The pressure to go after general keywords is high with business blogging and other content marketing.
We like to think that if we could just rank fairly high for a big term that it could lead to so much traffic.
And it’s true. That’s actually the bad part. We may even get a solid ranking for a general term. It will lead to a lot of traffic and business. But it’s so rare, for a few reasons, that if that happens it usually leads a marketer down a wrong path.
General (Short Tail vs. Longtail) Keywords
To start, a general or short tail keyword is typically 1-2 words. They are also typically about “general” topics. You might search for something like “shoes” or “womens shoes”. Those are general terms.
A longtail keyword might be something like “best womens shoes to wear with black dress for valentines day”.
On the surface, the temptation is very strong to try and create the ultimate guide for the term “womens shoes”. After all, there is going to be a lot of traffic for that term. But there are some issues.
That’s a bottom funnel term. Or sales term. People aren’t looking for blog content when they search for “womens shoes”. They’re almost always looking to shop or buy womens shoes. That’s why Google will show content that allows people to find the best womens shoes to buy.
It might seem that going after a term like “best womens shoes to wear with black dress for valentines day” is a low return proposition. There probably isn’t much traffic. But it’s a term that is tailor made for a blog post. And it’s something that you can probably rank highly for. And even if it’s just a few searches a month, you can still earn the attention of a potential customer.
And the big other item is that even if someone searches for similar terms like “valentines days womens shoes” or “best valentines shoes for women”, you’re probably going to rank for those too.
The Volume Game
I love this stat: 50% of search queries are four words or longer. (IMPACT, 2019)
Here’s another one: Google reaffirms 15% of searches are new, never been searched before (Search Engine Land)
This is where the volume game gets interesting for content marketing. You want to go after the general terms because they have a lot of search traffic every month. But you know that blog content or video or podcasting don’t really fit the term. And it’s competitive. And all the other reasons.
But that traffic…
With longtail keywords, you’re going after a different kind of volume. As a whole, longtail is big. That stat about 15% of searches are things that have never been searched before is crazy to me. You’d think that after 20+ years of people searching that we would run out of things to search. But that’s not even close to the case.
When I look at the traffic for our business blog, more than 50% of the total traffic comes from blog posts that get a handful of visits per day. One post might get 1-5 visits per day. But it gets those visits every day and it really doesn’t fade. And it gets those from probably 1-5 different, but similar longtail keywords.
Add this up over time and suddenly you’re getting a lot of traffic from a lot of posts and even if new longtail searches pop up with similar intent, you’re getting that traffic too.
Intent & Clickthrough
Here is a great stat about keyword intent and clickthrough:
Organic SERP clickthrough rates are higher for long-tail keywords (three to four words) than generic keywords (one to two words) by between 3 to 5%. (HubSpot)
General terms have another downside…people like to click on ads when they search for general terms. Maybe it’s because they trust the ads. Maybe it’s because Google has focused more on those general terms when it comes to their ad products.
Whatever the reason, when it comes to content marketing and blogging, you’re going to not just rank higher for longtail keywords, you’re going to get higher clickthroughs on those terms.
Final Thoughts & Strategy
General keywords are good. If you’re a dentist in Eau Claire, WI, you want your homepage to rank #1 for the general term “Eau Claire Dentist”. But if you’re that same dentist and writing blog posts to attract traffic and branding attention, you want to go after longtail keywords.
What does that mean?
You want to go after the questions people are asking. They might be asking about dentist-related topics. Or teeth and oral care topics. They might also be asking about your local community. You can provide all kinds of helpful content by following the simple strategy of answering the questions people are asking.
And the even bigger bonus? You’re aligning your content strategy with Google’s.
That’s why longtail works best for content strategy. It’s a win for all parties involved. Including your business.