In digital marketing, keywords are words users enter into a
search engine to look for something specific. Often referred to as Search Terms, keywords are one of the largest factors in on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and determining whether your SEO strategy will succeed
or fail.
There are many different types of keywords that are unique
to specific platforms, however, we’re going to cover the two universal keywords
used everywhere: short tail and long tail keywords.
Before we jump into short tail and long tail keywords, let’s
understand the importance of them.
The WHY
Keywords fall into two main digital marketing tactics: Content Marketing and SEO.
As previously mentioned, keywords are large factors in
on-page SEO and determining whether your SEO strategy will succeed or fail.
Through keyword research, you’ll discover the most common terms users search regarding
different search intentions. Based on users search intentions and terms, you
can use your research to create content that will be recognized by search
engines; which will increase the traffic to your website.
While creating content, you’ll want to use the keywords
throughout the content piece so that search engines can recognize and
categorize what you’re communicating.
For example, if you’re creating a blog
post you’ll want to repeat the keywords you’re targeting from beginning to end.
Of course, there are a variety of other best practices, but for now, we’re
sticking to keywords.
The purpose behind these two tactics is to improve your
inbound marketing by having customers come to your website for information,
then converting them through some type of Call-To-Action (CTA) during that same
website session or remarketing to them down the road.
Short Tail Keywords
The first general type of keywords are short tail keywords. These
are three words or less and are typically the most generic and commonly
searched keywords. Think of these keywords as the first thing you think of when
you’re seeking out information online and using the search function of Google, Bing, etc.
Short tail keywords see the highest volume of searches and
the shorter the word the higher the search volume. Due to the high-level of
search volume, it translates to a high level of competition as many websites
are battling for a piece of web traffic. The focus for searches is extremely
broad because without additional keywords in a user’s search, the search engine
can’t pinpoint what exactly they're looking for. If you were to dive into
Google Ads to rank for these short tail keywords, you would be paying a premium
due to the high level of competition. Lastly, if you were to rank for a short
tail keyword and receive consistent traffic, your conversion rate would be low
as many users are not ready to convert at this point.
Let’s look at the perspectives of both the user doing the
searching and the website receiving traffic from short tail keywords.
User Perspective
Picture, Paige, a business owner who's thinking about a new
logo for her business. Paige doesn’t have the expertise to create a new logo
from scratch, but she has an eye for design and interested to see what is reflective of her business.
So, Paige begins her journey searching for “logo ideas” and
“logo designs”, both are short tail keywords. Her search yields many creative
websites including freelancer websites, online design firms, build-your-own
logo builders, and many others. Since she’s only looking for ideas, Paige
bounces in and out of a few different websites gathering some ideas which she
sends to her friends for their feedback. For now, she pauses her journey and
heads out to enjoy a seasonal latte from her local coffee shop.
Website Perspective
Let’s introduce Daniel who is the new Content Specialist for
a design firm called ABC Deisgn. Based on the website analytics, he notices
that they have a blog post titled “101 Logo Design Ideas” receiving an
exceptional amount of traffic. He is thrilled to see all the traffic but
discovers only a limited amount is converting and contacting his firm. While
Daniel would like to see more of the traffic converting, he remains pleased to
see the blog post doing its job building awareness and driving traffic to the
website.
Long Tail Keywords
The next type of keywords are long tail keywords. Long tail
keywords are four or more words and typically don’t produce much traffic for a
website. However, these keywords are targeted towards users, with a high conversion
rate, who are looking for something specific.
Think of long tail keywords as
the end of a customer’s journey. Customers have done their homework and are
looking for something specific at the end.
Like what we did for short tail keywords, let’s jump back
into the perspectives of Paige and Daniel – this time from a long tail keyword
viewpoint.
User Perspective
While Paige was enjoying her seasonal latte, she received a
collection of feedback from her friends. She decided it was best to choose a
design firm with professionals that know what they are doing but she still
didn’t have a clear idea of what she wanted.
After thinking it over for a few days, Paige concluded that she
wanted her new logo to target female millennials since those were her primary
consumers. She began her search by Googling “logo examples targeting female
millennials”. Paige was surprised when there weren’t many search results that
looked genuine. However, a website called ABC Design had a blog posted titled
“Logo Design Examples Targeting Millennials”, which caught Paige’s eye. After
exploring the blog post, Paige was blown away by all the work ABC Design has
done in the past for different target groups and decided to contact them for a
consultation.
Website Perspective
Daniel was inspired by all the traffic the other blog post was
receiving and wanted to create a few new blog posts that leveraged long tail
keywords in order to boost their websites conversion rate. After Daniel
conducted his keyword research, he discovered that there was a portion of users
looking for design examples targeting specific demographic groups. In addition
to this insight, he found that no other professional design firm was creating
content for these users.
To capitalize on this, Daniel proceeded to write blog posts
- which leveraged long tail keywords - targeting Baby Boomers, Generation Xs,
Millennials, and Gen Zers. In time, Daniel found these blog posts received much
less traffic, but the conversion rates were higher.
Overview
Taking a step back from Paige and Daniel, we can see by the
chart below how short tail and long tail keywords differ when it comes to
search volume and conversion rates. While short tail keywords receive higher
search volume, long tail keywords receive higher conversion rates. On the
contrary, there are exceptions and some content will not follow this pattern,
though this is unlikely.
Head-To-Head
At this point you’re likely asking the question, “So, what
type of content should I create?” Well, that all depends on your goals. By the
comparison chart we created below, it clearly favours long tail keyword content.
However, this is not always the case as short tail keyword content could be
more beneficial in different scenarios.
Deciding what type of content to create, how to go about
creating content, and creating content, takes time, resources, and expertise. If
you’d like a hand in stepping up your inbound game, shoot us an email and we’d be glad to help!