Top 3 Reasons Why Long-Tail Keywords Need to Be Part of Your SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization is a key part of inbound marketing. Optimizing your content around popular keywords can help bring in traffic from search engines. In this post, we’ll take a look a particular type of keywords: long-tail keywords. These highly specific keywords bring benefits that shorter, simpler terms can’t match. Here are three great reasons to include long-tail keywords in your content.

1. Long-Tail Keywords Face Less Competition

Long-tail keywords are highly specific terms. For example, far fewer sites are targeting the long-tail keyword “Brooks Ravenna women’s size 6” than the simpler keyword “running shoes” An online store selling running shoes could dominate the front page of Google for this long-tail keyword, rather than languishing on page 2 or 3 for the more general keyword.

2. Long-Tail Keywords Attract Buyers, Not Browsers

Someone who searches for a long-tail keyword is often much further along the buying funnel than a person who searches with a general keyword. For example, someone searching for “running shoes” is probably right at the beginning of the buying process, perhaps looking to read some reviews or content about the various types of shoes, but unlikely to make a purchase today. On the other hand, someone who is searching for a particular type of shoe is more likely to buy the shoes. If you’re looking to turn visitors to your site into paying customers, then targeting long-tail keywords could be beneficial.

3. Long-Tail Keywords Are Great for Local Businesses

If you run a local business, you’re probably only interested in bringing in searchers who live in or are visiting your area. Including the location of your business in your long-tail keywords can help to restrict your reach to a local audience. Instead of targeting your content only around general keywords, include some location-specific terms, such as “running store in Midtown, New York.” Including your location in your content can attract searchers who are looking to find a particular type of brick-and-mortar business in their local area.

Long-tail keywords are an essential part of any inbound marketing campaign. They bring in relevant visitors who are at an advanced stage of the buying process and face less competition than more general terms.

To find out more about how long-tail keywords can benefit your SEO strategy, contact us today.