How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using Long Tail SEO

When it comes to talking about the term SEO, there is a lot of preconceived notion in people’s minds about it being hard to carry out. The truth being, SEO is not as hard as people think it is. The results might not come quickly and it takes time to build traffic from search engines, but when it comes it comes in 100s and 1000s and the traffic flow is pretty consistent.

The truth about SEO is in simply putting content that people search for and want to read out there. All you are doing is fulfilling a demand that’s already there in the market.

The most basic knowledge we need to have to master the art of SEO is to know how google and other search engines work. Unlike before, search engines work with a lot more sophistication today. Backlinks work the best when it comes to SEO, but various backlinks carry different weight.

For example, a backlink from an authoritative site, that is, a site that people view and trust more, will give you more weightage than a backlink from any other site. At the end of the day, what google really does is display the best or most popular sites amongst the thousands available for particular keywords. That’s why I keep looking for opportunity to build genuine backlinks from authoritative websites.

The Concept of the Long Tail

There’s a concept we need to understand called the ‘long tail’ that helps rank our sites better on the search engines. A long tail keyword is nothing but a phrase that contains two or three keywords that are used to target a niche, much more targeted audience than a mass audience in general.

They are more specific keywords and often much lesser in terms of competition than generic keywords. Using such keywords help rank our websites to much targeted searches by avoiding competition that most other generic keywords have to offer.

Take an example for better understanding: If you are a digital marketer who writes blogs, the chances that the term ‘digital marketing’ will get you traffic on your website is almost nil because of the competition that this keyword in general has.

However, if you specialise in SEO and use more specific terms like ‘SEO specialist in Chennai’, the chances that your blog will appear on the search engine is more. It is also targeted and you will attract high quality visitors to your website because you are targeting the long tail.

Short tail keywords have higher search volume and a lot of people think that short tail keywords are the best. But it is obvious that such long tail keywords drive lesser traffic than the generic ones, but it is important to note that this traffic is much more focused, and committed towards what they are searching for and hence are of high value to you.

So how do you find out these long tail keywords?

The simplest way to do so is by using the google search itself. Try to understand and study the various search terms that come under suggestions on the search engine when you enter keywords on the search bar.

These suggestions help you understand the kind of search terms that are popular in terms of what you have to offer and then all you have to do is develop articles based on such niche and specific terms. This will help you serve a more specific audience and hence, help drive traffic to your website.

For example, if I want to discover all the possible long tail keywords for SEO specialist, I just need to enter that term in the Google search bar and I will be able to see the long tail combinations that people are searching for.

You may always use google’s keyword planner and search for relevant and on demand keywords that are related to your blog and then use it to generate suggestions on the search engine to get long tail keywords for your blog.

Long tail keywords that address or answer the users query or need more specifically will most likely rank well on google in comparison to other keywords.

Hence, it is important to understand that the right keywords can help take your blog a long way. The main reason to undertake a keyword research and planning is to to understand what your target audience is likely to look for and then create content by answering to their needs.

It all boils down to creating useful content for the users that will be read more and shared more and hence, end up shooting up your blog traffic to greater numbers.

I’ve been driving 1000s of visitors to my blog using search engines using long tail keywords and it has consistently given me high quality readers and subscribers for my blog. If you are a blogger, you should definitely capitalize on the long tail keywords and tap into the gold mine of traffic available on the search engines.