Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How Using Long Tail Keywords Can Rank You In The Top 3 Spots of Google!

Good keyword research is paramount in landing you on the first page of a Google search. Often times people choose keywords that are far too generic, leaving themselves no chance of being found on the first page of Google Search.

Long tail keywords are keywords that contain more than three or four words that someone would type in a Google search.

These longer tail keywords may not be as common or searched for as often as a single keyword, but long tail keywords will have a lot less competition, attract a more targeted audience, and give you a better chance of ranking on the first page of Google.

Generic keywords such as: Home Based Business and Work At Home are going to produce a larger number of searches each month and at the same time, there will be millions of websites competing for that same keyword.

Work At Home for instance has 1,900,000,000 results, or nearly two billion websites competing for that keyword. Yes, you read that right, billion with a B. Your chances of landing on page 157, let alone the first page are pretty bleak when the competition is that stiff.

Long tail keywords properly chosen should yield search results of 30,000 or less, a much more manageable competitive number to deal with.

Keyword research requires you to dig deep when choosing your keywords. As an example I would like to breakdown the long tail keyword research I used for a previous article about Forwarding and Masking a Domain. Google offers a free keyword tool that will assist you in your keyword research called, Google Keyword Tool.

This tool will breakdown monthly global searches as well as local searches done each month on a particular keyword. It also lists other relevant words and their stats, giving you a choice of keywords that you may not have thought of.

I started my research with Forwarding a domain which produced about 5 million search results. Meaning there are 5 million websites talking about forwarding a domain.

Forwarding and masking a domain produced 250,000 results, still more competition than I care to go up against. In digging a bit deeper I tried, forwarding and masking your domain, which produced 47,000 results. Digging deeper still I tried, How To Set Up Forwarding and Masking Your Domain which produced only 26,300 results. Bingo, I found the long tail keyword to build my article around.

After just a couple of weeks I now have the second and third spot on the first page of Google for the long tail keyword, how to set up forwarding and masking your domain.

To illustrate this process I created a video that is posted on my blog which is listed below.

In closing, long tail keywords will reach a far more targeted audience than generic keywords. You won't generate as much traffic to your site using a them, but you will generate quality people looking for what you have to offer.