You’ve heard about long-tail keyword phrases, but you might not understand what they are and why you should care. A long-tail keyword phrase is, as you might expect, longer than your typical keyword phrase—usually three to five words. And you should care since they can support you in claiming a top spot on Google.
The Search Engine Optimization Magic of Long-Tail Keyword Phrases
You Start a Battle You Can Win
If your website appears in one of the leading three positions on Google, it will get a leading share of the search engine traffic and, all the credibility that goes along with that top spot. Since companies have worked unrelentingly to optimize their websites and claim these highly visible positions, most keywords are now so competitive that small and medium-sized companies don’t have a high probability of floating to the top of the rankings.
And why get into a competition you can’t win?
For example, I’m a copywriter. I can envision the oodles of website visitors I would appeal to in the first place on Google for copywriting. In fact, my investigation tells me I could attract nearly 2 million dollars a year just by reaching that position. But haven’t even attempted to claim it. Why? Well, my investigation shows more than 20 million pages on Google that use this keyword. And they are not weaklings. No, these websites have thousands of pages. They’re also touted by thousands of backlinks pointing to them, in essence saying – “This page is great. Take a look at it!”
So, since I’m not likely to win if I compete head on with the heavyweights for ‘copywriting’, I researched to discover a long-tail keyword phrase where the competition’s a little friendlier. I came up with ‘copywriting for SEO’. Yes, there are still 71 million competitors but they are not intent on battling for 1st position for this phrase, so they haven’t optimized their websites for it. Bottom line: it’s a battle of lighter-weight competitors where my website stands a chance to rise to one of the top positions on Google.
You Attract Targeted Visitors
If a visitor reaches my website because they typed ‘copywriting for SEO’ into Google, Bing or Yahoo, they most likely are not only interested in convincing, engaging copywriting that can covert browsers into clients, but also want to optimize their website for search engines. And since I can write to engage web visitors and appeal to search engines, those visitors are more likely to convert to clients than those who just searched on ‘copywriting.’
The Downside of Prolonged Tail Search phrases
There is, of course, a downside to long-tail keywords. You are not going to attract droves of website traffic the way you might if you could climb to the top of the search engines with a normal keyword. So you need to counter this by using a number of long-tail keywords. So I might add another phrase such as ‘copywriting a website.’
A Strategy for the Long-Term
When I start to create web pages that incorporate ‘copywriting for SEO’, ‘copywriting a website’ and more similar keyword phrases, I am also pushing my website up little by little for the keyword ‘copywriting’. So I haven’t absolutely deserted it—I just don’t expect it to pay out soon.
You can use these tips to move forward with your search engine optimization copywriting, or you can employ a website copywriter copywriter to help you out with SEO content.
For more information on SEO copywriting, view the video below.