Long tail keywords to boost traffic and rankings

Since the advent of blogging, bloggers have strived to improve their methods of keyword targeting. The key is to strike the balance between creating useful, solution-based content with keyword based content. By that, we mean there is no point stuffing keywords into content that is essentially just ‘fluff’ while there is also no point in creating great content no one can find. Striking that balance is achievable if you can tap into the mindset of your target audience and gain an understanding of what they want.

A good way to do this is to employ the concept of long tail keywords. Assuming you have a reasonable knowledge of keywords targeting, you probably already know one or two-word keywords chains are not that effective. Your bigger competitors have already taken them, and you and everyone else is left trailing in their wake. They have used all the keywords for your particular industry, so when you start your blog you find no results in search engines.

Cue long tail keywords

Cue long tail keywords

See what we’re doing?

We’ve changed a two-word keyword chain “Apple accessories” into a five-word keyword chain. The concept of a long tail keyword is because it’s easier to target it, “Buy Apple accessories in Dallas”, for example, as opposed to “Apple accessories”…

Now, let’s look at how you can use long tail keywords when you create a blog post. The most difficult part is knowing which keywords to use.

Hopefully, that will become clearer as a result of this post.

Three steps to boost your blogging using long tail keywords

Here are methods for bloggers to use long tail keywords:

Step one: specify your audience

There is nothing better than attracting your target audience to your blog. Ask any blogger and they will tell you they would rather have less traffic if it is targeted, than a lot of traffic that has no interest in their content.

A bonus of using long tail keywords is you make your blog targeted towards a specific audience. This doesn't just happen with a couple of posts. It should form part of your whole blogging strategy.

By specifying the audience of your blog, you clearly know who you are reaching out to and creating content for. Once you have done this then your focus should be to create content that is relevant to your target audience.

Step two: develop a parallel content strategy

Once you have established who your target audience is, then comes your content strategy. Put simply: WHAT TO PRODUCE?

This is important.

The idea of using long tail keywords is to find the audience in your niche through trying a different approach. You know what they need to know and what you should produce for them.

For example, you find out a keyword chain with high monthly searches that has low competition in Google.

Let’s say that keyword chain is “secrets of successful blogging”. What does this tell you?

It tells the following:

Once you have chosen the keyword chain, make sure your content delivers.

Let's look at that keyword chain again – “secrets of successful blogging”.

If you choose this keyword for your niche blog, this means your content strategy should be to consistently to target an audience looking for post-launch strategies to, in turn, build their own audience.

Step three: a focused monetization plan

Monetization is the third factor.

It is third because you this is something you should think about once you have established your blog and you are getting a decent amount of traffic.

Once you have defined your audience, created a content plan for it, the monetization factor follows. To reiterate, keywords are needed to boost your blogging. However, you should never blog to target keywords. Instead, you should use keywords in your blogging.

When boosting your blogging with long tail keywords, keep your monetization factor in mind. The following points need to be considered when you are looking at blog monetization while using long tail keywords:

Conclusion

Long tail keyword targeting isn't difficult, but it does take time. There are no instant results. However, with patience and by setting long-term goals in using long tail keywords eventually you will see results that both boost traffic and rankings.