Long Tail Keywords for eCommerce Guide
You know keyword research and optimising your site for keywords will help you increase your sites traffic and ultimately revenue. But you don’t have the in-depth SEO knowledge needed to conduct the keyword research that will get you the results you need to hit your growth goals.
Why target long tail keywords? They have less competition, increase traffic to your site and target customers throughout the content funnel, increasing your conversion rates and ultimately your revenue.
This blog will guide you through the process of finding the best long tail keywords for your eCommerce business and optimising your site for these keywords, so that you can take your business to the next level.
Struggling with your keyword research and maximising for the long tail? We can help you get the most out of your businesses keyword strategy. Simply get in touch.
What are Long Tail Keywords?
Named after the long tail of the curve in the graph above, long tail keywords are keywords that are made up of more than 3 words and have low search volume but a higher conversion rate. This is because the user is searching for a narrower, more specific product rather than a general seed term (1-3 words), indicating these bottom of the funnel users have a higher intent to buy.
Why Use Long Tail Keywords for eCommerce?
Many businesses dismiss these long tail keywords due to the low search volume. Instead they think it’s better to target seed keywords with larger search volumes to reach more people (like grey jeans) - they are wrong.
It seems counterproductive to target keywords with smaller search volumes, but these keywords make up 92% of all search engine searches and are more likely to have a high conversion rate. As long tail keywords are narrower, more niche to your eCommerce business and have lower search volume, there is less competition meaning you’re more likely to rank higher in the SERPs.
As a less authoritative site, targeting these less competitive long tail keywords is essential if you have any chance of ranking in the SERPs and capturing demand. This is because you just don’t have the authority to be able to compete on seed terms. Therefore, the high search volume of the seed keyword is irrelevant because you won’t be able to rank high enough in the SERPs to capture the high search volume.
Although there is a smaller search volume, the customers searching for the keyword and coming to your website are more valuable as they are further down the funnel and specifically looking for the products you sell.
Targeting multiple long tail keywords is likely to be much more beneficial to your business and be more successful than targeting higher search volume keywords. Using the long tail keywords the user searched for in your content also increases the users engagement with your site.
How to Find Long Tail Keywords?
So using long tail keywords is the way to go. But not all long tail keywords will help your revenue. So how do you know which ones to target? And how do you find any long tail keywords for your business in the first place?
Let's start by finding your long tail keywords, then we can identify which ones you should target.
If you want help with finding the right keywords for your business, simply get in touch.
Finding your Long Tail Keywords
There are 4 main methods of finding long tail keywords. We recommend spending some time doing each of these as they might bring up different possible long tail keywords that might be useful.
Method 1
The best place to start is to see what long tail keywords you’re already ranking for. The main place to look for what keywords you’re currently ranking for is Google Search Console. This will give you a list of long tail and seed keywords you’re ranking for. For example, this is a list of the keywords that a couples costumes category page is ranking for on a fancy dress website. But it’s also useful to check for any ranking long tail keywords from your PPC campaigns and accounts on any other platforms you use. For example, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Bing etc.
Method 2
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. If you were a customer looking for your products, what long tail keywords would you search for?
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular with the creation of Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and other voice activated applications. Therefore, it’s also important to think about what you would say (if searching for your products) if you were speaking to a voice activated application.
Method 3
The next step is to go onto the platform you want to rank on (this could be Google, Bing, Amazon etc.) and do a couple of checks. First, type in the seed keyword and see what the autocomplete options are in the search bar. Second, search the seed keyword and scroll down to see the “People also ask” section. Third, scroll down to the “Related searches” section.
Checking these three things will give you an idea of the popular longer keywords people are searching in relation to your seed keyword. This can be seen in the screenshots of the seed keyword “Dining table”.
Method 4
Finally, you can use keyword research tools. For example, Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush, Keywords Everywhere and many more. These tools have a database of keywords which can give you information including search volume, estimated visits, domain scores and more useful statistics.
For more information on keyword research, check out our eCommerce keyword research guide.
Which Long Tail Keywords to Target
The key to success is user intent. What keywords are users searching for and what kind of content are they looking for when they search for that keyword? Are they looking for product pages, category pages, informational blogs etc. You need to know the user intent so you can create the right content that will actually engage your target customers.
Take your list of long tail keywords and remove the ones that don’t have the right user intent for the content you’re matching it to. It’s best to target multiple long tail keywords to capture as big a high converting audience as possible while using low competition keywords. So we recommend cutting your long tail keywords list down to between 3 and 5 long tail keywords.
But how do you know which keywords have the right intent? The best way to find out is to search the long tail keyword on the platform you’re targeting. For example, if you’re wanting to rank on Google, search the long tail keyword on Google. Have a look at the type of content that is ranked on the SERP. If you’re wanting to write a blog post but the SERP is full of product pages, the intent of the user for that keyword is to find a product page. Therefore, a blog post is unlikely to rank.
Using the example of dining tables, the search intent behind “best luxury dining tables” compared to “long narrow dining tables” is very different. Based on the Google SERPs, users searching for “best luxury dining tables” are looking for informational pages like blog posts. Whereas, users searching for “long narrow dining tables” are looking for transactional pages like product or category pages.
As an example, if you’re wanting to write an informational blog post about the best luxury dining tables, after checking the SERPs for each long tail keyword on your potential long tail keyword list, your list could be shortened to: Posh dining table, round luxury dining table, and classy modern luxury dining table.
How to Use Long Tail Keywords for eCommerce?
To be able to use your long tail keywords, you need to have or create a relevant landing page with relevant content for the searcher intent for that keyword. This webpage should be optimised by including the keyword in the meta title and description, H1, H2s, and the body content. Including the keyword in the title and headings is especially important for SEO, as well as telling readers that the content is relevant, encouraging them to read on.
It is essential for your keywords to be naturally included throughout the body of your copy. If your content is high quality and relevant, your long tail keywords should already naturally be part of copy. Make sure you don’t stuff keywords unnaturally into your copy because this will not only create a bad user experience, but search engines will also pick up on it and wont rank you as high because of it.
Although we’ve been talking about using long tail keywords for SEO, we recommend you also use your long tail keywords in your PPC campaigns.
If you want more advice in writing your copy and integrating keywords, check out our eCommerce copywriting guide.
Summary
Overall, long tail keywords are likely to be the best way to increase the website traffic, conversion rates and revenue for your eCommerce business. Follow the steps discussed in this guide to make your list of possible long tail keywords, cut them down to 3 to 5 keywords based on user intent, and optimise your webpages for these keywords.
Still struggling with your long tail keywords? We’re here to help. Just get in touch.