Are you having trouble ranking in the search engines or increasing your overall blog traffic?
If so, maybe it’s time you stop focusing on generic keywords ad start to explore the world of long tail keywords using long tail pro.
What are long tail keywords you ask?
Here’s a simple way to explain it… “wordpress” is a generic search term. If you search for it in Google you will find various topics. Now if you were to search for “free wordpress installation service”, that’s a long tail keyword and if you search for it, you know exactly what you are looking for.
What are long tail keywords better than generic keywords?
Easy! :D
Not only are they much easier to rank for, but they are super targeted in comparison to generic keywords.
Let’s use “wordpress” again as an example and see how it stacks up in comparison to other long tail variations of the keyword when using Google Keyword Tool.
What you can learn from this is that you can write articles, format titles and focus the efforts of your backlink building to these terms and have a much better chance at ranking in the search results.
Yes, many of these keywords have a low amount of search volume, but they are much more targeted.
If someone is searching for “wordpress setup service” you can be they are looking to have a wordpress blog setup!
Find the Best Long Tail Keywords with Long Tail Pro
One of my favorite software programs out there is called Long Tail Pro, which allows you to look up long tail keywords. It works much like Google Keyword Tool but it also provides you with an competition score, which tells you how hard or easy it will be for you to rank in the search results.
You can see a screenshot of the Long Tail Pro results below, using the same keywords we mentioned above.
You can see from the chart above that some of these keywords are very easy to rank for. Easy to rank for keywords are in the 20-30 range, medium competition is in the 30-40 range and anything above 50 is quite competitive.
Again, it is important to note that the volume on these search phrases is low, but if you were able to rank on the first page for some of these terms, you would be bringing in some very highly targeted traffic to your site month after month.
Also if you do the work to target high paying keywords, such as “hosting” related keywords, this could result in a few hundred to a few thousands extra dollars per months.
This is one of the major reasons why it’s important to look at the overall value of your long term keywords and not just the amount of people who are searching for the keywords in a given month.
Features of Long Tail Pro
Here are a quick features and review of long tail pro keyword research tool.
Quick 5 Minute Step: You can setup long tail pro within few mintues, You can quickly get targeted traffic, lead generation made easy!
Simple: Easy to use, allows you to create targeted campaigns and research competitors.
Effective Optimization: You can use long tail pro keyword research tool to get any type of business result you want. Easy to use.
Grab Long Tail Pro Now for 37$
Even Google Wants You to Use Long Tail Keywords
Yes, it’s true! Even Google prefers that users of their search engines use long tail keywords over generic search terms.
It provides better search results for the people using Google, and especially for the advertisers of the search engine as well.
Just take a look at the screenshot below and see how Google lists a bunch of long tail variations for you to choose from at the bottom of each search page.
Start Incorporating Long Tail Keywords into Your Blog
There are many free tools out there like Google Keyword Tool, Google Analytics and free trial versions of Long Tail Pro that will allow you to analyze the type of traffic and search terms people are using to get to your site.
For all of these reasons and many more, you should be using long tail keywords to write better content for your site, target your content better to your audience and rank higher in the search engines.
Hello Zac,
Short tail keywords may have large search volumes, but it will be very tough to rank high in Search engines. In comparison to long tail keyword to short tail keyword it has low search volume and have less search volume but in search engine it has easy effect. I think we should work on that keywords which will be easily get ranked in search engine,specially when you are a new blogger.
Hey Zac,
I also prefer to optimize my articles with long tail keywords.But question is it is looking like difficult to add words in a sentence.Sometime it causes to break the writing pattern. I would like to ask from you,how can i use long tail keywords properly in my posts ?
Thanks for a valuable information. I was completely unaware of long tail Keywords and I will use this feature in my future post. thanks :)
Hi Zac,
Thanks for sharing this. Long tail keywords are the right way to get into the keyword war nowadays. GOne were the days where you try to rank on normal keywords :)
By any chance you have experience with Google Keyword Planner? Tools going to be out soon and still figuring how that works out!
With an increase in number of Websites that are Published on the Internet,It is very difficult now -a-days that the article you have published will be at first page of Search Engines by using the Generic Keywords.So I completely agree with the Zac and using long tail keywords will definitely have greater impact in the long term.
I use and love Long Tail Pro. I haven’t upgraded yet though. I really like your view on long tail keywords and google. I never really thought about how they add terms to your search queries to make your search term more long tail. great point!
Long Tail keywords are the exact key to finght with any kind of penguin or panda update in my view, And Long Tail Pro may help the users to search the variety of long tail keywords by using it. I always prefer to use long tail keywords at the time of writing title of my blogs posts. Thanks.
Hi Zac,
I’ve been using Long Tail Pro for a couple of months and I can only say good things about this keyword research tool. I spend a lot of time doing keyword research, and I think this is the most important step when creating a new website or writing a new blog post.
Haven’t yet tested the monthly plan on LPT but I’m thinking about it. The keyword difficulty chart looks like a real time saver.
Enjoy your day.Cheers!
~Philip
Hello Zac.
Nice share regarding the software. I too believe that long tail keywords can boost up the traffic due to less competition . And most of the newbie or freshers to blogging do not focus more on kind of keywords they are using.
Nice post Zac. I usually rely on Google adwords keyword tool to search for keywords and as Amal has said, google search suggestions give a good idea about long tail keywords which should be used in posts. I would like to add one thing: “Use of LSI keywords”. With the change in google algorithm, using LSI proves beneficial.
Thanks for post!
Hi Zac, Thanks for the LTP detailed article. I just bought another keyword tool 2 days ago. But i think i’ve to give a shot to this one also. I’ll let to you know here about the experience soon.
Sarah
Actually I agree with your points that long tail keyword is better than generic keywords. But now we can also use generic terms like visit here, my website, click here etc. These generic terms are very helpful.
Hi Zac,
Long Tail keywords are very important nowdays as you explained above. I would love to try out Long tail Pro software and see it it works for me. thanks so much for sharing about this software and the method of explaining how it works.
Hi Zac,
Nice post with great information and I really enjoyed this post while reading and Yes Long tail keyword is the best way to drive more traffic as it offers low competition but I never heard about this long tail pro software but after reading this post I am thinking of to try this software. Thanks for sharing this post.
Nice article Zac.
Long tail pro is a great tool for bloggers and specially for affiliate marketer to build Micro niche sites.
wow, nice post but application is bit expansive, also suggest me some more keyword related stuffs. i need to know more about the keyword research for my blog, basically i focus on my content and guess the what user will search and i pit those term in my post header/title/meta description/ subheadings. i don’t use to spent lots of time on it, i need to.
wao thanks a lot zac…long tail keywords was something i was using a long time ago and still do because it is obvious we cant rank for keywords like “wordpress” as they would have taken up by popular sites…some real nice tools you have shared with which we can analyze which keywords to hit for!!
Great Post….but i want to ask is it always necessary to use long tail keywords??? and what are the demerits of using short tail keywords..???
To Answer This –
Advantages of Long Tail or LSI keywords –
1. They get you targeted traffic.
2. Easy SEO and required less efforts than Generic KWs
3. Less Competition
For example – You search for online shopping, you will land up on results of sites which sells almost everything, but if you want to buy shoes only, then its better to search “online stores for buying shoes”
Zac,
If you think I am wrong or need to add something, then please do the needful.
Thanks,
Vikash
Long Tail Keywords work as filters and direct related audience to the blog.
I suspect if it works as traffic boosting strategy, but it works to target traffic with common interest.
Good points!
Amazing Article Zac, I was not knowing much about keyword research and recently I started gathering info about keyword research. This article is going to help me learn more about keywords :)
Currently I am using Google Keyword Tool. If it is better than Google Keyword Tool then I will give a try to long trail
I tried it`s free trial and it`s worthy to get a paid version. Recently I collected few interesting keyword tools available online.
Long tail pro helps to see the competition for the keyword you selected, all you need to do is connect your Google account and start keyword campaign.
~@Khajamoin1
I agreed with you when newbie wants to learn SEO’s those secret which can prove really good for them then they should try to search and apply these kind of ideas which help for them alot.
Long tail keywords are performing best. Is there any free alternate to this tool?
Using a Long tail keyword is definitely the best way to get good rank and traffic from google, but the problem most bloggers have is that they dont know how to incorporate this keywords into there post fluently
Hi Zac, I know that ranking for long tail keyword phrases are better in the long run, at this moment in time. But with all of the constant algorithm changes that Google makes. Nobody can be sure of how long this strategy will last.
Amazing post,
Its all about the long tail. I am not a big hotshot SEO guru, and I never will be. I don’t like Google and their rule changes, but one thing I can do it long tail keywords and I always apply this technique where I can.
Thanks for a great post.
John
Hi Ammar and Zac, this is an excellent post, long tail keywords are a must for today’s blogs. I fortunately ranked for a few by accident which made me realise how powerful they really are. They open up back doors to your website sometimes when you least expect it. Getting them to match your niche is important as the traffic is better targeted however free traffic is never a bad thing. I got ranked for ‘the story of Ibiza’ in one post I wrote, got me quite a bit of free traffic and ranked no 1 in Google, not quite the traffic I want but they were free new readers so I certainly will not moan. :-)
Great post Zac! (and great to see you writing here)
Long tail keywords are so much better to rank for than generic keywords. Many people should try to use longer keywords for their posts when they can. Researching your posts before publishing them is always key to driving the most traffic to them. You shouldn’t over optimize, but you SHOULD optimize cleverly.
Seriously — this is exactly what I’m doing with my new blog. Now, I’m on link building strategy. What’s best link building strategy worked out for you, Zac?
Guest blogging is working pretty well right now. Stick with relevant niche sites.
Long tail keywords are good, because of less competition. But long tail keywords do not have good search volume, how one can depend on them. I mean even if you are shown on the first page, there are very few people who are searching for those keywords. I am bit confused about this thing, hope you will help me out in clearing my doubt.
Great idea Zac. Long tail keywords is the future of ranking higher on search engines.
Great example between long tail keywords and generic keywords. Long tail keywords always help in increase organic traffic and there is no doubt it is preferred by Google. Thanks Johnson for searching this valuable information and sharing with us.
Hello Zac,
Great information. I agree with your points. I think it’s better to target long tail keyword as getting ranked on the first page-first spot would be very tough for a short keyword as the competition would be high.
Looking forward to learn more from you. :)
Driving Long traffic is great as you would receive huge amount to traffic to those posts you might think will never get much attention.
Hi Zac,
Is there any free alternative to long tail pro?
Sure, use Google Keyword Tool.
Hey Zac. Happy to see you here on ABT :)
I still know people who stick to short keywords and think they do the best.
This article will surely enlighten them. Well written sir :)
Using Google Search Suggestions for finding Long Tail Keywords is the best idea if you ask me.
Thanks :)
Thanks, glad you liked it. Even if you don’t use Long Tail Pro, there are still plenty of other great and free tools out there.
I agree with you totally brother, Google had made long-tail keyword research simple, using the suggestions in the search bar and the Google search suggestions below results is a very good way to start.
Great post Zac.
Wow Zac this is amazing you told me what I was really really searching for, I was doing very hard job on my blog but still no much traffic coming to my blog and here I got the reason I generally used small keywords in post but here I learned how much and more effective these long tail keyword strategy is, Thank you so much really, I admire your article, love it, I mean it all :)
I love using keyword tools to find new targets and ways to rank in the results. Long tail is definitely one of the best ways to go.
Thank you for the post. I really try to get my blog in 1st place for the long tail keyword. But to be honest it’s really hard compared to level 1 domain. My is still using subdomain so it is pretty hard to get on 1st
Why not upgrade to a domain name of your own? It’s only $10 a year.