Blogging SEO for Houston Businesses: Longtail Keywords
If you are looking for a great way to add some SEO to your blog, don’t overlook the longtail. This is a keyword strategy that can work well for driving traffic to your website over time and it also helps to keep your website in focus. In this article, we are going to talk about SEO for blogs and the importance of becoming friends with the longtail keyword.
Taking a Closer Look at Longtail Keywords
Chris Anderson is the author responsible for the term longtail keywords which has become so popular today. The book itself is “The Longtail” and Mr. Anderson does an excellent job of showing how it is possible to target any market with these types of phrases. The thing the most people don’t understand, however, is the fact that many of those markets are extremely small.
It is the overall size of the Internet that makes the niche product and the related post on your blog profitable. Since longtail keywords tend to be more specific and less frequently used than other keywords, they provide more of a focus on any niche. This post will talk more about SEO copywriting and the use of longtail keywords to your benefit.
A Primary Theme with Many Tails
The majority of blogs tend to focus on the primary topic, usually referred to as a head term or a primary keyword. For example, if you have a food about blogs, you may talk about restaurants, eating or recipes. Many family bloggers may talk about their life and children. This blog, on the other hand, is about search engine optimization and that is why it is an SEO blog. Every blog post that you see on this website is going to be about Houston SEO or a topic that is associated with optimization. It is our primary goal to rank for that keyword.
Although the main topic of your blog should be the focus, you need to ensure that more people are able to find you. Imagine that you had a blog that was fully dedicated to making Mexican food. Quite obviously, you would want to rank for the keyword “make your own Mexican food” and that is your primary focus.
At the same time, you would not want to continually focus every one of your blog posts on that same search term. Doing so would be redundant and could cause a wide variety of problems. It is a much better idea to consider all of the longtail possibilities that may be associated with your primary term and to write posts that are focused in that direction. You may talk about everything from tacos to enchiladas and burritos but all of them point back to your main category.
You might even want to consider using long tails even more. Perhaps you could write about some homemade soft tacos that your family absolutely loves or how to make the perfect salsa for your homemade corn chips. The sky is really the limit when it comes to keywords but you do need to do your research.
The Tail Links to the Head
If you are using a variety of longtail phrases, then you can use those pages to link to the primary category pages. This really gives a lot of additional weight to the best pages on your website which really form the cornerstone of your blog. Keep in mind, you always want to link properly from the tail to the head. It gives structure to your website and helps Google to follow that structure to the ultimate conclusion.
You want those primary web pages to rank highly in Google. For example, you may have written an in-depth and high-quality webpage on the best way to make tacos. You want to pull as much traffic as possible into that single webpage to attract new blog readers. Your longtail keywords on other blog posts will then link to that head page on the blog.
The Importance of Longtail Keywords for Blog SEO
There tend to be 2 different reasons why a blogger would focus on longtail keywords. It has to do with high conversions and easy rankings.
1. Quite simply, it is much easier to rank for a longtail keyword than for a head keyword because you are dealing with a lot less competition. When the longtail keywords are specific and contain multiple words in the phrase, it becomes easier to rank them in Google. The Internet is a very large place so your audience is going to grow as the Internet grows. When you use longtail keywords to focus on many related terms, you will see an increase in traffic.
2. You also benefit by focusing on longtail keywords because a single visitor would be more likely to become a regular visitor. They may even take the next step of subscribing to your newsletter! When you focus on precise and long search terms, you will find it much easier to convert people into regular visitors. When they type those longer terms into Google, they know exactly what they are looking for. One may find the solution on your website, you will then have a regular visitor. In other words, longtail keywords tend to be used by a more focused audience that are motivated to find what they want. That is why longtail keywords are so profitable.
Keep Writing for the Longtail
Bloggers can profit by focusing on writing for longtail keyword phrases. When you do it properly and link to your head pages, it can boost your traffic and bring in a whole new type of audience.
Another benefit of using longtail keywords is that it helps you to find fresh ideas for blogging. As you likely know, it can be challenging to come up with new subjects for blog posts. When you have a list of longtail variations at your disposal, however, those ideas will keep flowing. The only thing that is left for you to do is to keep writing.
For more examples of appropriate blog SEO, take a look at ours. If you have any questions or would like to get started on your new or existing business’ marketing campaign, give us a call or contact us today!
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