Long Tail Keywords vs Short Tail Keywords: A Comprehensive Guide
5.00/5Keywords play an essential role in SEO and SEA. They are responsible for getting your website in front of potential customers, so you really need to take the process of deciding which ones to use seriously. Through these lines, we will explore the concept of long-tail keywords vs. short-tail keywords.
Our goal is to help you understand the pros and cons of each type of keyword so that you can make a more informed decision about which ones to use for your next search engine optimization campaign.
Key Takeaways
- Keyword Importance: Keywords are crucial for SEO and SEA, impacting website visibility and attracting customers.
- Keyword Types: Short tail keywords are concise but broad, while long tail keywords are specific and longer.
- Volume and Competition: Short tail keywords have high search volumes but face more competition. Long tail keywords yield less traffic but are more targeted and less competitive.
- User Intent: Long tail keywords align closely with user search intent, leading to more relevant traffic.
- Advantages and Disadvantages: Long tail keywords offer less competition and higher conversion rates, but lower search volumes. Short tail keywords drive more traffic but may not convert as effectively due to their generic nature.
- When to Use Each Type: Short tail keywords suit broad topics and category pages, while long tail keywords are ideal for niche marketing and addressing specific user needs.
- Finding Balance: A balanced strategy includes both long tail and short tail keywords, requiring research and analysis of search volume and competition.
Importance of keywords in SEO and content marketing
When discussing keywords, we refer to the words or phrases users type into Google to find helpful information. As a business owner or marketing manager, you are responsible for getting your content and website to rank in the search engine results pages for the searches that people use regularly.
If not, your chances of getting visibility, traffic, and conversions are slim to none.
Choosing keywords, both for your content marketing and your search advertising, is a process that considers several factors:
- Your audience and their interests. What are they looking for? What content are they consuming?
- Monthly search volume and historical trends. Is this keyword usage on the rise? Or not? Has it always been the same? Or are there seasonal changes?
- Keyword competition and difficulty. Who is bidding on these terms? Is it possible to rank on the first page of search results?
It’s not just choosing keywords for the sake of selecting them. It’s a strategy because all your marketing efforts will be centered around them. The content of your website and landing pages depends on them. The same goes for your blog and your ads. And they will nurture your social media accounts.
While there are many types of keywords you can choose from, we want to focus on two: long tail keywords vs short tail keywords. Read on to learn more about what each refers to, their pros and cons, and when you should use each.
Understanding the Differences
Long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords are two types of search terms used in search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing. Understanding the differences between them is crucial for developing an effective SEO strategy.
Length
These two types of keywords are very different in terms of length.
The short tail keyword covers a broad topic and usually comprises 1 or 2 words. While they receive more traffic, it doesn’t necessarily mean qualified traffic for your product and service offering.
Long tail keywords are less popular search terms that drive more qualified traffic to your website. They are made up of 3 or more words.
For example, if you are a shoe store marketing manager looking to run a campaign that includes SEO and SEA. For you, a short tail keyword would be “running shoes”, while the long tail version could be something like “men’s running shoes in London”.
Search Volume
In terms of search volume, you will also find a lot of differences.
As we said, short-tail keywords drive more traffic to your site, but you have less chance of converting them into customers or subscribers. These people do generic searches and are not specific about their needs.
You will get less traffic to your site with long tail keywords, but those visitors will have a higher chance of converting. The keywords are aligned with their search intent. Note that it will be easier to rank for these terms, but you will need to rank for many of them to get as much traffic as you need to meet your marketing and business goals.
Let’s take the example of electric cars. The term “electric cars” has a search volume of 270K, but a term like “cheap electric cars” gets 15K monthly searches. The same thing happens with any long-tail keyword. It’s just a matter of finding the one your target audience uses on Google and other search engines.
Competition
Short-tail keywords are more competitive. Because they are more generic terms, more companies and marketers bid on them. In contrast, low-tail keywords have a lower level of competition, making it easier for you to rank for them.
Let’s go back to the electric cars example. The query “electric cars” has a keyword difficulty of 78 out of 100. While “cheap electric cars” only reaches 33 points. In other words, you have a better chance of ranking for the second term, and it will bring you more interested traffic.
User Intent
Everything we just explained has one thing in common: the user’s search intent. That’s the main reason why long tail keywords will help you get better results. The user is explicitly looking for information on a specific topic, and your site is relevant to it. Otherwise, it would not be among the first results on Google’s search pages.
With short tail keywords, the user is only looking for general information to learn more about a specific topic. Most likely, they are not ready to make a decision or even buy from a brand.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Let’s delve deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of both long tail and short tail keywords.
Long Tail Keywords
In short, we can say that working with long tail keywords will have less competition, higher conversion rate and bring more targeted traffic to your website.
However, this comes with a number of disadvantages that you need to be aware of. For starters, long tail keywords have low search volume. This means you have to spend more time and resources creating and optimizing content to rank for a larger number of keywords.
Short Tail Keywords
We’ve said it before in this post, short tail keywords bring traffic to your site that has lower chances of converting. And because they’re so generic, they don’t help you reach a targeted audience, rather than a broader one.
But, not all is wrong with short tail keywords, in fact these are search queries that have a high search volume, drive more traffic to your site and it’s easier to optimize content for them.
When to Use Each Type
Determining when to use long tail keywords versus short tail keywords depends on various factors including your marketing objectives, target audience, competition, and the stage of the buyer’s journey.
Short Tail Keywords
However, there are certain times when it’s better for you to optimize content and search ads around a short tail keyword.
For example, you can use this type of keyword for your main topic and category pages. It’s a great way to target people who are just starting to research a particular topic, build brand awareness, and attract a broad audience.
However, our strongest recommendation is that you only target them if you have a well-established website in your niche or industry. If not, just stick to the long tail option.
Long Tail Keywords
This option is ideal for a variety of scenarios:
- Creating blog posts or content around the four categories of user search intent (informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional).
- Optimize topic clustersand pillar pages to help users find specific information.
- Search engine advertising campaigns to drive targeted traffic to your site.
- Optimize product pages and address user pain points.
- Driving niche marketing campaigns.
But remember, this all comes with great keyword research and competitive analysis. You need to know what your main competitors are doing and try to use it to your advantage to gain market share.
Finding the Right Balance
Finding the right balance between long-tail and short-tail keywords is essential for creating a comprehensive and effective SEO strategy.
Using a mix of both long-tail and short-tail keywords
Every good website has been able to achieve a balance between these two types of keywords. As we said, there are certain places where it works to optimize around a short tail term, as it attracts more visitors and presents them with information around a certain topic. There are other situations, such as blog posts or SEA, where it’s better to work around a longer keyword because it brings in more targeted traffic with a higher chance of conversion.
But keep in mind that you need to spend time researching, analyzing and comparing keywords to make this all work. You need to understand what search volume and keyword difficulty mean.
For example, you should always aim to work with keywords that have a lower search volume, of at least 100 per month, and a difficulty less than 70. This will help you find the right balance between searches and competition.
Tools and Resource
There are several tools and resources available to help you find and analyze both long-tail and short-tail keywords.
Recommend keyword research tools
As you prepare to start optimizing your website and blog around these types of keywords, it’s important that you do so with the help of a research tool. There are many great different keyword research tools on the market, both free and paid.
Here’s a quick rundown of the ones we recommend you consider:
- Google Keyword Planner: Free tool from Google that gives you keyword ideas based on your initial search terms. You can also check the Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
- Ahrefs: A comprehensive suite that allows you to view key information such as keyword search volume, competition, and difficulty score.
- Moz Keyword Explorer: Free tool that performs in-depth keyword analysis and provides insights into search volume, keyword difficulty, and competitive analysis. And it equips you with relevant keyword suggestions.
Before choosing one, we recommend you look at our full blog post on keyword research tools. We explore different paid and free options and detail each one’s features. You should also read online reviews, spend time watching videos on how they work, and choose one that aligns with your end goal and gives you enough information to make an informed decision.
Remember, these tools are there to help you find long-tail and short-tail keywords. But it’s up to you to build a keyword strategy around the right keywords.
Additional resources for learning more about keyword research strategies
With this comprehensive guide, we wanted to make it easy for you to understand this deep and complicated subject.
However, if you want to learn more about keywords, SEO, and SEA, we suggest that you read our blogs on the subject.
We have carefully selected the following
- The Ultimate Guide to Google SEO
- Popular and Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO
- SEO vs. SEA – How to implement a successful SEO strategy?
- SEO Audit Pricing: How much does an SEO audit cost?
Conclusion
Choosing the right keyword is essential. Your entire search engine optimization, content marketing, and search engine advertising efforts revolve around these few words. They are the starting point for generating website traffic, conversions, brand awareness, brand recognition, and sales.
Take the time to immerse yourself in this process thoroughly. Spend the time to understand how it works, learn the tools, and build a team that will effectively help you achieve the results you expect.
