SEO and Long Tail keywords

Search Engine Optimization, which is often termed SEO, is the well known practice of improving the volume and nature of traffic to a specific website by means of organic positions with the main search engines. The fact is that the better your organization's website ranks in the search engines pages for certain keywords, also known as SERPS, the greater number of visitors you experience on your website.

The key issue with any form of search engine optimisation is to ensure that your website is focusing on the right keywords. The term keywords related to the wording that is utilised by individuals when searching for certain products or services. There are a huge number of potential keywords available for almost every subject matter that can be thought of and herein lies the problem for many websites.

The problem that many website owners face is knowing which keywords to focus on to ensure that they receive targeted traffic which is relevant to the product or service their offering and therefore converts at a much better rate than general traffic. keywords come in various forms and an often quoted form of keyword is the long tail keyword which in generic terms simply means a search term which has various keywords contained within it and which normally numbers at least 3 to 4+ words.

The key benefit of targeting longtail keywords is the fact that they are generally highly targeted and specific to a particular product or service meaning that the individuals searching using that particular term are far further down the buying cycle than a generic search term. An example of this would be the difference between the two keywords, “widget” and “blue spheroidal widget”

As you can imagine someone searching for the first term of “widget” may well be simply seeking information about widgets, whilst the second search term of “blue spheroidal widget” is much more targeted and therefore far more likely to convert. The benefit of the long tail keyword is the fact that they generally have far less competition than generic terms, meaning that obtaining top positions for these particular keywords is easier than for more generic search terms. The downside however is that the levels of traffic are significantly lower.

Finding the right long tail keywords involved keyword analysis using tools such as Googles own keyword tool as well as Bing’s.