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The Longtail keyword: How to get more with less


Victor Leigh

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I was doing some reading up on keywords and came across this longtail keyword concept. It's quite an interesting subject. Here's what I have understood about it so far.

 

A longtail keyword is made up of up to five words as compared to a shorttail keyword which may only be one or two words. As an example, "shoes" is a keyword. "Leather shoes" is a shorttail keyword. "Black leather shoes for women" is a longtail keyword.

 

Then I used Google Keyword Tool to try out this longtail keyword. Obviously the word "shoes" has got many times more searches than "black leather shoes for women". So wouldn't using the keyword "shoes" be better than the longtail keyword "black leather shoes for women"?

 

Strangely the answer is no. Reason being that people who search for "shoes" are looking for all kinds of shoes. So even if they visit your site, it's more than likely that they wouldn't find what they are looking for, on your site, unless your site sells all kinds of shoes.

 

On the other hand, if you are selling "black leather shoes for women", then people who search for "black leather shoes for women" would be exactly the kind of visitors that you want.

 

In a nutshell, getting less visitors will give you more sales. Provided the visitors are the ones you want.

 

Did I understand the concept of longtail keyword correctly?

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Yes your understanding is correct. As Nathan said, it is better to target long tail keywords since they are a lot more targeted and less competitive. You can use Market Samurai to locate long tail keywords in any niche; it makes the job a lot easier.

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Just looked up Market Samurai. It's expensive! I think I will stick to Google Keyword Tool. Gets the job done just as well. Besides I am getting the numbers right from the horse's mouth, so to say.

 

btw, I read that longtail keywords are about four to five words long. Is there really any problem with a longtail keyword that's, say, ten words long?

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Just looked up Market Samurai. It's expensive! I think I will stick to Google Keyword Tool. Gets the job done just as well. Besides I am getting the numbers right from the horse's mouth, so to say.

 

btw, I read that longtail keywords are about four to five words long. Is there really any problem with a longtail keyword that's, say, ten words long?

 

Hey the keyword research part of market samurai is free . Google Keyword tool is good but but it has no way to filter long tail keywords. Market Samurai allows you to specify minimum and maximum number of words you want in the results. Check out the snapshot below (the filter phrase length is where you specify the minimum and maximum word limits). It will save you a lot of time and effort if you are just trying to locate long tail keywords.

 

market-samurai-long-tail-keyword-research-510x348.png

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