Long Tail SEO experts HitTail recently published a fascinating infographic summarizing the key benefits of longer tail search terms to online marketers. The infographic, “The Hidden Value of Long Tail SEO”, describes Long Tail SEO as the process of targeting less competitive, highly specific search terms to generate visitors who are more likely to convert on your website. This infographic outlines that search terms which are shorter in length tend to be broader in nature, whereas longer tail search terms of 3 or 4 or more words tend to be much more specific in nature and more valuable to online marketers because the user performing the search has a clearer idea of what they’re looking for.
According to HitTail, 70% of all searches completed on the web currently are long tail. This means that of the billions of searches performed each month, more and more consumers are typing in search terms greater than two words. You may still be thinking you want to target the larger traffic keywords on the web which tend to be shorter in length, and sure they are valuable, but if you can’t rank for them because they’re so competitive, there is little value in this. By targeting longer tail keywords, you’re tapping into a market of highly engaged searchers who know what they want, are in a location that’s less competitive and easier to rank for, and are much more likely to generate a conversion for you. When you consider all this, wouldn’t you rather spend your time ranking for 10 long tail keywords which are highly targeted and likely to result in a conversion, than 1 high traffic generic term which may or may not be what the consumer is looking for? I know which one I’d choose.
One of the key benefits to targeting long tail keywords is that they have higher ranking potential. If there’s only 500 searches for a particular term per month, you have a much better chance of ranking highly for that term than a search term which receives 100,000 searches a month. Why? Because there’s generally less competition. This means that over time, by building up a number of longer tail terms you rank well for, you’ll be able to gain the same larger scale visibility that a more generic term may offer, except it will be spread across a number of highly specific pages more likely to generate a conversion. Now that’s cool right?
In fact according to HitTail, longer tail terms generate 2.5 times more clicks than shorter terms and only grow in terms of CTR (Click Through Rate) as the term gets longer. With this in mind, this simple infographic really demonstrates the true power of long tail search terms to you over time, and can really shape how you think about your search engine marketing tactics.
