Keywords are a crucial element of any successful SEO strategy. A well-implemented keyword strategy can help your website rank highly in search engine results, leading to high-quality, relevant traffic to your site. There are two types of keywords: short-tail and long-tail. Whilst each can be used separately, or in conjunction with the other, they serve different user intents and yield different results. Short-tail keywords have higher search volume, are more generic and competitive, and generally yield lower conversion rates. Whereas, long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volume, are more specific, can be less competitive, and typically have higher conversion rates.
Established businesses with high domain authority are more likely to rank for short-tail keywords to generate high volumes of organic traffic. However, lesser-known brands with low domain authority may prefer to target longer-tail keywords that have less competition, to boost their chances of ranking. Let’s take our content strategy for an organic kombucha brand as an example. Our blog content concentrated on semantic topics that related to the brand’s key pillars and target personas, such as health-enthusiasts, vegans and parents. Many of the key terms we targeted were laser-focused on these personas and pillars, yet had anything between 10 and 10,000 monthly searches!
Our blog targeting the term ‘how much kombucha should you drink a day’ (50 monthly searches) had almost 2000 sessions within one month, whereas, ‘is Kombucha alcoholic’ (1000 monthly searches) had around 400 sessions in the same month. Similarly, our blog targeting the term ‘kombucha and sleep’ (20 monthly searches) generated the highest revenue from online sales out of all our blogs that month, too. This just shows there’s more to your content than the search volume of your keywords!
Overall, using a combination of long and short-tail keywords across transactional pages and blogs, we were able to increase monthly organic traffic by 599% and increase keyword ranking in positions 1-3 by 314% within a three-year period.
Our Content Manager, Sophie Mizrachi, comments:
“When developing content strategies, our clients are often puzzled by our decision to focus on long-tail keywords with lower monthly searches. However, in many cases, the content we optimise for these niche words and phrases tend to perform just as well, if not better, in the search results and attract plenty of quality site traffic. High search volume is not the be-all end-all of website success. For one, relevance should always take first priority. A keyword may have a significant number of monthly searches, but is not relevant to your target audience or your brand. Similarly, intent is key. Search volume does not always indicate the right intent behind a search query, so a high search volume keyword does not guarantee that people searching for it are interested in making a purchase, or taking your desired action. Another factor to consider is competition. Short-tail keywords often come with tremendously high competition, which means it can actually be extremely difficult to rank – if possible at all, especially when you’re up against well-established brand sites with high domain authorities. In these cases, it would be more effective to focus on less competitive keywords that are more specific to your business or product, and resonate with your audience.”
Remember to use keywords sparingly and avoid over-optimising your content, as this can lead to penalties from Google and negatively impact your rankings. Working with experienced SEO content specialists, such as the team at Semetrical, can help you optimise your content effectively and see your desired results. To find out more about how to successfully implement a keyword strategy, read our full guide to long and short-tail keywords.