What is Long Tail Search?

When you search for a product or service you might use a company name, or just one or two words to describe what you're looking for. But as we've all become more internet-savvy and impatient, the trend is to get more and more specific in describing what you're looking for.

Long Tail Search describes when three, four or more words are being used for a more specific search query. And Long Tail keywords can be enormously valuable for a business, as they tend to indicate someone is likely to then buy a product or service - and there can often be less competition than the one or two-word alternatives.

• 'Cars' is searched for more than 3,350,000 times each month globally on average. But is someone searching to buy a new car? Or looking for car news, pictures and videos?
• 'Used VW Cars' gets searched for around 1,000 times per month. But it's more valuable in terms of information, especially if you happen to be a car dealer with VWs in stock.
• 'Used VW Golf Gti' is down to around 400 enquiries monthly. But it shows that someone already knows what they want to find, and is more likely to buy the right example.
• 'Used VW Golf Gti Mk1 Cabriolet' may only get a handful of people looking for it around the world. But if you have a convertible Mk1 Golf GTi for sale, those people are the most valuable customers around. And that's why the Long Tail is particularly important for small businesses.

How to target Long Tail Keywords

Finding the right Long Tail search terms and phrases is a mixture of two things - knowing your customers and research.

If you run a business, you'll know the questions customers often ask. And when there are specific queries about the exact products and services you offer. Whether it's about the potential benefits and value, or the problems they might worry about, these are all opportunities to attract new customers who share the same thoughts. If someone has reached the stage of specific research, they're most likely looking to buy from whichever business can answer their questions and reassure them with the best advice.

There are also a number of research tools available for finding what people are searching for. We'll ask for your input and brainstorm what customers may look for, and then combine that with information from search engines like Google and Bing, and third party tools. That leaves us with a long list of short, medium and long tail search keywords and phrases from which we can find the best opportunities for you.

The end result is a set of search terms which give you the best combination of relevance, opportunity (looking at where there might be less competition), and results (which terms are most likely to get you a sale).

The next stage is then to create the right content on your website to enable you to appear highly in the results for those long tail searches, which is where our SEO Copywriters step in.

The result is an increase in relevant potential customers to your website, which is how we've delivered not only more traffic to clients, but also more sales.