Keyword research is one of the important strategies that every digital marketer should consider before optimizing the website or blog content. It not only helps in developing a good keyword list but also helps in finding the topics that users are searching for.
Most of the time we spend a lot of time searching the short tail keywords because of the high search volume and we think that they drive good traffic and forget about the long-tail keywords.
In my view, every SEO should consider long-tail keywords in their keyword research. Long-tail keywords are less competitive and at the same time, they give a high conversion rate.
Before digging how to do keyword research for long-tail keywords lets get a fair idea of what actually is keyword research and what are long-tail keywords.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is nothing but the process of finding the keywords that are actually searched by users.
When you conduct keyword research, you come to know the search volumes i.e. the approximate number of times those keywords are searched.
These search volumes help you frame your content strategy and plan your website and blog’s content structure.
Types of Keywords
Before we move to specifics, let's quickly understand the types of keywords
- Short Tail Keywords
- Long Tail Keywords
What are Short Tail Keywords?
Short tail keywords are keywords with high search volumes and tough competition.
Usually, short tail keywords are queries with one or two words.
Example of short tail keywords
- SEO
- Astrology
- Pregnancy
- Reduce Weight
- Air tickets
- Poker
The good part of short tail keywords is that they have high search volumes but at the same time the negative is that the intent of the users who are using these keywords is not clear.
What are Long Tail Keywords?
Long-tail keywords are keywords with low search volume and competition. Also, keywords with more than 3+ words are considered as long-tail keywords. Below are some of the example of long-tail keywords:
- Best SEO tips for WordPress
- Free weekly horoscope for Virgo
- Best exercises to reduce tummy
- How to get cheap air tickets
- How to improve my texas holdem poker game
- Can a pregnant women do yoga
- SEO tips and tricks to promote Website
Although these keywords would have fewer searches as compared to short tail keywords but the users are clear of what they are looking for.
This makes the conversion rate high.
For example, a user searching with the keyword “SEO” might be looking for the SEO tips, what is SEO, why to do SEO.
But if someone is searching with the keyword “ SEO guide for the new website” clearly indicate the user intent.
This is the reason why long-tail keywords have higher conversion rate.
Why Keyword Research is Key to success?
We all know that SEO has evolved in the past years so it is important to know what users are searching and what they actually want to find.
Keyword research helps you in finding the topic that people want to read. By finding the keywords that are having search volume, you can choose your topic of interest.
In today’s digital world, a well-written article alone is of no use if it’s not targeting the search terms used by the users.
Now let’s move to question how to do the keyword research for long-tail keywords
Ways to Find Long-Tail Keyword Research
There are many ways to find the long-tail keywords but I am highlighting some of my tested ways and tools that can help you find long-tail keywords.
Answer the Public
Answerthepublic.com is one of the most famous tools for finding the long-tail keywords that provide question focused keywords.
To start, just enter your keyword and click the “Get Questions”.
You will get questions focused on long-tail keywords. Below is a screenshot of the question focused on long-tail keywords. You can use these searches in your content to make it more user-friendly.
You can also sort the keywords alphabetically
Google Related Searches
It is important to notice the user intent and planning your keyword research according to that.
This is an area where google related searches come in the picture
Google shows a few keywords at the bottom of the search page known as google related searches.
These keywords are nothing but terms used by people on Google. Since Google thinks they are related to the query used by you, these suggestions are displayed.
By using these related searches you can better understand the user intent and include those keywords in your content.
To find the google related searches, just enter your seed keyword in the search bar for which you want to rank.
Now scroll down at the bottom to check the google related searches to your targeted keyword.
You can use these related searches in your content to boost your SEO.
Google Search Box
Another way to find the long tail keyword is by using the search box smartly.
It is one of my favorite ways to find long-tail keywords as suggestions come from google directly.
To start, type your seed keyword in the search box and Google will immediately suggest some more keywords that users are searching for.
Here you will mostly find long tail keywords and queries with low search volume and competition.
Once you find the long-tail keywords for your content you can check the search volume for that keyword by using tools like SEMrush.
Google People Also Ask Searches
Another great way to find the long-tail keywords is the “people also ask” box. To get the idea just type a keyword in the search box and check the people also ask section.
This section appears on the Google search results page after you have searched for something.
In the below example, I searched with “keyword planner”. You can see the below suggestions that are displayed by Google.
These are the keywords that users ask around your keyword. You can include these keywords in your content to match the user intent.
Google Search Console Searches
Google search console of your website shows you queries for which your website is appearing in the search results.
By doing this, you can figure out the keywords for which you website is ranking in the top and not.
In google search console, you can find the keywords for which your website ranks on the 2nd & 3rd page of Google.
Sometimes you see some of the long-tail keywords for which you are already ranking on the 2nd or 3rd page of the SERP without optimizing it.
You can easily hit the top 10 positions for those keywords by optimizing them. To find the keywords in the google search console just log into your webmaster’s account and go to the performance report to see the search queries.
Now go to queries and check the keywords for which your website is already getting impressions. You can sort them either by clicks or impressions.
Keep scrolling and select the long-tail keywords that are worth to target. For you, these keywords will be low hanging fruit as they are already ranking somewhere for your website.
Browse Q&A Sites
Another easy way to find the long-tail keywords is to find the questions asked by the user on the internet. For this, you can browse question and answer sites.
Below are some of the Q&A sites that will help you:
- Quora
- Yahoo Answers
- Answers.com
- Askville by Amazon
- LinkedIn Answers
These are some of the manual ways to find long-tail keywords. There are many tools available that will help you in finding the long-tail keywords.
I am highlighting some of the tools that are on my list in finding the long-tail keywords.
Tools To Find Long-Tail Keywords
Soovle
Soovle.com is one of my favorite tools. It is a free tool that collects the data from the amazon, YouTube, answer.com, Yahoo, and Wikipedia and suggests you long-tail keywords to target.
Just go to the tool and type your head keywords and Soovle will suggest you the long-tail keywords.
SEMrush
Another tool that will help you in finding the long tail keyword is SEMrush. To start, just enter your seed keyword in the “organic research”.
Remember, SEMrush is not a free tool.
You will get the phrase match report with search volume and keyword difficulty.
Just choose the best suited long-tail keywords for your content and boost your SEO.
Synonyms are also important so it is a good idea to check related keywords to find the long-tail keywords.
Pro Tip: You can also export the keywords in CSV format.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is another awesome tool and SEMrush competitor to find the long-tail keywords.
Enter your seed keyword in the "Keywords Explorer" tab and get the keywords.
Ahrefs is also a paid tool.
One thing I like most about Ahrefs keyword explorer is that you can use the word count filter to find keywords with 3-5 words.
Google Keyword Planner
The keyword planner is a great tool to find long-tail keywords. To start just enter your seed keyword in the search bar and click on the get idea.
You will get a number of suggestions for your seed keyword. Now select the most relevant keyword for your content.
UberSuggest by Neil Patel
A tool that is getting famous day by day.
Ubersuggest suggests a lot of long-tail keyword phrases. You just need to enter your seed keyword and enter the search bar.
You will get long-tail keywords suggestions with search volume and keyword difficulty.
Conclusion
We all know how crucial is keywords research is because if you do not find the right keywords, your content strategy and SEO will go nowhere.
It is like sharpening the axe before cutting the tree.
Even if you find the relevant keywords, you might not be able to rank on all of them.
The easier way out to drive organic and converting traffic is to focus on finding long tail keywords.