The best-kept secret for SEO… Long-Tail Keywords

Keywords help Google find the most relevant website for the person searching. Long-tail keywords do not mean they have to be longer it just means you have to be more targeted and picking something that might not have the highest search traffic. The easiest way to understand long-tail keywords is through an example. Adams Evens & Ross does collections only for the staffing and recruiting industries. When we are strategically coming up with keywords for AER we focus on keywords that highlight exactly what we do. We are not going to go after keywords like “debit collections” or “past due payments”. We go after keywords like “past due placement fees”. It is not much longer than the other examples, but it is aimed at our target audience.

When you go after keywords with less traffic that usually means fewer people will be fighting for those keywords. One sign of it being easier to get to the top is that you will get the traffic you really want. With AER, the only traffic we want is people in the staffing and recruiting industries. If we were to search for the keyword “debit collections” and managed to get to the top, then we would get many calls we are not interested in. This is because the more people searching this keyword, the more likely they are looking for someone to help collect their personal debit or in another industry.

Sometimes less is really more. It is so important to really understand who your target market is and what they might be looking for in you. Creating content with long-tail keywords is going to save you time getting to the top of Google and will save you time with the right people finding you.