Long-tail keywords have been a staple of search engine optimisation (SEO).
If you’ve gone to write a blog post, chances are, you’ve seen mention of long-tail keywords and how they’re vital to the success of your business blog.
Powerful as they are, incorporating them without understanding their use can be counterintuitive.
In this post, I’ll provide an overview of what long-tail keywords are, why they matter, and how you can incorporate them into your blog for greater success.
What Are Long-Tail Keywords and Why Do They Matter?
Long-tail keywords, despite the name, aren’t regular keywords with long tails attached.
I, too, was disappointed to learn this.
They’re actually longer keyword phrases that target a specific intent. A regular keyword, such as “blog,” can have a myriad of meanings, intents, and relevancies associated with it. Targeting a single keyword may not help search engines fully understand the nature of your content.
A long-tail keyword, such as “How to use long-tail keywords,” focuses more on targeting a specific query or searched phrase, thereby improving content relevancy.
Long-tail keywords are valuable assets for SEO, as they enable you to focus each piece of content on targeting specific search terms and phrases. You’ll also see these being used in metadata for lower-competition search terms.
Why Blogging Is the Perfect Format for Long-Tail Keywords
Incorporating long-tail keywords into regular site pages can be a challenge. Trying to match exact search phrases while maintaining your brand’s tone of voice on your service pages is a frustrating game of “does this sound natural?”.
Fortunately, with a blog, you don’t have to worry. Here’s why.
Blogs Allow for Niche Topic Exploration
Blogs provide you with site real estate to focus on specific questions, use cases, and angles that naturally include long-tail terms. Spinning your general services into a more overview perspective isn’t particularly beneficial for conversions, nor is it valuable for users looking to broaden their knowledge of your services as a whole.
However, breaking down your services and addressing these queries in a blog post allows you to naturally incorporate these keywords, including H1S and meta titles, without disrupting the rest of the site.
Long-Form Content Creates Space for Contextual Use
While long-tail keywords may be the focus, we can’t forget about variations and supporting keywords.
Leveraging semantic keywords can also be beneficial, but doing so requires a longer form piece of content where keywords are spread out. Spreading them throughout the content ensures you don’t shoehorn them in and pull the reader out of the post.
Blogs, therefore, naturally provide a way for you to include these supporting keywords, and if your post doesn’t, you can always rewrite sections so it does.
That’s the power of editing with SEO in mind!
Each Blog Post Is an SEO Opportunity
The beauty of writing blog content is that, when done right, you’ll likely be capturing multiple terms and queries with one post.
This positions your blog as a core asset that supports your site’s overall keyword profile, helping you to rank organically for a series of keywords that can later lead to conversions.
Conversions aside, the additional traffic you can gain from keyword optimisation through blog posts can be invaluable for business growth, scalability, and even experimentation through regular site changes. Long-tail keywords provide an additional opportunity to naturally incorporate location-specific keywords, enabling your blog to contribute more effectively to your local SEO goals.
Authority building is another plus, which can lead to your pages and posts ranking quicker on search engines, continuing to fuel the process.
How to Identify Long-Tail Keywords for Your Business
Finding long-tail keywords to target is incredibly simple, and there are numerous ways you can gather these to use in your content.
A few that I like to use include:
Google Autocomplete: Google’s autocomplete is a great tool, as it suggests what is already being searched for. Start by entering a singular keyword, and see what Google thinks you want to see. Then, you can compile these and verify whether they would be good topics to write about.
Search Console Analysis: If your site is integrated with Google Search Console (it should be), then you can take a look at the queries under your performance tab to see what kind of long-tail searches you’re getting impressions on already. Then, select some of these to enhance your relevance and drive traffic around them.
Customer Pain Points: It is extremely useful if you have a strong sales team that handles objections regularly. Consider what information your customers need to know, the objections they present, and their common pain points, then answer those in the form of a long-tail-focused blog post. Creating blog posts from FAQs is a shortcut to crafting content that is immediately valuable.
Use Keyword-Focused Tools: Tools like SEMRush, Ubersuggest, and AnswerThePublic can be great ways to see an overview of potential long-tail keywords in your industry and niche. If you plan to use them, I recommend verifying their competitiveness through regular Google searches before writing a post about them.
How to Use Long-Tail Keywords in a Blog Post
We have our long-tail keyword, we have our keyboard in hand, and we’re ready to make some magic.
But how should we incorporate the keywords into the post?
Here are a few formatting tips to help you structure your content and organically include your long-tail keywords. If, after reading this, you’ve realised you may not have taken great care to target these in your older posts, don’t worry. Editing your older posts with these will only prove beneficial; you can even apply some quick SEO fixes to your blogs while you’re at it.
Include the Keyword in Your H1 or H2 (If Natural)
Depending on the keyword length, you can include it within your main page H1 or on-page H2s.
Doing so helps to further emphasise the long-tail keywords for search engines when scraping your content. It can also be helpful to keep the post structured, with H2s that continue from one another and incorporate clever keyword implementation.
Use It Early in the Introduction
Many SEO tools, such as Yoast SEO and Rank Math, will have a flag in their page SEO checker to state if you’ve incorporated your keyword at the beginning of your post.
This is yet another signal indicating what your post is about and reinforces keyword usage directly at the start of your post. It’s worth spending some time re-editing your introduction if you haven’t been able to naturally incorporate your keyword.
Add 2–3 Contextual Variations Throughout
Contextual variations can include shorter but still similar keywords and synonyms, and incorporate them into a larger phrase or question.
This may be challenging, depending on your long-tail keyword, especially if you’re in an extremely niche industry or your target keyword simply cannot be shortened.
Still, it’s worth considering different ways you can implement it throughout your content.
Support It With Internal Links to Relevant Services or Posts
One of the best ways to build relevancy around a keyword or service is to implement a strong internal linking structure that combines all related contexts of that keyword.
For example, if you’re writing a post titled “How to clean a wooden fence” and you offer wooden fence installations, internally linking the two is an excellent way to build content cohesion and relevance.
Similarly, if you have other posts on the same service or topic, it can be beneficial to interlink them. Internally linking to a “best types of fences” post and vice versa will help both pages thrive with relevant internal links.
Crafting Targeted Blogs That Your Audience Sees
Long-tail keyword-focused blogs help build consistent traffic by capturing multiple relevant search terms and queries, thereby increasing the likelihood of attracting new users. Over time, this backlog of content can support your core site pages, conversion, and repurposing needs.
If you have some keywords you want to target but aren’t sure how to craft an engaging post around them, get in touch.
We can dive into the intent and goals of each piece and craft a post that’ll work for your site long into the future.
