You might have heard about long tail keyphrases (or keywords) but perhaps you are not too sure about what they are for and how they could improve your SEO.

We’ve already talked about it in some of our articles, the basis of a successful SEO goes through keywords. (Please note that long tail keywords or phrases are also called long train keywords or phrases).

Let’s take an example …

If you are a plumber in New York and a user types “plumber New York” and you have referenced these terms, your site should be displayed in the first results.

However, there are different types of keywords:

• buying keywords
• generic keywords
• long tail keywords

Buying keywords are the auction keywords, used with Adwords in a paid search strategy.

When someone embarks on natural referencing, he seeks to position himself on generic keywords that correspond to the activity or profession he exercises.

For example, we think of “plumber”, “restaurant”, “real estate agency” or “SEO agency”. But you can easily imagine how competitive the competition for these keywords must be! All english speaking competitors must exercise these professions on a daily basis. It is a load of people, right?

Seeking to position yourself on this type of keywords can therefore require a lot of effort and sometimes a waste of time and money. It does not mean that the fight is lost in advance … But almost, being against some of these giants of the web and their team of SEO experts.

It may therefore be relevant to position oneself on specific keywords that will obviously have less competition. This is the job of the long tail keywords.

All your strategy is therefore based on the choice of your keywords! A little return on this essential step.

So, what are long tail keywords supposed to do then?

Remember that …

Your website is ranked among millions of others in the search engine databases. The latter propel them in their results pages (SERP) according to the requests typed for the Internet users.

This is what we are going to see in the following 6 chapters …

By the way, have you subscribed to my free Internet Marketing course? If not, click on the image below and …

1 – The choice of relevant keywords

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We have just said it, it is a strategic step through which all the users of the web have to go through. Depending on your activity, you will have to position yourself on a certain number of keywords. They will attract some traffic, as many Internet users possibly interested in your products and services and therefore as many potential prospects!

By describing very precisely your activity, your products and services, you will bring quality traffic and this is what interests us.

Indeed, being precise will allow you to position yourself on less competitive requests that would be time-consuming and energy-consuming. It is here that begins the concept of long train (long tail).

You will understand, the keywords on which you are positioned are in fact the queries typed by users on Google and other search engines. The goal is of course that your site comes out on the greatest number of keywords!

But how to find the keywords on which to position myself?

Of course you can find it yourself depending on your activity. You know your domain. In addition, some keywords seem pretty obvious. If you sell shoes, you will definitely need to work the keyword “buying shoes” and all its synonyms. But sometimes, this job can be more complicated. A helping hand is not a refusal.

Ubersuggest

This is a great tool. It was acquired by Internet marketing guru Neil Patel. It takes advantage of Google autocomplete to return great keyword suggestions when you are short of ideas to find keywords!

Tools of this kind are quite rare, but it is still not my favorite, and the most accurate available … the number one free keyword research tool ~~> Jaaxy.

Answer The Public

I don’t know about you, but for some reasons I just can’t stand the landing page of this tool. But for your benefit, I have to mention it as it is a rather innovative generator of ideas.

Starting from a simple keyword, it generates a list of questions associated with your search. These questions are obviously those that Internet users can type when searching for a product, service or an answer.

Very convenient to retrieve keywords! In addition, this tool generates variations of key phrases and editorial topics.

Jaaxy

A real gem, as basically all users agree. It is the world’s most advanced keyword research tool created by Internet marketers and founders of Wealthy Affiliate for Internet marketers of all levels. Jaaxy reveal the hottest and most profitable keywords in a flash … and it is free! You should give it a try ~~> Jaaxy

How to use my keywords?

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By making qualitative and quantitative content. You need to put these keywords in your content. If possible, avoid mixing themes. Google does not like catchall pages.

So you have to create a page per theme, even if you do not have enough pages. Obviously, there is no need to tell you that over-optimize will subject you to sanctions from Google. Everything must look natural!

To be even more appreciated by Google, do not hesitate to structure your content. It must be legible and airy. The user must easily find what he came for. So feel free to use pictures and beautiful layouts.

After this short reminder about the keywords in general, let’s focus on the subject of the day: the long tail keywords.

2 – The concept of long tail keywords

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Quite simply put, the long tail corresponds to all the very specific and detailed requests written by Internet users in the search engines.

Let’s take examples of long train keyphrases for a real estate agency:

The generic keywords would be: “real estate agency”, “home purchase”, “apartment purchase”, right?

The long trails or trains could be: “purchase house 3 bedrooms Miami”, “rental ground floor apartment New York” or “timeshare apartment summer centre of Palm Beach Florida”.

The examples are quite telling. The long train includes phrases that accurately describe the services or products that you sell or talk about on your website. There are hundreds of thousands of combinations of possible keywords to form what is called the “long tail”!

3 – The origins of long tail keywords

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Also known as “long train” or “long trail”, this concept was born in 2004 and was discovered by Chris Anderson, then editor of the American magazine Wired.

At that time, he was not talking about SEO but online sales. According to him, more than half of the turnover of e-commerce sites was achieved by the collective sale of a very large number of items sold individually, in small quantities.

In other words, one could say that the most popular articles generate only a small part of turnover. The biggest being realized by the sale of other products.

Not clear enough?

Chris Anderson had actually realized that bestsellers represent fewer sales than small low-demand products can collectively represent.

Looking more closely at the Amazon and Netflix sites, we notice two things:

• The best selling products, the “best sellers” represent a lot of sales but few books.
• The other books, which are not sold individually, collectively represent the main benefits of the e-commerce site.

We can also understand the long train with a diagram:

• The bestsellers are represented in the red part: a reduced number of products but whose sale is important.
• In orange, we find all the other “small products”. A lot of different products sold in huge numbers.

The concept of the long tail is interesting when you know that the long tail, the products in orange on the diagram, represents 80% of the turnover of these e-commerce sites. 80%!

4 – The long tail in SEO

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This concept of long tail has therefore very easily translated into SEO.

A small part of the traffic on your website comes from generic keywords, very often typed by Internet users, but hyper competitive!

They require a lot of work and it is difficult to position oneself on these keywords. In addition, these queries will represent approximately 20% of your traffic.

At the same time, many combinations of keywords are typed very few times because they are very precise and specific. The probability that thousands of Internet users type the same thing is therefore quite low.

These keywords thus generate a low traffic but if we add them up, the sum of all these requests represent about 80% of the traffic coming from the search engines.

How to apply the concept of the long train?

In practice, the work is quite similar. It will simply create more volume of text by adding keywords called “long tail”, i.e. more specific, respecting the lexical field of the page.

To use the long tails, it can be very interesting to have a blog. Because you have to write as much as you can! For that, it is better to have an editorial plan with a series of articles to write as well as a list of specific requests related to your theme.

5 – The benefits of the long tail

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Today, the long tail can no longer be ignored in a SEO strategy. To be visible on search engines and to answer the ever increasing number of questions of the Internet users, you must integrate this work into your website.

Especially since the long tail has many advantages.

Increased traffic

The number of queries generated by long tails is much higher than the number of searches on generic keywords.

Let’s do some maths:

Do you think that 200 keywords that each generate 20 visits are better than a keyword that generates 200 visits? Yes, of course!

You will soon understand, that the long tail has the advantage of generating more traffic on your website.

A better rate of conversion

When we look closer, we realize that the long tail is much more beneficial to the user than a generic keyword.

We are getting closer to his research. A user who types a specific search knows what he is looking for. If it’s a product, it may mean that he is already engaged in a buying process.

When he lands on a site that corresponds to the exact product he is looking for, the probability that he buys is much stronger than if he had typed a generic keyword!

When a prospect arrives on your website or blog via the long tail, the conversion rate is much better.

Less competitive queries

We have already talked about the subject a little higher but it is important to have understood this aspect. The generic keywords are not precise and therefore typed millions of times on the web.

For lack of knowledge, many companies are positioning themselves on these types of keywords, which makes them hyper competitive.

On the other hand, in an individual way, the long tail keyword is not much sought after. What makes it accessible to everyone!

6 – The long tail, a concept of the future

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The long tail is a relatively new concept on the web. Quite simply, the more time passes, the more people do specific searches.

They realized the growing intelligence of search engines. From now on, they are able to answer our questions!

A few years ago, we typed an average of 2 keywords per request. Today, we write 3. Tomorrow, we will certainly type even more.

This concept is all the more interesting when we think about the development of voice command. Indeed, who among us has never asked a question to his smartphone as he would to his neighbor? The answer could sometimes be more accurate!

Over time, we will have to leave the writing for the voice command: SIRI, ok Google …

One can even easily ask if, in the long run, we will continue to write? After all, our computers can read the texts for us … (right click> speech> start reading).

These features are developing to increase web accessibility. But one thing that is certain is that everyone is happy.

To conclude

After reading this article, I imagine that you will jump on your SEO strategy to incorporate the long tail keywords. Because this technique opens the way for more queries, more visitors, a higher conversion rate … In other words, a boosted ROI!

And if you wish to learn more about Internet Marketing, how to improve your SEO, keyword research, etc., here below is a little tutorial that will most of the questions that you may have. Click on the image below and …

Thanks for reading …

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Now that you know that you know all about the long tail keywords, will you start applying this newly acquires knowledge to your future blog posts?

If you are already using one or more of the methods described above and have any tips to share with us, we’d like to hear about it. And, if you have any questions, please use the comments’ area below. You should normally receive a reply within the next 48 hours.

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