‘Long tail’ is a term being used with increasing frequency around SEO circles. Indeed, even experts unconcerned with search engine optimisation have been discussing the trend for users to search with strings of words instead of the old method of one or two terms. Long tail is not just the future of search, it’s the today.

In the past, search engine optimisation has relied on ’short tail’ keywords, made up of one or two words only. As time has gone by, these keywords have extended to include three words. Long tail keywords are keywords made up of three or more words and have been creeping up on the SEO industry for quite some time.

A website that understands how to use long tail keywords has a real advantage in today’s search market, because it’s a phenomenon that many SEO experts are still coming to terms with. Optimising for particular keywords is now so ingrained in the search engine optimisation industry that many are having difficulty working long strings of words into their strategies. This is not to undermine the difficulty of chasing long tail keywords. Part of the reason many firms avoid the issue of long tail keywords is because they’re particularly hard to hunt.

The major difficulty with long tail keywords is determining them in the first place. Each extra word in a keyword adds complexity. Short tail keywords are pretty much guessable. Many businesses will find that the list their SEO firm comes up with contains few surprises. As more words are added into the keyword, things become less guessable because the keyword is more precise. Determining which long tail keywords your target users will use can be hard because they are so specific.

The easy-to-understand nature of short tail keywords has led to many businesses sticking with them as the central focus of their SEO campaign. After all, things are much easier with short keywords. Pages can be built around them, tags can be easily written to contain them, and they can be scattered throughout content like tempting search engine breadcrumbs. This is the traditional approach to SEO, and it has worked in the past. It has decreasing worth for today’s web.

The good news is that long tail keywords are so specific that competition on those keywords is smaller. The bad news is that your site needs to find all of the long tail keywords applicable and cater for them. This can mean a huge amount of keywords you need to target for, meaning that the way you address keywords within your site needs to change.

It’s thought that long tail search is now around 70% of the search engine business. This means that short tail keywords are snapping up only 30% of the market. This means that your business can’t afford to ignore long tail keywords in your SEO plan. If you’re interested in discussing how to incorporate long tail keywords within your site’s search engine optimisation, contact our experts at SEO Consult.

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