A Better Understanding of Short and Long Tail Keywords | OnPage SEO

Introduction to Short and Long Tail keywords

To those who are making a living online, Short and Long Tail keywords are extremely powerful tools that allow your online business to receive more traffic that results in more profit for you. Here is what Short Tail and Long Tail keywords are and their advantages as well as disadvantages.

Short Tail and Long Tail keywords: A Basic Introduction

For many people who make a living online, whether it is blogging on Google or YouTube as well as selling products on eBay and Amazon, you need to understand what Short Tail and Long Tail Keywords are in order to receive a higher page rank to gain more profit. Let us explore these two in depth:

Short Tail Keywords

Short Tail Keywords are very generic and basic words that could be found in a short phrase such as “Camera” or “Camera Lens”. Let us say that your online business is selling cameras. Google has an application that allows people to know how much online traffic a particular word is getting. So, let us say that the word “Camera” is getting 30,000 searches per day. This is a lot of traffic for a single day and the chances that your online business receives more traffic are lessened substantially because there are hundreds of other people selling cameras online. As the competition is stiff online, many people create articles, blogs, and back links about their products and publish them on Google and other keyword research tools in the hopes of attracting more online visitors. The reality about competing on search engines such as this is their blog or article only makes it to Page 4 or 5 of search engine results. If you are looking to sell your cameras immediately, you may need to consider using Long Tail keywords for your online business.

Advantages

• Easier to determine which words are more useful for your online business
• Easier to create content on the specific keyword
• Keywords reach more online audience

Disadvantages

• Harder for visitors to visit your website due to the amount of other online businesses utilizing these words
• Online businesses often purchase the use of these words, which make them rank higher on search engines.

Long Tail Keywords

If Short Tail Keywords are the more basic words being used on search engines, Long Tail keywords are more detailed-targeted. Instead of simple keywords such as “Camera” and “Camera Lens”, you will be using longer, more detailed phrases such as “Black Sony Camera for Sale” or “Online Cameras Extremely Cheap”. By adding more words, Long Tail keywords are more specific, which means they have a better chance of ranking high on a search engine’s top performing pages.

Advantages

• More specific phrases that allow your website to appear higher on search engines.
• Leads to higher conversion rates as consumers are looking directly for your product or service.

Disadvantages

• Words are more target-detailed, which means a smaller online demand.
• Harder to create good web content using all the specific keywords multiple times.

When promoting your online business on search engines, it is crucial that you take the time to put yourself in the mind of the person that will search for what it is that you are offering. Through properly utilizing Short and Long tail keywords, you have the opportunity to gain more online traffic which will definitely lead to more profit on your end.