Long tail or generic keywords for effective natural referencing

Keywords can be short and therefore generic or long-tailed . 

The keyword head or generics are shorter sentences with a generic meaning, such as "men's shoes". While the keyword phrases of the tail or long tail are longer ( minimum 3 to 5 words ). The search terms are more specific and better describe a particular thing or concept, for example "cheap men's dress shoes". Thus, the same search term can be qualified as long or short depending on the number of words.

Beginners in SEO often do not know the concept of long tail keywords and do not realize the immense potential of these keywords.

There is nothing complicated in the art of using long keywords. It's just that one should have a good understanding of how they benefit your visibility.

There are many good reasons to exploit the hidden capabilities of long tail keywords, here are 7 reasons:

1. less competition
Consider the following keywords:

men's shoes - 59,800,000 sites found on Google
branded men's shoes - 50,300,000 sites found on Google
Italian brand men's shoes - 7,260,000 sites found on Google
cheap italian brand men's shoes - 2,700,000 sites found on Google
As we can see, the longer the expression, the less there are corresponding sites, that is to say that it is less competitive.

Therefore, long line expressions are generally easier to position on the first page. So instead of working hard to try to rank number 20 on "men's shoes", why not optimize a page for "cheap Italian brand men's shoes". The potential to be on the front page of this expression will be greater.

2. More traffic than a generic keyword
A single long tail key term is unlikely to attract a ton of visitors. However, long tail expressions in numbers can work miracles. Think of a large bubble surrounded by hundreds of small bubbles.

long tail keywords and traffic potential compared to a generic keyword
So the big bubble is your main keyword, for example, men's shoes. The potential for organic traffic is 1,300 Internet users per month. There are many ways to extend this leading keyword into long tail keywords. And, together, all of these alternatives can represent up to 35% (or more) of your total traffic!

3. Better targeted organic traffic
When the police ask someone to describe a thief, they hope to get as much detail as possible, as this will help them find the right person. The same goes for keywords. The better the query describes what you are looking for , the more likely you are to find only the product or service you need. So visitors who end up on your site after typing in long tail keyword phrases are probably the people you are targeting. The latest statistics on the length of the expression, give an average of 4.29 words typed in the search bar.

4. higher conversion rates
Users who search for more specific terms are normally more advanced in their buying cycle than Internet users who enter generic terms. So, normally, long tail expressions bring in visitors who convert better. So investing in long keywords is often a return on investment and a winning "quality over quantity" strategy.

conversion rate of long tail keywords

5. Long lines already include your main keywords
Another reason why it never hurts to bid on long tail keywords is that they usually include your shorter terms. For example, men's shoes from Italian designers contain “men's shoes”. This allows you to kill two birds with one stone.

6. Ideal for very competitive niches
In some areas, the competition is so fierce that when you reach the first position, you have all the competitors ready to pass you by at any time. A good way to feel safer about your traffic is to look for alternative keywords to optimize , that is, long tail search terms.

For example, you own a hotel in PARIS.

How do you compete on Google with all these hotel chains such as Novotel, Marriot, Sofitel, etc.… not to mention booking platforms such as Booking, Liligo, Tripadvisor, etc.?

Here's how.

Being present on "Paris hotel", you can forget, almost 10 billion sites.

On the other hand, work on a more specific request, "Paris 2 charming hotel"

What you are doing is optimizing your site ( meta title , title tags , images and content ) for a boutique hotel in Paris 2. It doesn't seem that different, but it makes all the difference for you, because there has only 31,700,000 sites competing for this term on Google. Your chances are much bigger to be 1 st page Google.

7. Personalization of Google queries
Nowadays, search results are more and more personalized, that is to say personalized according to

 the geographical location ,
of age,
sex,
interests,
price,
etc.
People looking for the same keyword can see very different search results. Fortunately, long keywords can help you optimize your website for different categories of users. To go further, how to find the most effective keywords ?

For example, you can create a separate landing page for designer shoes and a separate web page for designer shoes. Thus, the negative effects of personalizing Google query terms, can improve the conversion rate of your natural referencing.

So, as you can see, there are many reasons to optimize your site for long keywords . The mistake of some SEO newbies is that they ignore multiple word search terms and miss out on great traffic opportunities.

But hopefully it won't happen to you, because you now know where the power of the long tail lies .