keyword:
jewellery

Related long-tail keywords: 
silver charms for bracelets

The above  longtail key phrase could be the phrase for a single page on a jewellery website– a page which features silver charms and silver charm bracelets.

Why use long-tail keywords?
There are good reasons to use longtail phrases in your seo strategy, including the fact that longtail phrases are targeted and easier to optimise for than short terms consisting of two or less words.

Longtail phrases are targeted
The fact that longtail phrases have a narrower focus means benefits for web users and you!

Benefits to web users:
A person searching with long-tail phrases is more likely to know what they want, because they are narrowing down their search. If they land on a page that offers exactly what they’re looking for, this provides a positive experience for them.

Benefits to website owners:
Satisfied web users are more likely to buy from you or feel positive towards your website.

People are often said to be further along in the buying process if they are using highly targeted longtail terms. Therefore, if they land on a page that matches their request, they are possibly already in a ‘buying’ frame of mind, rather than being in a ‘just browsing’ frame of mind. Which is good news for you!

 

Longtail phrases are often easier to optimise for
Although the keyword ‘jewellery’ is not targeted to any particular type of jewellery, it would be a highly sought after term because of the volume of searches each month for that term.

Example Australian search volumes: (Rough estimates only. Not actual search volumes.)

jewellery: 100,000

silver charm bracelet: 1000

silver charms for bracelets: 100

 

Terms consisting of two or less words often have the highest search volumes. Competition is fierce for those keywords terms. Established and authority websites are often up there dominating the first few search results positions. It can be a very long and time-consuming road to building your website up to become an authority website.  (Not to mention expensive if you are paying web optimisation experts!)

Optimising a longtail keyword can be like a backdoor into your website.

Note: Some longtail phrases also have hot competition, even with low search volumes (especially if they are for items with a high value.)

The 2 biggest mistakes you can make with longtail keywords

Mistake 1: Type the phrase into a search engine and then go by the amount of results returned as to how much competition there is for that phrase.In fact, for many longtail phrases, results past the first two pages are not even relevant– maybe even past the first page!

So if you see a figure like 108,965 results returned, don’t get scared! Actually look at the results and determine for yourself if there is decent competition for your chosen phrase.

With some simple and very basic search engine optimisation, you might be able to gain a page one position– even a number one position.

 

Mistake 2: Use a keyword finder (program that shows you the searches per month for a keyword) and get discouraged when you find that only 100 people search for your chosen term a month.

If you could gain the number one spot for that term, and gain even a small number of highly targeted customers/web users– isn’t that worth it?

The flip-side of longtail keywords is also this: Although 100 people may search per month using a particular search term, 500 a month may search for that same term, but use slightly different phrasing.

It is possible to gain thousands of web visitors to a web page per month, all searching for basically the same thing, but each using a unique phrase.

Staple that to your forehead! Many people new to website analytics don’t realise just how many people can arrive at a web page using a unique search phrase.

Of course, keywords consisting of three or less words remain the holy grail. But if you’re just starting out, or if your website is sinking more than swimming, you might want to look at expanding your keyword strategy.

And make sure you have great and targeted content to match your new longtail keywords!