Keywords v Long Tail Keywords – what is the difference?

If you run your own business, you probably already know that keywords are an important part of your online marketing strategy. But do you know any more than that? Or about long tail keywords? And why should you care?

What are Keywords?

Keywords are the words or phrases that people use when they search for something on the internet. If your website is optimised for relevant keywords, you can improve your visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more traffic to your website.

For example, if someone is looking for an accountant in their area, they might search for “best accountants near me.” The words “best accountants” are keywords and the “near me” gives search engines our location (if you have location services turned on for your device.

Sounds easy right?

Well, you may be surprised to hear that we speak to lots of businesses who tell us what they want to be found for, but their website doesn’t… Just because YOU know what you do, doesn’t mean that the people searching for you do, and search engines can only return results when they can identify keywords on your website. Remember: people won’t know what you do unless you tell them!

So, the only way to tell search engines that your website is relevant for individual search terms is to write content and structure your website to include those keywords.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are more specific and targeted than generic keywords. They are typically longer phrases that are more specific to a particular niche or industry. For example, instead of using the keyword “accountants,” a long tail keyword might be “accountants for small businesses.” These long tail keywords are important because they can help you attract more targeted traffic to your website.

Generic keywords may bring in a lot of traffic, but as this traffic may not be as relevant to your business it will likely not convert visitors into customers.

How to Conduct Keyword Research

To conduct keyword research for your business, follow these steps:

Step 1: Identify your target audience

The first step in conducting keyword research is to identify your target audience.

• Who are the people that you want to attract to your website?

• What are their interests, needs, and pain points?

Understanding your target audience is important because it will help you identify the keywords that are most relevant to them.

Step 2: Brainstorm a list of relevant keywords

Once you’ve identified your target audience, brainstorm a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. You can start with generic keywords, but be sure to also include long tail keywords that are more specific to your niche or industry. Use a keyword research tool to generate ideas for keywords that you may not have thought of.

Step 3: Analyse keyword search volume and competition

Once you have a list of keywords, it’s important to check out the search volume (i.e. how many times a keyword is searched for) and the competition for each one (i.e. how many other websites are also targeting that keyword). Ideally, you want to choose keywords that have a high search volume and low competition.

There are lots of online tools that can help you do this and we use and recommend SE Ranking.

Step 4: Choose your keywords and optimize your website

Based on your analysis, choose the keywords that are most relevant to your business and have the highest potential to attract targeted traffic to your website. Then, make sure you add those keywords throughout your website content, meta descriptions, title tags, and posts.

We recommend writing blog posts that expand on the topics that are most important to your customers so that you can show your expertise in that particular area and also then link to how you can help them by answering questions within posts.

To summarise…

Keywords are important for improving your website’s visibility in search engine results pages and long tail keywords will help attract targeted traffic to your website.

By conducting keyword research and optimising your website for relevant keywords for your business, you can improve your online presence and attract more customers to your website.

And remember, this is not a race! Don’t get overwhelmed trying to update every page on your site immediately. Start with your most important pages and posts and keep going from there…