The Magic of Long Tail Keywords



So by now most of us know that using keywords in our content is super important to attract of organic traffic but did you know that using long tail keywords can bring you better qualified traffic? It’s true – simple tweaks of your basic keywords can bring much more specifically targeted potential customers right to your door.

Keywords are words that people enter into search engines to look for content. When a provider offers content that contains those keywords, search bots identify those pieces of content and offers them to the searcher as an option through a search engine such as Google, Bing, et al.

But there is SO much content and everyone is competing for the same basic keywords! Plus, search engines guess at what you are searching for based on your recent search histories, the context of the keyword and lots of other things that make up that search engine’s algorithm. It can be difficult to rank content on a search engine high enough up in the search results to be able to be seen, let alone bring those people to your site.

But never fear – there’s an easy way to “hack” this issue and it’s effective and legal and sometimes a little bit fun! This is the use of what are known as “long tail keywords”. Long tail keywords are a group of words – usually three to four – that form a search phrase and are much more specific than just a word or two. Using long tail keywords does bring you less traffic BUT the traffic that they do bring to your door are users who are looking for exactly what you offered and thus are that much more likely to engage with you.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a recipe in your latest cookbook for sale for the very best gluten free, dairy free chocolate cake on the planet. The keyword “chocolate cake” has 90,500 people searching per month for results. Not a lot of the people who enter “chocolate cake” in their search engine are going to be looking for your specific recipe, assuming you could even rank high enough in the results for them to see you. Typically, the higher the number of searches for a word or phrase, the higher the degree of competition there is to outrank your competitors.

Now, “Gluten free chocolate cake” has about 4,400 people searching, which is better. “Gluten free dairy free chocolate cake” has just 320 people per month looking for results and “gluten free dairy free chocolate cake recipes” just 50. These numbers are a lot less than the 90,500 which, at first glance, might seem disappointing. However, consider this. Someone who bothers to type in “gluten free dairy free chocolate cake recipes” is clearly looking for exactly what you are offering! And since this long tail keyword is so specific, there is not a lot of competition for it so your ability to rank high enough in the search engine results is pretty good!

How do you find or create long tail keywords? First, consider your topic and be as specific as you can when identifying the phrase for which you want to optimize your content. Enter it into your favorite keyword research tool and compare the results of what you entered with the variations offered. Choose the phrase that best identifies what you are offering – sometimes some wordsmithing is necessary to make the keyword fit your writing – and be sure to enter that long tail keyword into your website’s SEO management tool. Choose the phrase that offers the highest number of search results compared to the lowest competition score. This will give you the sweet spot between the highest amount of specific traffic and the lowest degree of competition.

SEO can be scary and hairy and frustrating but people who regularly use long tail keywords not only gain the “trust” of the search bots and attract organic traffic to their sites but also are able to more readily engage with their audience. The more specific you can be using your long tail keywords the more likely you are to attract interest from people who want exactly what you have to offer and thus the more likely they are going to be to follow your call to action. All through the magic of long tail keywords!



Why New Years Resolutions Fail – It’s NOT Your Fault!

Every year people vow to make enormous overnight changes and then wonder why new years resolutions fail, blaming themselves for a lack of willpower or some other imagined personal shortfall.  Well, I am here to show you why new years resolutions fail and that it truly is not your fault.

There are three main reasons why new years resolutions fail:

  1. Lack of a plan. How many times have you heard someone say “This year I am going to LOSE the weight starting tomorrow!”.  And they haven’t even acquired the healthy foods they need to embark on their “plan”.  Or someone says “Starting tomorrow I am going to get organized” without first figuring out what system works for them.  You wouldn’t say “Tomorrow I am running a marathon!” and expect to be at the starting line in the morning, right?  This is no different except for the size of the challenge.
  2. People pin down their “whats” but not their “whys”.  Take weight loss for example. You aren’t likely to be successful with the what – losing weight – if you haven’t identified your why – being more fit, wearing cuter clothes, feeling better overall.  Or people say they want to get a new job – a great what – but won’t get far in their search until they know their why – better upward potential, more money, nicer colleagues.
  3. People expect to fail. I know, crazy, right?  But how many people make a resolution and – BOOM – they wake up with everything different?  Um, not so many. Let’s face it, if making and keeping resolutions were easy, then there would be way more achievers everywhere in the new years, right?

All of these reasons are perfectly legitimate and totally understandable. No one can make something happen without a plan, you can’t stay motivated if you don’t know why you want something and if you believe that you can’t do something, well, gee, who can get behind getting excited about that?

So what can you do to make a new years resolution that will succeed?  It’s actually easier than you think. You just need to flip your thinking a little bit.

When you resolve to do something, you are resolving to develop a habit, a productive, good habit. But until said thing becomes a habit it’s hard to make it happen. So what if you were to take a bad habit and replace it with a good habit?  For instance, I often “just check” my Facebook notifications in the morning and I can get lost on Facebook if I am not careful; two minutes can turn into more before I know it if I am not vigilant. So instead of clicking on that silly globe and taking a peek at what everyone has to say, I am going to instead go over my to do list for the day and prioritize all the tasks that I have listed that I want to get done.  I will be significantly more productive and I am betting that some of the time I might have wasted poking around on Facebook will go to good use in getting a head start on that list.

Most bad habits are a result of stress or boredom.  How many times do you feel overwhelmed by a project that you are due to start and instead go grab a snack or check your email or start a game of solitaire?  If you are able to replace that habit with something that brings you closer to the success you are wanting, your results are exponential because not only are you able to cut out the things that delay you from achieving, good feelings are more addictive than bad ones and when you realize that your NEW habits are bringing you closer to what you want, you will naturally want to do more of them. How awesome is THAT?

So don’t waste your time on why new years resolutions fail – look at your habits and patterns, figure out which ones you want to let go of, figure out what you want to DO to get you closer to what you WANT, and start swapping things out.  You will be amazed at what you can accomplish!