Keywords play an essential role in your overall search engine optimization strategy. If you only target highly competitive keywords when you’re creating landing pages and blog posts, it’s unlikely you’ll see those pages rank on page one. That is, unless your Domain Authority is equal to or higher than your competitors.

In this blog, we’re going to go over the concept of long-tail keywords and low-competition keywords. Rather than targeting highly competitive keywords that many other people may have optimized for, low competition keywords and long-trail keywords can help you get on to page one and see SEO wins earlier and faster.

What are long-tail keywords?

First, it helps to understand exactly what long-tail keywords are. These are longer keyword phrases of three words or more that are more specific and direct for your niche. 

For example, maybe you want your web design company to rank for the competitive keyword web design services. Here are some examples of some long-tail keywords that show similar search intent and relevance:

• web design services for small businesses
• web design services pricing
• development and web design services
• landing page web design services
• custom website design services
• web and graphic design services

If your brand or website is just starting out, the best keywords may be lengthier phrases that exactly describe what you’re selling rather than the basic keyword that your competition is targeting.

The more specific you can get with your keywords, the better. In fact, a majority of Google Searches (about 70%) are long-tail queries. People tend to search for their specific needs using at least three words.

So, if you can rank for these specific searches, you’ll be able to draw in more customers.

What are low-competition keywords?

The internet is a huge space full of literally millions of different websites vying for buyer‘s attention. That’s a lot of competition you are trying to beat out with high-volume keywords. In the keyword competition game, it can help to maximize your SEO strategy when you stay away from the keyword ideas that everyone is utilizing. This is where low-competition keywords come in.

Metrics like Keyword Difficulty estimate the competitive landscape of certain keywords. If the keywords your brand wants to rank for have high search volume, higher CPC (which represents conversion potential), and are already dominated by websites with lots of site authority, those keywords are considered higher competition. 

But to be successful in SEO, your brand should target and utilize keywords that you actually have the capability to rank for. Your potential customers will be more likely to find you if you are ranking in the top three positions on page one. Aiming for keywords where you can get to those top spots is a much more practical way of ranking, especially for newer websites.

Low-competition keywords should still be relevant to your products and services and will represent buyers somewhere in the marketing funnel. As you’re starting out or building your website from the ground up, lower competition keywords are great to gain some traction.

Avoid the high-competition keywords at first. Instead, draw more people to your landing page with low-volume keywords you can rank for more easily.

Pros and Cons of Long-Tail Keyword Targets

As with any marketing strategy, you need to make sure you’re using the best tools to help your company succeed. When it comes to long-tail and low-competition keywords, there are some pros and cons to consider. 

Let’s go over a few of those in detail now.

Pro: You have a better chance of ranking.

Playing the SEO game is all about your search rankings. The biggest pro of utilizing low-competition keywords is that you have a better chance of ranking with a fast turnaround. 

This is especially true for newer websites and young businesses. As you’re starting out, you may not have a strong domain rating or meaningful presence on the internet. Therefore, you won’t be competitive against big-name websites when trying to rank for general keywords. 

Focus on getting your numbers up on long-tail searches as a way to see results more immediately.

Pro: Your conversion rates can be higher.

When a potential customer searches with short-tail keywords, chances are they’re just looking around and browsing the internet. A long-tail search is more specific and direct. That means they represent searchers who know exactly what they’re looking for and are ready to buy it. 

When you rank for long-tail keywords, it greatly increases your conversion rates. Customers in these instances are poised and ready to purchase the exact product they need, and you want to be the site that gives it to them. 

Getting specific about your offerings is that sweet spot where you draw in potential customers and a target audience that is ready to finalize their purchase.

Pro: This is a great stepping stone to better SEO practices overall.

The world of SEO can seem intimidating at first, but it doesn’t have to be. Another pro of long-tail keywords is that they can help spark better SEO practices overall. 

Think of this as a stepping stone for beginners or new websites that eventually want to rank among those high-competition keyword suggestions. The key to a good long-tail keyword campaign is to always connect things back to the head concept or pillar page. 

As you work to rank with low-competition phrases, you’ll also be able to beef up your main content. This helps you create a more strategic site and homepage overall.

Con: Long-tail keywords have a much lower search volume.

The biggest con of long-tail keywords is that they have a lower search volume. If you don’t choose your keyphrases carefully, you may be ranking for concepts that no one ever searches for. 

All that hard work to create and optimize content wouldn’t actually result in higher site visits. This may also mean that your site traffic isn’t as high as you’d like. 

While this is a downside, it can still be a good strategy. That’s because the business and search inquiries you are generating are more specific to what your site offers.

Con: It can be trickier to find the right long-tail queries.

Another tricky part of utilizing long-tail keywords is finding the perfect keywords in the first place. 

You want to rank for an incredibly specific query while still creating relevant content. It’s easy to find the Google trends for main keywords and primary topics, but low-competition searches may be harder to pin down. 

You may find yourself going through a lot of keywords to find the perfect low-competition options for you. Luckily, here at LinkGraph, we have excellent tools to help you find long-tail keywords that will be perfect for your particular niche.

Finding Long-Tail Keywords with LinkGraph’s Keyword Researcher

Here at LinkGraph, we have a number of software services we can provide you. One of these is our custom keyword research tool. Get understandable, beneficial metrics for your SEO so you can get the best organic search traffic. 

There are a few reasons why this tool is a great way to do competitive analysis to find those long-tail keywords that will benefit your business.

1. Search Volume: See how much traffic certain phrases get on Google. Remember, with low-competition keywords, you may actually want a smaller search volume number than with generic terms.
2. Keyword Difficulty: See how hard it may be to rank on the first page of the Google SERP with Keyword Difficulty. On a scale of 1-100, the lower the number, the more likely you are to rank. 
3. Cost-per-click (CPC): Get cost-per-click metrics for each specific term to getter a better understanding of their conversion potential.
4. Search Volume by Country: Narrow down your search by country so you are appealing to new customers in your target market. 

You can also explore our keyword suggestion feature for a quick way to get inspiration for your keyword research. This feature will take the exact keyword you had in mind and help you come up with keyword target alternatives.

It shows you subtopics, related ideas, autocomplete suggestions, and more. It’s a good idea to do this research so you can find a low-competition phrase to bring in quality searchers to your service pages, product pages, or blog posts. Check out these solutions for keyword suggestions in a seven-day free trial of our SearchAtlas software suite.

Other Ways to Brainstorm Low-Competition Keywords

Beyond our terrific resources, there are ways to do some keyword brainstorming on your own. Start by searching competitor keywords and find what is actually ranking. Google can offer some free tools for you to see likely rank and PPC information for certain keyword opportunities. 

You can also take a page from your competitor’s book, literally. Search through the top SERP-ranked pages and dissect that content marketing strategy. Who knows? You may find a new keyword or get inspiration from these high-competition sources. 

Doing a quick Google search with our LinkGraph Chrome extension can also help you identify what related searches people are using to find products and services like yours.

Overall, these are just a few jumping-off points and ideas to help you improve your keyword inquiries and understand searcher intent in new ways. Once you’ve taken the first step, you can benefit from professional on-page SEO assistance to find the best keyword terms for better results.

When should I target long-tail keyword queries?

There are a few different reasons you should target long-tail queries and some great opportunities to do so.

Brand New Website

If you are just starting out as a new domain or fresh website, utilizing long-tail keywords can be the best place to start ranking and making a name for yourself on the internet.

Without as much competition up front, you’ll be able to gain some traction and build toward more short-tail queries. When creating your new primary landing pages, aim for creating keyword clusters that include both short-tail and long-tail queries.

Blog Content Strategy

Starting a blog is another perfect opportunity to explore these ideal keywords. Creating blog content on a regular basis gives you opportunities to create content that specifically targets these long-tail and low competition queries. Optimize blog posts based on search phrases to help your web page grow a following in the best way. Get specific about certain concepts and key phrases so your ranked page can work its way up the SERPs.

Overall, long-tail, low-competition queries are the perfect solution for newer websites or pages trying to convert new customers into profitable sales. If you’re launching a new product or searching for more business, explore the benefits of long-tail keywords and low-competition searches. Here is a video explaining how to move from a keyword to a blog topic for your content strategy.

Start your long-tail keyword strategy today.

Now that you understand the importance and benefit of long-tail, low-competition keywords, it’s time to implement your strategy! A pro tip as you’re starting out is to officially identify your mission. 

Your SEO strategy is specific to your company and the goals you’ve set in your business plan. When you know your mission, you can do better keyword research. You also can be confident in exactly what you want to promote. This will inform all your next steps as you do research on Google metrics and start utilizing keyword idea searches.

Remember, the more specific you can get with your low competition keywords, the higher the chance you’ll rank in those niche areas. Overall, your long-tail keyword strategy is just the first step toward helping you utilize keywords in a deliberate way. Work smarter, not harder with these tactics and techniques that can take your company to the next level of your SEO journey.

The post Unlock the SEO Potential of Low Competition and Long-Tail Keywords appeared first on LinkGraph.

In order to improve the relevance of the SERPs, Google has had to get better at understanding human language. Thanks to natural language processing algorithms and machine learning, Google is one of the most literate robots out there. 

So what can website owners do to leverage the power of Google’s NLP models? It’s called semantic SEO. It’s all about creating content that shows Google that your content has topical depth, relevance, and quality.

What is Semantic SEO?

Semantic SEO is the process of creating your content around topics, instead of one or two keywords. It is when you build more meaning into the content you create. Also, it involves thinking about the true intent of your readers and how the various landing pages on your website interrelate. 

A piece of content that is optimized properly for semantic SEO not only will answer the question a user has now but will answer the second, third, and fourth question they may have after reading. It is all about adding more depth, meaning, and reason to your content.

There are 3 problems that content creators face when dealing with content on a search engine:

• Google is smart, but it’s still a robot. Several Google algorithm updates have focused on helping Google crawlers understand human language. However, they are bots. While their machine learning is quite advanced, they aren’t able to truly speak with human language. This is where semantic writing can come in handy.

• Other brands are vying for your target audience. With more content fighting for valuable search engine real estate, it is hard to stand out to a searcher. Google uses authority, quality, and page experience to determine whether or not your relevant content is more valuable than your competitors.
• Google can promote your content, but you have to do the rest. Search engines can usually figure out what your content is about. But it’s up to you to answer consumer’s questions before they even ask them and drive them toward conversion.

The concept of semantic search can help with all 3 of the above problems. Using this method not only will help a content creator develop topics that answer their user’s intent, but they are also able to position the content where more than one question can be answered in more than one way. The goal is to add depth to your content and to frame content to longer queries and topic clusters rather than a literal keyword match.

Semantic SEO and Natural Language Processing

To get a better understanding of what exactly semantic SEO is, it’s important to understand how the data behind language is processed. 

Natural language processing (NLP) is how computers work to understand human language and infer meanings behind what is spoken. 

NLP models are building blocks of communication between humans and computers. New advancements in NLP are happening all the time, like with SMITH and GPT-3. 

With every new algorithm update, search engines like Google get better at understanding human language.

How Do Search Engines Use Semantics and Natural Language Processing?

Google released an update back in 2019 that aided them in semantic analysis and NLP. The BERT update (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), was one of the most important algorithm updates in years and affected 10% of all existing search queries. 

In short, BERT helped Google better understand what the words in a sentence mean. It also helps Googlebot gain insights of the context around certain words.

Here are a few different examples of linguistic artificial intelligence capabilities that are used by NLP models like BERT.

Semantic Mapping

Semantic mapping is the act of exploring connections between any word and phrase and a related set of words and concepts. A semantic map will visualize how terms work together, and the search intent of the consumer.

For example, if a person simply searches for the term “pizza for dinner,” they could be looking to order a pizza from a local restaurant. Or, they could be looking for a recipe to make one at home. 

So how does Google know what the true search intent is? It’s all about the terms that the consumer searches with the main “pizza” keyword. If they are looking to make one at home, they could be searching for ingredients and proper oven temperatures. Or, if they’re looking to order, we can assume their search query will include the terms “near me” or descriptive words like “best ” or “great.”

Semantic Coding

This is the process of using coding to better explain to Google what types of information can be found on each different page.

One popular example of semantic coding is schema.org. Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags, or microdata, that you can add to your HTML. It improves the way search engines read and represent your web pages in relevant search results. When you use schema markup, you tell Google exactly what is on your page, and how you want to present it. 

There are other vocabularies and tags that you can add to help Google understand your content. Header tags such as H1-H6 map out the multiple subheadings and breaks in the content. 

There are also other semantic tags that can be used for emphasis, quotations, citations, acronyms, definitions, and thematic breaks.

How Can you Improve your SEO with NLP ?

As mentioned before, there are many benefits to crafting content with natural language processing in mind. By crafting your content towards how NLP models work, you can earn more keyword rankings, better SERP positions, and more organic traffic.

Add Structured Data Markup

Google wants site owners to add structured data to their website so they can better understand their content. If you have specific products, events, or jobs that you’re trying to promote, there is no reason not to add the appropriate markups so your pages can appear in rich results.

Use Internal Links With Contextual Anchor Text

When a user clicks onto your website, they want to find a solution to their problem. They’re looking for the easiest and best answer to their solution. If they have to spend time hunting around for information, they most likely will move on to another website.

That’s why you’ll want to provide as much relevant, and contextual information to them as soon as they land on your website.

This means not only using content to create meaning around a particular topic, but to include helpful internal links and anchor text. 

You need to think of your customer’s journey. Instead of putting all the information they may need on one web page, a strong internal link structure can work wonders. It both answers users’ questions and boosts your own SEO. However, you will want to create links with relevant anchor text that matters to the reader, to ensure they click on them!

Think Bigger About Keywords

Keyword research is, in a nutshell, complex. Most digital marketers just do simple keyword research on individual keywords that are relevant to their products and services. 

But just think of how many different types of words there are in the English language! Your keyword research should really aim to capture all the different ways that users may search for products or services like yours. For example, use the LinkGraph SearchAtlas Chrome extension to better understand other ways users are searching for similar queries.

This includes verbs, adjectives, related questions and phrases, subtopics, and lsi keywords. LSI keywords, also known as latent semantic index keywords,are search terms that are relevant to the main, single keyword you are targeting.

When you enhance your keyword research and double down on content creation, you will have great success in creating relevant content. That content will also appear higher up in the search results for more relevant keyword phrases.

The Benefits of Writing Content with Topical Depth

There are many benefits to writing content with topical depth. Although longer content is not technically a ranking factor, the advantages of creating more in-depth content are clear in the SEO research and the rankings.

Rank for More Keywords

Even if you only want to rank for one primary keyword, Google usually ends up ranking our web pages for multiple keyword phrases. Why not hit multiple birds with one stone when writing your content? 

Pieces of content with topical depth tend to explore more subtopics and questions related to the primary keyword target. This broadens the reach of the content within the SERPs. 

The idea is simple; the more you write about multiple different related subtopics, the higher chances you have when improving your visibility in multiple search results. 

Above anything else, optimizing for multiple keywords will ensure that you have more opportunities to drive traffic to your website.

Decrease Bounce Rate and Increase Scroll Depth

Not only does Google read the content you promote on your website, they take a look at how people are consuming it. 

In a quest to ensure the best user experience possible, Google only wants to promote high quality web pages. If they see that consumers are bouncing from your website almost as soon as they land there, they will believe that your website isn’t relevant or valuable.

Because in-depth content requires longer landing pages, your visitors will scroll further and spend longer on the page. That is, as long as the text, images, and rich media are quick to load.

Topical depth allows for you to dive really deep into a certain topic at hand. But as you add topical depth to the page, make sure that you don’t sacrifice other key parts of the user’s experience. That includes site architecture, links, and easy navigation elements like jumplinks.     

Improve Readability

Have you ever read a piece of web content that’s stuffed full of the keyword the site owner wants to rank for? Not only is it difficult to read, it devalues the entire experience.

As stated before, semantic SEO is not hyper-focused on one keyword. By writing with semantic SEO in mind, you actually improve the readability of your content.

When you use related words to your main topic, then you’re able to give the reader more context, which improves readability tenfold. Readability is important on both a user intent and SEO basis, as readability improves engagement with the page. 

Engagement is one of the most important metrics that Google pays attention to, and it ties directly in with improving search rankings and search volume. And who wouldn’t want that?

Allow for Easy Conversions

The whole purpose of writing content is to get some sort of conversion, whether it is a phone call, an email subscriber, or a purchase. 

So every bit of content you create will need to serve its own purpose. If your content is stagnant and doesn’t inspire users, then what is the point? Content ties all of your marketing efforts together, and fantastic content will allow for an easy conversion. 

When users find content that is in-depth and answers their questions, they will be more likely to buy. They will also more likely see your brand as an industry authority.

Using the SEO Content Assistant to Improve Semantic SEO

LinkGraph’s SEO Content Assistant uses NLP algorithms and machine learning to help site owners practice semantic SEO. 

With this tool, any digital marketer can take their target keyword and create high-quality, in-depth content. The higher the content score, the more likely the content will rank well in Google and push the user toward conversion.

Our SEO Content Assistant uses semantic technology. It compiles a wide variety of related phrases, LSI keywords, and shoulder topics from your specific keyword and main topic. Additionally, the software will suggest focus terms, multiple on-page elements to use, and keyword frequency that your content needs. This will help your web page outrank competitors for high-value keywords in your industry. 

As a result, you will have dozens of Focus Terms to use in your content that help to enhance the topical depth of your content. The SEO Content Assistant allows for you to optimize your content up to 5 keywords, but make sure those target keywords are related and have similar relevancy. 

Our easy interface makes it seamless to import your content from existing URLs, export new content into Google Docs, and collaborate on your projects with other members of your team.

All in all, this tool will enhance your content and make it a valuable asset to your digital marketing goals.

Final Thoughts on Semantic SEO

Semantic SEO is a fantastic tool for both search engine optimization purposes, but also to really grab your users at the perfect time for conversion. 

By creating content that works to speak to a consumer in natural language, instead of stuffing keywords in unnaturally, consumers are more likely to gain the overall context of your main topic. 

Are you interested in elevating your existing content with semantic SEO? If so, our digital marketing team at LinkGraph is here to help. Learn more about our content tools and software.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Semantic SEO appeared first on LinkGraph.

Prior to this SEO case study, LinkGraph had already earned moderate keyword rankings for our “Free SEO Audit,” landing page, but our SERP results were located primarily on page 2 and 3. As a result, those rankings drove minimal organic traffic to our website. 

Our goal was to improve the performance of this particular landing page because of its proven results as a lead generation tool. We believed that enhancing the content-quality signals on the page could improve our rankings, even without aggressive link acquisition or digital PR promotion.

Spoiler Alert: We were right. In just 3 short months, LinkGraph got to page 1. We also improved organic traffic to the page by 468%.

Here’s how we did it.

But first…Some SEO Industry Context

Many SEO companies use free audits as lead generation tools. These audits identify the on-site and off-site factors that are impacting a potential client’s website, and then offer the results in exchange for an email address.

It’s no surprise then that according to Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, ranking for the keyword phrase, “free SEO audit,” is extremely difficult. 

Because LinkGraph had already earned page 2 and 3 rankings for “SEO audit” related keywords, we knew that Google was accurately understanding the content and relevance of the landing page.

But the page did not have the necessary backlinks approximated by Ahrefs’ metric to reach page 1. Still, we did not focus on any backlink building in our strategy.

Instead we wanted to test whether improving content quality signals alone could have an impact on our SERP positions. We narrowed in on the on-page SEO factors that we could control, and directed our optimization efforts toward the landing page copy and design.

Step 1: Elevate Content Quality Signals on the Page

In order to improve content quality, our content strategists utilized LinkGraph’s SEO Content Assistant. They were tasked with the following:

1. Improve semantic richness of the content by including more Focus Terms into the landing page copy (these are the terms, phrases, and topics our software generates for their relevance to the primary keyword target) 
2. Elevate topical depth of the content by increasing the word count from approximately 1100 words to over 2500
3. Increase the content score of the landing page from 42 to 80+ (score on a scale of 100)
4. Add additional content in a natural way that doesn’t impact readability
5. Incorporate on-page SEO best practices with keyword inclusion in page titles, meta descriptions, and headings

Step 2: Incorporate New Content with Quality Web Design

After our strategists optimized the content and increased the word count of the landing page, our web designer went to work outlining a new information architecture. They prioritized the following design techniques:

1. Add the additional copy in a natural way that does not disrupt the user experience or deplete the aesthetic quality of the landing page 
2. Maintain the text-to-image ratio by using features like vertical tabs, carousels, and expandable content modules 
3. Keep the location of the SEO audit text bar and subsequent lead capture form 

A snapshot of LinkGraph’s redesigned “Free SEO Audit” landing page

SEO Case Study Results: Higher Keyword Positions and Increased Organic Traffic

Our content optimizations went live on January 1, 2021. Within two weeks, we started to notice results in Google Search Console.

As stated earlier, LinkGraph had already earned keyword rankings for the landing page, but we were stuck on page 2 and 3 and getting very few clicks. 

After our optimizations went live, our total number of keywords for the page actually remained static.

We think the reason we didn’t see any increase in total keywords is because we had already optimized for the most salient long-tail keywords the first time we created the page. But where we did see significant improvements was in our average position across all of those keywords. 

Our average position across all keyword rankings for the page on January 1, 2021 was 61.

Our average position across all keyword rankings for the Page on March 30th, 2021 was 38.8.

By nature of these higher SERP positions, organic traffic naturally followed. 

In the 3 months prior to the on-page optimizations, total organic traffic to the landing page was only 70 clicks.

In the three months after the content quality optimizations went live, total organic traffic was 398 clicks.

So where did these clicks come from? According to data from our GSC insights tool for January – March, the majority of those clicks came from the highly competitive keyword phrase: “free seo audit.”

Since publishing the new version of the landing page, our SERP result improved from page 2 to page 1 for the keyword phrase, “free seo audit.”

Although our rankings fluctuate daily on the first page, LinkGraph has ranked as high as the number 4 position, despite having only 7 backlinks to the landing page.

Remember that Keyword Difficulty score of 91?

Good thing we shot for the moon.

What Can We Learn From this SEO Case Study?

With any SEO strategy, it can be difficult to know exactly which optimizations resulted in improved SERP performance. Core algorithm updates, search volatility, and backlinks are all variables that can impact keyword rankings. However, by testing one variant at a time, and referencing the absolute truth of search engine data — Google Search Console — we can get a good sense of which of the optimizations we make to our websites are most or least effective.

In the case of our above example, here are some reasonable conclusions.

Content Quality Matters 

High-quality, relevant content has always been Google’s end goal. All of the efforts Google’s engineers make to improve their algorithm stem from the desire to bring the best search results to users. By focusing on improving the content-quality signals on the page (and according to Google’s quality guidelines), LinkGraph started outranking competitors for a very valuable keyword in our industry niche.

Keyword Position > Total Keywords

In our case study, our total number of keywords for our landing page remained unchanged. However, because we were able to elevate our average SERP position across all of those keywords, we saw the bump in organic traffic that we were striving for. Although the total number of keywords is certainly important for overall impressions and growing your market share, when it comes to seeing those real clicks come in, you need to get to page 1. 

Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty is an Imperfect Metric

Many site owners use Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty to shape their SEO strategy, but there are shortcomings to over-relying on this metric. The metric has an over-focus on the number of links to the landing page, which hasn’t been as predictive of good search performance as other metrics like content quality or the amount of PageRank. Google’s algorithms reward quality, meaning an emerging website can compete with the likes of the SERP-dominators, as long as they prioritize bringing the most useful, valuable content to users. 

The unreliability of this metric actually led LinkGraph CTO, Manick Bhan, to create our own organic difficulty ranking in our Keyword Researcher tool. We don’t want site owners overlooking certain high-value keywords in their industries because they don’t believe that they can compete. 

With the right SEO tools and quality-driven strategy, you can.

Google Search Console Data is Our most Powerful Tool

Our ability to accurately measure the impact of our optimizations is essential in refining our SEO strategy. The above case study relied heavily on our GSC Insights tool (which is built on top of Google’s API and gives you access to Google Search Console data for your site) in order to understand and evaluate the impact of our strategy.

By having granular data about where exactly our impressions and clicks come from, we can understand what works best to improve our SERP performance. Then, we can apply similar optimizations across the entirety of our web pages.

The post SEO Case Study: How LinkGraph Reached Page 1 for a Competitive SEO Keyword in Just 3 Months appeared first on LinkGraph.