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How to Find Long Tail Keywords?

Ashish srivastava1525 26-Jul-2017

With so many big players and international brand names in the SEO field, it can be really hard to maintain competitiveness in the SERPs.

 

Long tail keywords can be the perfect solution for this issue. The keywords always has been important, but optimizing particularly for long tail searches is now necessary for the vast majority of businesses.

 

It’s important to completely understand what long tail searches are, as a marketing manager, and to be able to identify new opportunities for these types of keywords.

 

Targeting on long tail keywords is one of the best ways to bring qualified traffic to your site, and staying ahead of the curve can only give you a leg up on your competitors.

 

 

Read Also: How to research for keywords


What are long tail keywords and why are they important?

 

Long tail keywords are specific in nature and have detailed search queries. These type of keywords generally have much lower search volume than short, broad keywords, and hence much lower competition. They also produce higher conversion rates as well.

 

Check out the keyword distribution graph below for an example of “head,” “body,” and “tail” keywords:

 


                  How to Find Long Tail Keywords?


 

There’s a good chance the first two keywords are simply informational searches, but the long tail keyword clearly tells that the user is interested in learning about certain dog breeds for their family.

 

For this reason long tail keywords are so important. Sure, the search volume is much lower, but for every user that you do attract based on a long tail keyword, there’s a greater chance of them converting into a lead or customer.

 

Finding long tail keywords with Google

 

The first method of identifying long tail keywords to target is actually quite simple. Let’s continue taking “guard dog” example.

 

If you’re into a business of dog breeding or training specialized in guard dogs, keywords like “best guard dog” can be one of the main keywords you might be targeting is something While that term is fairly specific to start with, it could still be an informational query. So, let’s move further!

 

Type “best guard dog” in to Google, but don’t hit enter or click search yet. Instead, look at the autocomplete suggestions!

 

For “best guard dog,” we have:

 


How to Find Long Tail Keywords?

 

So, right away, Google’s giving us helpful long tail keywords like “best guard dog for families,” as well as some awesome LSI (synonym) keywords like (like “attack” instead of “guard”)  that will also help you rank for those longer tail queries.

 

We’re not done yet, though! After you’ve played around with the autocomplete suggestions, hit enter to search for your keyword. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and look at the section called “Searches related to <keyword>”.

 

Using our example, Google gives us a neat list of additional long tail keywords built in to the page: 


                 How to Find Long Tail Keywords?



And right there at the bottom of the page we see our “…for families with children” long tail keyword!

 

The great part about using Google to identify potential long tail keywords is that they’re basically pre-qualified for you. If Google is suggesting them as related searches and autocomplete searches, it means people are actually searching for these terms.

 

The only downside to this is its accessibility. These long tail keywords are likely going to be more competitive than abstract, think-outside-the-box long tail terms because they’re suggested to everyone.

 

If you’re working in a competitive industry, there’s a good chance that your competitors have already identified these opportunities and begun optimizing for them as well.

 

 Read Also: Are Keywords Still Important When it Comes to SEO


Taking a look at your own data

 

Many, many businesses forget to fall back on their own website data when looking for content ideas and new keywords to target.

 

If you have a blog or just update your site often, chances are you’ve accidentally stumbled across plenty of awesome long tail keyword opportunities.

 

This tends to happen with well-written content. When you’re writing an informational piece to help others, you’re going to naturally include long tail keywords in the copy.

 

The best way to identify these opportunities is with Google’s Search Console interface. Log in to your Search Console account, and select the web property you’re working on.

 

Then, navigate to “Search Traffic” > “Search Analytics,” and make sure you check off the “Position” option when the data loads:

 

Search Console data

 

Scroll down and you’ll see a list of search queries and where you’re ranking for them in the SERPs. 1-10 usually indicates the first page, 11-20 the second page, and so on.

 

As an aside: this is not always the most up to date information. So don’t get worried if Google says you should be on the first page for a certain keyword, but you’re actually on the second page. Even with those inaccuracies, this is a fantastic way to uncover new long tail keywords.

 

Ignore anything you’re already ranking well for, and scroll down until you’re seeing queries listed at a position of 11 or higher (ie, second page or later):

 

Search Console keyword positions

 

You’ll probably run into a lot of fantastic keywords that you didn’t even know you were ranking for! The best part is if you click on the row of a certain query and make sure you have the “Pages” radio bubble checked off in the options up top, Google will tell you exactly which page is ranking for that query.

 

If it’s a keyword worth optimizing for, you can head over to that page and work some on-page SEO magic! If it’s an especially important keyword, you could always make a brand new page optimized around the keyword as well.

 

Other options

 

There are really an endless number of ways to find new long tail keywords, especially if you take some time to get creative.

 

In addition to the methods above, a lot of people see great success manually combing through forums and social aggregation sites like Reddit, Quora, and so on, to identify common pain points within a certain industry.

 

This is great because you’re hearing directly from your target audience, and the language they use to communicate on these mediums often mirrors how they search for information very closely.

 

There are plenty of keyword tools out there as well that have keyword suggestions built into them, at least to some extent! No two tools will ever give you identical results, so it’s always worth exploring as many of them as you can. Even the smaller, more obscure tools will spit out the perfect keywords now and then!

 

How do you find long tail keywords?

 

The above is what tends to work well for us! Do you have any other angles for finding long tail keywords? Let me know in the comments below!


Also Read: Long tail SEO



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