Long-tail keywords are more specific types of keywords, because they contain more information than a regular keyword. For example, a broad keyword might be “tree surgeon”, but a long-tail keyword would be “tree surgeon Tonbridge, Kent”. This keyword is much more specific than the broad keyword.

In this article, we’ll take a look at why you should focus on long-tail keywords. The reasons may surprise you.

1. Interested customers
Long-tail keywords can include specific queries or locations, showing that the customer has a more specialized interest in the niche. Let’s go back to our tree surgery example above. The broad keyword “tree surgery” is very vague and searchers searching may only want a definition or may want to learn about tree surgery in general. Since it is so broad, that keyword does not show much interest to the client who wants to take advantage of tree surgery services.

By comparison, let’s take a look at “Tonbridge, Kent tree surgeon”. This keyword pinpoints the customer’s intent. By looking at this keyword, we know that the client wants to hire a tree trimmer in Tonbridge, preferably. While this keyword may get very few searches per month, those searches are precise and precise, and are much more profitable than broad keywords. If you have a business ranking for those keywords, that person is more likely to buy your services.

2.Competition
Long-tail keywords may get fewer searches each month, because they are so specific, but these are the keywords that are easiest to rank for. It’s virtually impossible for a small business to start ranking for very broad keywords like “tree surgery” or “confectionery” or “candles,” because these keywords are already dominated by big-name websites like Wikipedia, Amazon, and eBay. These websites have bulletproof SEO built into their online marketing, making it impossible to pass them for such a broad keyword.

However, if you narrow down your keyword by converting it to a long-tail keyword, such as “Kent candle shop” or “Kent birthday party candy”, the competition will drop tremendously.

This is because fewer websites have the exact long-tail keyword “birthday party candy” embedded in their text. They may serve sweets all over the world, but they don’t specialize in catering for birthday parties or for Kent. That’s where your business comes in.

How do I rank for long tail keywords?
You don’t need to write blog posts for certain long-tail keywords specifically, but you can use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that could be profitable for your business. Don’t be fooled by the number of searches, if they only get fifty searches a month. If you think about it, that’s fifty interested people every month looking for your company’s products or services. Even if you keep a few of them after the first purchase, that’s enough to really increase profits.

You may be naturally ranking for certain long-tail keywords without even knowing it. If your website contains a lot of textual content, such as paragraphs describing your services, location, and products, Googlebot will automatically start ranking you for certain keywords. You can increase your blog post numbers to start creating more textual content for Googlebot to scan.

However, if you find that you’d like to rank for a certain long-tail keyword, you can write a blog post specifically with that phrase embedded in the title and text.