long-Tail Keywords

You have an amazing product or service that everyone should definitely know about. You even have a killer website that perfectly explains how amazing that product or service is. Despite how great all of these factors are, you still can’t seem to generate any traffic to your website. Users aren’t taking the time or effort to click on your links, and you can’t figure out why. Sound familiar? This is likely due to the fact that many people never even come across your link in search engine rankings. What we often don’t think about when we search the Internet is how each highly ranking website tailors itself to rank at the top of search query lists. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.

SEO Basics

SEO is the process of improving your website so that it attracts more visitors from search engines. Without proper optimization, you may have the exact content a user is looking for but that user can’t find it because what they are typing into the search engine isn’t matching up with the keywords that your website is using.

It’s called the world wide web for a reason. It’s huge! Search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. work hard to sift through the content on the internet and return a list of results based on the user’s search. Search engines send out what are known as “spiders” to find helpful, trustworthy and relevant website content based on the keywords used in the search. The website content that the spiders find is then ranked in order of authority and popularity on the search results listing page. So, when you and your friends can’t remember the name of “that one actor” in your favorite show, but you type in “lead actor in House of Cards,” the search engine uses those words to provide you with a list of the top websites and pages the spiders found for your keywords. And as it turns out, the more words the better.

The More Words the Better

When choosing keywords applicable to your business, consider longer phrases and pertinent questions. This is known as using long-tail keywords, and this practice is a common oversight. The idea is to craft search phrases using more words to give further detail and provide context, better matching that of user searches.

Let’s consider this example: If you are looking for a pair of red Italian leather stilettos, you wouldn’t type “shoes” into the search engine. You would type exactly what you are looking for, which is red Italian leather stilettos. Typing in “shoes” is using a short-tail keyword, while being more specific and using more words is using long-tail keywords.

Where Do I Start?

Okay, so you now understand that long-tail keywords will help you rank higher in organic searches, but where do you start? We’re one step ahead of you. Here are a few tips to consider when brainstorming long-tail keywords:

1. Common industry questions about your products and/or services.

2. Questions your customers may have that your company provides solutions to.

3. Questions a customer may have when deciding to buy your product and/or service.

4. Mimic the language your buyer personas use.

5. Search for alternative uses of those long-tail keywords on the web.

These tips can help you brainstorm long-tail keywords that can be used when configuring your website pages for SEO. That way, when customers type in longer keywords for their search, search engines will post your website closer to the top of the list because of your relevance to user searches. This allows you to actually give the customers what they are looking for and requires no guess work on their end. It’s a win-win situation and the key to directing more organic traffic to your site!