Keyword Phrases - The Best Use of Long Tail Keywords

The potential customers of your niche market use long tail keywords that are extremely important to your website's performance.

A keyword refers to the phrase query entered in a search engine by someone who wants to either find information on a topic, carry out a website transaction, or navigate to a specific website or web page.

Types of Keyword Phrases

There are two general types of keyword phrase queries. One is a short tail keyword phrase which contains two or less words, for example, "dog food." The other is a long tail keyword phrase which contains three or more words, for example, "organic dog food chunks."

Longer Search Phrase

A longer search phrase is more targeted and specific than a shorter search phrase. A person using it is deemed closer to purchasing a product than someone who is not.

A longer keyword phrase also less competitive than a shorter keyword phrase. More people search using a shorter phrase query than a longer phrase query; therefore, demand is less for a longer search term than for a shorter search term. Less demand for a specific search term leads to fewer marketers supplying that search term -- this makes it less competitive.

Because these longer search phrases are not as competitive, web pages containing them have a greater chance of ranking higher in the search engine results page (SERP). Searchers will open the results on the first page more often than the second page or the third page. The more views your page has, the greater the chance that some of these searchers, who are closest to buying, will actually purchase your product.

Using Longer Search Terms

You can use this knowledge to your advantage if you know the keywords your potential customers, who are closest to purchase, are searching with. There are free and for purchase keyword tools that give a selection of words they are using. You can then utilize this information to determine the best long tail keywords to use in your web content.

Long tail keywords are best used in page headers, links, browser title and anchor texts. They are also used in the body of the web page content; however, they must not be overused to get higher search engine rankings as this abuse is penalized by search engines. To get the maximum results from your efforts, these search query phrases should be used together with high quality web content that complements them; they must also link to relevant topics. Search engines do not choose those words in isolation, but reference them on related content and quality.