Donโt punish yourself by trying to rank for short tail keywords. As the world of blogging becomes more interesting and competitive daily, the need to remain relevant in your niche and rank on search engines increases as well. But then, ranking on search engines is not magical but a product of conscious and intentional efforts you put in.
Writing contents should not be what you do carelessly. Rather, contents are created after thorough keyword research. The outcome of your keyword research determines the kind of content you write. As such, experts has advised on going for long-tail keywords and this post is compiled to explain in details.
What are long tail keywords
As the name implies, long tail keywords are keywords that are long in length and wordings. Content creators frequently make the mistake of going for short tail keywords. This is why they tend to write awesome and quality contents that no one cares to read. For example, it doesnโt make sense for a new blogger to write on a keyword โbacklinkโ. This keyword is not just short tail, but direct. As such, there are tons of high ranking websites like backlinko, moz, wpbeginner and the likes dominates the search engine result page for this query. Therefore, it will not be possible to displace them. But then, if you want to rank for a backlink related content, you may choose a keyword like โhow to get backlinks for a new websiteโ. You will easily rank for such a keyword than when you just go ahead to create a content on backlink.
Why you should choose long tail keywords ย
Here are some of the reasons why you should focus on ranking for long tail keywords.
#1 Low search volume and keyword difficulty
Long tail keywords have lesser search volume and lesser keyword difficulty. When you do your keyword research, focus more on the keyword difficulty of a particular keyword than just the search volume. The keyword difficulty will determine if you can easily rank for the said keyword or not. But then, it is important to note that almost every short tail keyword has a very high search volume and also keyword difficulty. It simply means that there are lots of people searching for the keyword. But the keyword difficulty will determine if or not you can rank for such keyword.
When the keyword difficulty is high, it means there are so many websites that are already ranking for the keyword and as such, you may not easily displace them. This is where long tail keywords come in. For keywords, the longer the better for new website owners. Long tail keywords will definitely have lesser search volume and lesser keyword difficulty. It then means that although there are no much people searching for the keyword, yet the possibility of ranking is high. The good thing about ranking for long tail keywords is that the more long tail keywords you rank for, the more your chances of ranking for short tail keywords increases. This is because the competition for long tail keywords is not much. This could be your advantage.
#2 A more focused audience
Also, long tail keywords is directed to a specific and targeted audience. See an example, in this content titled โfree keyword research tools for beginnersโ. It becomes clear that the target audience are new bloggers. It is new bloggers who will need free keyword research tools. When you have started growing in your blogging career, you will be able to afford premium tools like ubersuggest and ahrefs. But as a beginner, you may not afford that. As such, when I have such a keyword, it becomes clear that the target audience has been defined. Therefore, people who fall within the category of beginners will find the content helpful and useful.
But then, suppose I write for the keyword, โkeyword research toolsโ, the keyword is very vast and I may not have the chance of ranking. Also, the content will pay more attention to premium tools because it provides better result than free tools. With this, beginners may not find the content very helpful to them. So, this clearly proves that with long tail keyword, your audience is defined and as such, targeting them becomes easier and simpler.
#3 Assured of organic traffic
When you build contents around long tail keywords, you will most likely rank for such keywords. Therefore, when you successfully rank for a keyword, you are assured of organic traffic. Although the traffic will not be massive, but then, with time it tends to grow. As far as blogging is concerned, organic traffic is the best and every website owner must strive to make more of it.
#4 Growing from the bottom to the top
Writing long tail keyword contents is the easiest way to grow your blog from the bottom to the top. Make no mistake about it, as a new blogger in whatever niche you have chosen, there are giants there before you came in. You cannot displace those giants overnight, no matter how rich and qualitative your content may be. Whether in the scholarship, food, technology or whatsoever niche you have chosen, the competition is high. Therefore make no mistake of competing with the already existing giants for the short tail keywords. Pitch your tent in the long tail keywords.
When you successfully rank for several long tail keywords, it improves your backlinks and domain authority. When this is done, your chances of ranking for short tail keywords increases. If you look closely at the websites that rank of first page for several of the short tail keywords, they have tons of backlinks and high domain authority.
#5 It focuses more on user intention
Every user has his own specific intention for querying a search engine with a keyword. This intention may not be fully spelt out by short tail keywords. Long tail keyword will help spell out the intention of every searcher in more clear terms. For example, if a searcher is looking for a postgraduate scholarship for law students in Scotland, his intention is been clearly spelt out. Writing a random post on Postgraduate scholarships for law students or Scholarships in Scotland may not be fully helpful to the searcher. As such, with long tail keywords, the user intention will be clear.
Conclusion
If you compete with the big guys in your niche for short tail keywords, you will be frustrated out of blogging. As such, pay attention to long tail keywords and watch your blog grow from the bottom to the top. Although this may take time to achieve but consistency is the key in blogging. As a matter of fact, you may not achieve any meaningful result in your blogging in the first 18 months, but the more you keep doing the right thing in the right way, the more your chances of success increases.
