How to rank on long tail keywords?
We’re back again with another quick nugget of digital marketing goodness!
Following on from our previous post “how to use long tail keywords effectively,” which explains what long tail keywords are and what to do when conducting your research.
I would highly recommend reading that post before reading on as we are picking up just where that one left off!
Now, onto the good stuff.
Long tail keyword research completed
By this point, you should have finished conducting your keyword research using Google’s Keyword Planner tool.
This means you will have decided on the long tail keyword you wish to rank on which will have both high relevancy to your product or service and has a relatively high number of monthly searches (this will be relative between different industries).
Furthermore, you should have also noted down all other relevant search terms you came across during your research which have a lower monthly search volume.
Preferably, all of your keywords should be placed in a nice table because “tables make the world a better place” which is a fundamental objective truth which we stated in a previous post!
Where to place long tail keywords?
The main long tail keyword you’ve chosen should be the focus keyword of your page. This means this specific phrase should appear in the page’s: URL, Title/H1, Meta Title, Meta Description and in the Alt Text of any images on the page.
The other relevant search terms can be placed in the page’s H2’s and sporadically in the copy of the page. Through this method the page can also potentially achieve ranking on the other search terms you’ve noted down in your research.
However, BEWARE OF KEYWORD STUFFING!
How to avoid keyword stuffing?
Keep track of how many times you use each specific long tail keyword throughout the copy of the page. If a keyword appears in more than 5% of the page copy, Google will harshly penalise ranking as their sophisticated Panda algorithm sees this as “keyword stuffing!”
To calculate if you’re engaging in keyword stuffing, count the number of times you’ve used a specific long tail keyword. Divide that number by the total word count of the page content and times it by 100. Then you will have your percentage and indicator to whether you should hold back or ramp up on your keyword usage.
Finally, make sure that your page copy appears natural, authentic and is genuinely informative. Google are prioritising content unique high-quality content which solves their users’ queries so appease the search engine giant! We’ll cover more on the topic of high quality content in a future post so stay tuned!
