deciding between longtail or high competition keywords

10 replies
  • SEO
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What's the story with "long tail" keywords I hear about. Also, I hear the "META Keywords" tag is not used by Google? Where do these long tail keywords go? They are good for new blogs only right? What about established business sites?

What are some good keyword tools to find the best keywords to rank a website for?
#competition #deciding #high #keywords #longtail
  • Profile picture of the author kwmaster
    long tail keywords are best because the competition tends to be very small on them. Long tails re good for blog posts and articles yes. I wouldn't place a long tail as my main business keyword but I would highly recommend using them to get free traffic from SEs.
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    • Profile picture of the author kinesis
      so use them for blog posts. do they go in the 'meta keywords' tag or do i just mention them in the article? put them in tags?
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  • Profile picture of the author kwmaster
    You just do what a natural writer does. Write articles with a focus on the keyword you picked. I really don't think meta keywords matter that much any more. It's really about creating quality writings about that topic/keyword etc and stop trying with all the backend tricks as they don't weigh that much since long ago. Quality content and social media spotlight is probably your best bet for 2015+ at least.
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  • Long tail is not just the length of the keyword but the specificity as well.

    How to make money online <-- highly competitive

    How to make money online using passive income strategies <-- more specific, less competition, long tail

    Wes
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Hanney
    Longtail keywords are longer keyword phrases consisting of 4 or more words in the phrase. Typically they are less competitive because there are less people searching for them. On the flip side they can often be some real gems here because people searching for a longtail keyword are usually being very specific and a very specific search term usually implies that person is further down the buying funnel ready to make a purchase.

    Some longtail keywords can bring good search volume, low competition and high buyer intent (how far through the buying funnel they are). If you can find these you could write a blog on it or even have a page dedicated to it. Remember blogs should only be used for something that is timely, a release, a promotion at a certain time of the year. If the content is evergreen then make it a page.

    You can just use Google Keyword Planner as a free tool, look at their google related, google suggest etc. Alternatively if you want to pay for a tool my favourite is SECockpit, a very powerful tool that allows you to do extensive keyword research in a fraction of the time and get highly details competitor analysis from a on-page and off-page point of view too.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      No, long tail is not about the length of the keyword phrase, it has to do with graphs and number of searches shown on grapsh.

      Think about this: DABK is not only 1 word but very short. It's a long-tailed keyword, though. Because it gets darn few searches. It happens to be a very low competition keyword.

      'Typically they are less competitive?' No. They are less competitive. That's why they're in the long tail of the graph. That's why they're called long tail.

      Originally Posted by Paul Hanney View Post

      Longtail keywords are longer keyword phrases consisting of 4 or more words in the phrase. Typically they are less competitive because there are less people searching for them. On the flip side they can often be some real gems here because people searching for a longtail keyword are usually being very specific and a very specific search term usually implies that person is further down the buying funnel ready to make a purchase.

      Some longtail keywords can bring good search volume, low competition and high buyer intent (how far through the buying funnel they are). If you can find these you could write a blog on it or even have a page dedicated to it. Remember blogs should only be used for something that is timely, a release, a promotion at a certain time of the year. If the content is evergreen then make it a page.

      You can just use Google Keyword Planner as a free tool, look at their google related, google suggest etc. Alternatively if you want to pay for a tool my favourite is SECockpit, a very powerful tool that allows you to do extensive keyword research in a fraction of the time and get highly details competitor analysis from a on-page and off-page point of view too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jessica Oslo
    If your keywords are very competitive you can attack the niche with long tails, but if your keywords are easy to rank go for the exact keywords
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Stewart
    Target many long tails instead of a single highly competitive keyword. Without a massive effort and a large amount of time, you're not going to push any of the big boys out of the way.

    100's of long tails spread out over many pages of quality content is the way you want to go.
    Signature

    Beat the competition with better long tail keywords:

    http://keywordstreamer.com

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  • Profile picture of the author dewalds86
    Originally Posted by kinesis View Post

    What's the story with "long tail" keywords I hear about. Also, I hear the "META Keywords" tag is not used by Google? Where do these long tail keywords go? They are good for new blogs only right? What about established business sites?

    What are some good keyword tools to find the best keywords to rank a website for?
    Long tail keywords are paced in the meta title just like normal keywords.

    Example of long tail keyword:

    shoes (keyword)

    cheap blue shoes ( long tail key word)
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by kinesis View Post

      Also, I hear the "META Keywords" tag is not used by Google? Where do these long tail keywords go? They are good for new blogs only right? What about established business sites?
      Google doesn't use meta keywords. You should have the main keyword in content, and at least some variation of it in the headings and the title tag.

      I'm not sure why you'd think that this is something for "new blogs only". You can and should do keyword research for every new topic you write about. That's the way to see what kind of competition there is, and if you have any change of finding visitors. The same goes with business websites and products/services.

      Originally Posted by dewalds86 View Post

      Long tail keywords are paced in the meta title just like normal keywords.
      Google doesn't use meta title.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
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