Longtail Keyword

[Victor Leigh]

What is a keyword?

 

This is the word which an internet user types in the search box when looking for information. The search engine takes this word and compares it with the content of the sites in its database. Then it presents a list of what it finds, arranged in order of relevance according to the search engine's idea of what is important.

 

What is a longtail keyword?

 

This is a series of four or five words stringed together to form a phrase which an internet user types into the search box when he is trawling for information in cyber space. Sometimes he may start with just one word. When he sees that he's getting a lot of irrelavant information, he may narrow down his search by adding more words. His sequence may look something like this:

 

shoes

leather shoes

black leather shoes

black leather women shoes

extra-large black leather women shoes

 

When he reaches "extra-large black leather women shoes" he would be presented with a list of results that fits snugly into his definition. The sites which show in the list are defined by the longtail keyword "extra-large black leather women shoes".

 

What is the purpose of a longtail keyword?

 

The main aim of a site is to draw traffic. A more accurate description of the aim is to draw traffic which is actually interested in the product or service offered by the site. While a generic keyword may draw more traffic than a longtail keyword, the quality of traffic is very different. General traffic has very low conversion rate. Targetted traffic converts many times better than general traffic because the targetted traffic brings visitors who are specifically looking for what the site is offering.

 

So what are your experiences with the longtail keyword?

[bryce12]

Long tail keywords can bring some good traffic to your sites. There was a time when I used to target 20-30 long tail keywords in my niche and writer articles for them for some quick affiliate sales. With the Google algorithm changes over the last few years, I have changed my strategy and now focus more on creating authority sites though I still look for low competition long tail keywords for bringing some easy traffic to my sites.

[Victor Leigh]

Personally, I have never tried longtail keywords yet. So what I know about it is all theory alone. Just curious. Is there any value in buying a domain name with a longtail keyword? Like, in the example of my first post, what is the SEO value of a domain name like extra-large-black-leather-women-shoes.com?

[Jessi]

(...) what is the SEO value of a domain name like extra-large-black-leather-women-shoes.com?

 

It can be very, very good.....IF a lot of people are searching for exactly that term and you rank well for it. For example, I was looking up lyrics earlier and "http://www.eyeofthetigerlyrics.com/" comes up fourth for that phrase. They likely grab quite a bit of traffic from people who are looking for that song's lyrics. At the same time, there are general lyrics sites that are going to rank higher for that song AND a lot of other songs, and will rake in a lot more traffic because of it.

[Victor Leigh]

I suppose by rank well, you mean getting on the first page, right?

 

So supposing, I populate the site with, say, ten pages of content, all unique, directly related to the longtail keyword that's in the domain name, would I have a chance of getting anywhere near the first page? Or do I have to work in it until I have at least 100 pages?

[bryce12]

So supposing, I populate the site with, say, ten pages of content, all unique, directly related to the longtail keyword that's in the domain name, would I have a chance of getting anywhere near the first page? Or do I have to work in it until I have at least 100 pages?

Yes that's correct. Creating a niche site for a keyword that has good search volume and less competition is a great way to rank high and make some good money. A lot of people are already making bank with micro niche site and adsense and there is no reason why you can't do the same.

[Jessi]

Bryce has got it. Micro niche sites can definitely make it high in the search results (often first page and in the first few results), especially if competition is low. People who do this often have dozens or more of various micro niche sites so they're banking on a cumulative profit instead of putting their all into a single site.

[Nathan]

Yes, and you will need a lot of them most of the time as the more long tail keyword you have the less the search volume.

[Victor Leigh]

Yes, and you will need a lot of them most of the time as the more long tail keyword you have the less the search volume.

 

Do you mean a lot of micro niche sites? Personally I think longtail keywords which have at least one million searches every month would be good enough in terms of search volume. Just imagine getting 1% of that one million searches. Ten thousand targetted visitors is a lot of quality traffic.