Build Short-Tail Rankings by Using Long-Tail Keywords

If your site is neither old nor high-authority, then you probably know how difficult it is to rank for short-tail keyword phrases. In reality, it’s not the small sites alone that bear the brunt, even high authority sites face this challenge, as the scope of appearing high on search engine pages is little with high-competition keywords.

It is this challenge that makes businesses refrain from using short-tail keywords. Yes, you can steer completely clear from the short-tail, but the volume of traffic you are going to miss out on is huge. So, you cannot ignore short-tail keywords, nor can you neglect their long-tail counterparts.

So, what is the solution that seems feasible here? Find out-

Truly unique searches are rare-

According to Google, only 15% of the queries it receives are unique. Now, are these unique queries really unique?

Well, to understand this you may look at these two queries below-

how to eat a lemon without cringing
how to eat a lemon without making a face

The words used in the phrases and the sequence in which they have been used may be unique but the sentiment behind these queries are actually not. It is this intent that acts as a repository of optimization opportunities for any business.

Topics, desires and intents- optimizing everything-

Categorizing your short-tail keywords into groups of long-tail keywords that are related to each other is a great means of keyword targeting, provided you already have or are ready to build the pages and content that would be required for this purpose.

Never say ‘no’ to short-tail keywords-

A lot of people will suggest you neglect the short tail. They might also tell you that it’s too competitive, too costly, too difficult and the like. True, the points they mention are all valid. But you don’t need to focus entirely or exclusively on short-tail keywords to reap benefits from them. You can make use of long-tail keywords to create relevance for short-tail keywords.

You may call it optimization of the long-tail, and it’s actually no difficult job. so, how to do it? Figure out all the long-tail keywords in a particular topic which have identical meanings, categorize them together and generate a page for the purpose of optimization. Remember, you are not required to optimize the page for only a few of the long-tail phrases, you are needed to optimize for all of them.

Take, for instance, discount, cheap, closeouts, sale, clearance, surplus are the qualifiers present in the keywords you have found for your product (any particular product).

Now, don’t you see a pattern emerging from these qualifiers? Yes! They all mean the same thing. So, you can easily optimize them together. So, create a page where you include all of your discounted products so that they sell out quickly.

Make sure you link this page to your main products page so that if the item a customer is looking for is not on discount, they can shop for it on the main page at its full price.

Do it again and again for other keywords too, having similar intent. This way, you will gain proficiency for a great optimization technique.

Patience can make all the difference-

While you try out different optimization techniques, it’s important for you to hold realistic expectations and have patience. Getting traction on the short-tail phrase you want, by optimizing long-tail phrases is not easy.

Building authority to all the pages is always important. In the absence of authority, ranking for short-tail keywords will become extremely difficult, even when you have carried out the optimization really well.

Nevertheless, optimizing long-tail pages is a great way to build authority. Allow the pages to rank on the basis of their own merits. And with the addition of each new page, you will be adding up to the authority that already exists.

When you optimize long-tail for achieving short-tail, your sales and traffic begin to grow. One thing that, however, needs to be kept in mind here is that optimization is the not the only thing that will take you places.

You will still have to do marketing in the right way, carry out promotions, and provide value to your customers through the quality of products. With the right efforts put into keyword optimization and offering value to the customers, you sure will be able to make your business scale dizzy heights.