By Madeline Schoeck
If you have spent any time researching the SEO techniques that can be used to help your website conquer Google's search algorithms and rise to the to the top of relevant search results, you have likely gained some idea of how keywords keywords affect your rankings. Simply put, search engines match their string search algorithms to keywords, generating a variety of applicable websites. While a variety of other factors also factor into a website's page ranking in these search results, keywords are a vital component of a web search, and are therefore just as important when it comes to SEO.
So you have an idea of what keywords are and how they affect your website. However, you may have come across another term that seems similar but is still fairly mystifying: long tail keywords. Like all keywords, long tail keywords are used to match against string search algorithms. But unlike the keywords you have read about in the past, these equally important components are not used to draw in general web traffic. Read on to learn how long tail keywords can help your website attract quality search users, and how Semify works to find the best of these keywords for you.
What Exactly Are Long Tail Keywords?
Long tail keywords are keyword phrases that are anywhere from three to five words long. While a search engine user will typically use shorter keywords for a general search, these longer phrases are used to attract more specific results. They also mesh well with the way we internet users are learning to think and use our resources: if you are searching for, say, coffee mugs like the ones used in your favorite cafe, you know better than to enter the keyword "coffee mugs"; that would bring up an innumerable amount of results, and its probable that none of them would match what you were looking for. However, if you typed in longer search terms, like "blue gorilla shaped coffee mugs", "lego coffee mugs", or "square coffee mugs", you're more likely to find a product like the ones you love at the cafe. You're also more likely to make a purchase. As a website trying to attract customers as well as improve your search ranking, these long tail keyword searches are therefore considered to be higher quality than a general search.
You are likely aware that there is a lot of competition for basic keywords, which decreases your chances of ranking successfully on the first page of search results. Long tail keywords, on the other hand, have less competition. They also appeal to a better pool of users: there are fewer people searching for "blue gorilla shaped coffee mugs", but there is greater potential for a sale. Additionally, as major players like Google slowly move towards natural language and mobile searches, these longer, more conversational search terms mesh better with an evolving search process. Think about it: when you use Siri to conduct a Google search, are you going to say "What is the time in Singapore?" or a string of words like "current time Singapore"? Because of these factors, no SEO campaign is complete without a few long tail keywords to target specific search results and users.
But How Does Semify Identify the Best Long Tail Keywords to Use?
Despite their potential benefits, long tail keywords are admittedly a risk. If you choose the wrong phrases, you could end up completely missing a search pool of quality search engine users. Semify works to avoid this by utilizing two of our most important services: research and technical precision. The Semify team begins every project by learning as much as possible about your company, your services, and what you're looking for from the world of SEO. We then turn to our software: our specialized program analyzes search engine information to identify the most productive keywords, including long tail keywords, and generate potential content topics from this list. The collected information is then used to create a variety of original content that is likely to match with real searches your potential customers and clients are making. Our on-site content writers will work to combine these general and long tail keywords in a way that is natural, eloquent and interesting, which will attract users and also help your website meet Google's quality guidelines. The amount of research Semify performs, combined with our high editorial standards, reduce the risk of using long tail keywords and change them into targeted sales tactics.
A number of factors must be balanced in order to create an effective, natural SEO campaign: keywords, links, web traffic, quality...the list goes on. However, if you work to create a high quality website that blends all of these qualities, they cease to be merely factors and merge into a seamless, sophisticated web presence that speaks for itself. This means generating excellent content that utilizes both general and long tail keywords to draw in a variety of users. Thanks to the services and software Semify offers its customers, this is easier to achieve than you could have imagined.