Why long tail converts better than main high ranking keywords

Craig Hoggins
January 29, 2013
Search Engine Optimization

Get to know long tail keywords

Long tail searches always convert better than one word high ranking keywords. A weird fact that when you realise this you sort of think, then what is the purpose of targeting high ranking keywords?
Why long tail converts better than main high ranking keywords

Well, high ranking keywords do have a purpose and in targeting those keywords the conversion rate might be significantly lower than the long tail but it’s the number of visitors you get from the short keywords and the high ranking keywords that matter. A good way to work it out is high ranking keywords has 100 visitors / 10 conversions = 10% conversion rate. Whereas the long tail might be 20 variations and 10 conversions which would equal a conversion rate of 100% on each of the long tail keywords that were targeted, leaving the other 10 keywords or keyword phrases with a conversion rate of 0%.Now we might see why it might seem that the long tail converts better and has a 100% conversion rate. It seems a bit of an unstable or unreliable way of measuring this. But, if you have a specific long tail that receives a fair amount of traffic you will soon realize that this long tail with for instance 20 searches and 10 conversions = to a 50% conversion rate. This is what I’m talking about.

The reason the last example of long phrase or long tail keywording is more successful usually is because people are searching more specific and most probably they are finding what they want. The reason highly targeted keywords have a fewer conversion rate is because they are not entirely targeted and the landing page might be focused. This might mean that the people are finding a specific page for a high ranking keyword and they might be looking for something else down the long tail which the page is not providing. This can reveal to you that if in fact, you do get a lot of searches and landings from a high ranking keyword, but this keyword is not converting, you might just have a page that is not targeted enough or your page might be too targeted for that specific keyword. One might never actually know. This is why targeting long tail keywords could mean more for you and could significantly boost your business.

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