Long Tail Keywords - Why They Are Important

Long tail keywords may sound a bit reptilian, but they are important in generating targeted visitors to your website. 

A long term keyword is just another name for a keyword phrase consisting of three or more words, that collectively are much more specific than a single keyword.  And generally speaking these long tail keyword are searched for less frequently that single word keywords.

Main Street

Let’s use a regular main street type store to illustrate how long tail keywords work.

Suppose that you had a motorcycle repair shop that only worked on Harley Davidson  motorcycles.  Would your sign out front only say ‘Motorcycles’ or ‘Motorcycle Repairs’?  You might get more traffic walking in the door, but a lot of it would be for other brands of motorcycles.  Do you care about them?  Wouldn’t that waste some of your time dealing with them? 

Wouldn’t it be better to be more specific with your signage?  Sure, your in the door traffic would be less, but you would also know that they’d be much more likely to be interested in exactly what you had to offer.

Think of your keywords as your signage

Now suppose also that you have a  website for your shop.  This website advertises your sales and specials, offers coupons, and lets people know what’s in stock.  Now based on our store front example which keywords would you rather use to get targeted visitors to your site, ‘motorcycle repairs’ or ‘Harley Davidson motorcycle repairs’?

That’s the advantage of using long tail keywords.  You get more targeted traffic.  And studies have shown that this targeted traffic is closer to buying than untargeted traffic.

People these days are getting more search engine savvy.  They know that if they want to find a specific thing, or a specific bit of information on the internet, they need to search more specifically.  And they can do that by using a multi-word phrase as a search term, and putting it in quotes.  This tells the search engine to look for that exact phrase.

Remember that a search term, and a keyword are just two different names for the same thing, used two different ways.  Some one searches using search terms.  A website owner attracts people using keywords that match up with the search terms. 

Now the general objective in selecting and using keywords is to match up your keywords to what people are searching for.  So if you want to attract people looking for your specific products or information, then you need to use more specific keywords.  If searchers are searching specifically, then you want to be found specifically.  And to do this you need to use long tail keywords.

Cyber Matchmaker

Remember that search engines are like giant cyber matchmakers.  They want to satisfy the people searching, with relevant results.  They want to match up searchers with providers, using search terms and keywords.  And if you’re a provider, then you want to make it easy for the search engines to match up your products or information, with the searchers who are looking for it.

Using long tail keywords gives you the specificity to attract the exact kind of people you want to your website.  People looking for exactly what you have to offer.  Using the correct keywords can be like a traffic magnet.  Attracting more and more people looking for what you have to offer, right to your cyber doorstep, your website.