Trying to increase your traffic and conversions but companies holding the first search positions
in your niche drive you off?
No worries – we’re here to share how to beat those mega publishers and get the results
you want.
Stay tuned till the end as you’re about to learn what long-tail keywords are, why
they’re essential, and how to choose the right keywords using free Google tools and
Smartproxy.
Are you in?
So let’s dive in!
What are long-tail keywords?
A long-tail keyword is a phrase targeting a specific issue.
Let’s say, you jot down “sneakers” on Google.
This would be a very broad topic to cover.
But if you enter “how to choose the right running sneakers” or “running sneakers
for summer 2021,” these topics would be much more concrete – and these are long-tail
keywords that we’re putting under the spotlight today.
You may ask why they’re called like that?
Think of such keywords as an animal with a long tail, like a kangaroo.
In this case, the head of the animal represents the broadest topic, such as “sneakers,”
while the tail stands for a huge variety of more specific, longer keywords.
So, naturally, long-tail keywords are made up of more words than general terms.
Yet, it’s not only about that.
It’s also about search volumes: the higher the search volume, the lower the keyword variation.
We could actually say that long-tails are keywords with a low search volume but a very
specific intent.
Are you asking why use long-tail keywords when they have low search volumes?
Great question!
The golden rule is that search volumes aren’t the critical factor in keyword and traffic
quality.
To paint a bigger picture, let us reveal three reasons why you should target long-tails.
First, less competition.
It’s much easier to rank with long-tail keywords than short ones because they are
less competitive.
Imagine this: if you’re trying to rank for keywords like “sneakers,” you’ll need
an enormous amount of time and effort to beat the leaders.
But if you’re about to rank for less popular keywords like “how to choose the right running
sneakers,” you’ll stand a much stronger chance to position high, which will save you
time and money.
Short-tail keywords are unbelievably competitive (and expensive) because everyone wants that
delicious piece of high SEO traffic.
However, as they’re so competitive, only the highest authority sites can rank on the
first page.
Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, aim for a niche of products and services, where
it’s easier to compete.
Did you know that long-tail keywords also account for 70% of all web search traffic?
If your strategy doesn’t include them, you’ll lose tremendous opportunities to attract quality
traffic and target your niche better.
Second, higher conversion rates.
In fact, the conversion of long-tail keywords is 2.5 times higher than that of short-tails.
Why’s that?
Well, if people are looking for a more specific phrase, they already know what they want so
they’re more likely to commit and make a purchase.
So long-tail keywords often lead to conversions because they reflect people’s true intentions.
And third, cost per click (CPC).
This is actually not about the organic traffic to your website but about the paid traffic.
As I said, long-tails have less competition, so their price per click is lower than that
of short keywords.
As it’s more complicated to find long-tails manually, fewer people bid on them.
This makes them a great deal cheaper than head keywords.
Can you think of more reasons why businesses use long-tails?
Share those with us in the comment section below.
Free tools on Google for choosing long-tail keywords.
So now we know that long-tails are essential for your marketing, but how can you find them?
The easiest way to find keywords is to use Google itself.
First, review the words Google Suggest provides.
I’m sure you know that when you start typing in the search bar, Google automatically suggests
the words to finish your sentence.
These are the words that users are likely to write, based on the popularity of the query.
For example, when you type “running sneakers,” Google will automatically suggest more narrow
queries like “running sneakers for women” and “running sneakers for flat feet.”
Another thing you could do is check related searches at the bottom of the page.
As you familiarize yourself with a broad range of long-tail keywords there, you will simultaneously
deepen your understanding of what people in your field are looking for.
Once again, if you type in “running sneakers,” you’ll see “best running shoes 2019”
or “men's running shoes” among the related searches.
And still, that’s not all that Google offers its users for free.
Always check the People Also Ask (or PAA) section, which lists questions that people
tend to enter when searching for some topic.
Again, type in “running sneakers” and your People Also Ask section will be filled
with such concrete topics like “What are the best sneakers for running?” or “What
are the 3 types of running shoes?”
One really useful tool that can increase the number of keywords in the PAA section is the
SEO Minion extension.
You’ll find a link to download it for free in the description of this video.
SEO Minion has a lot of features for SEO analysis, among which there’s a function to download
keywords from the PAA section.
Depending on how many keywords you want to get, you might choose one of the 6 levels.
We recommend selecting PAA level 4 for the largest set of relevant results.
If you care more about keyword quantity than relevance - choose PAA level 6 as it will
give you a larger set of keywords.
So choose “Download” and “PAA 4 levels” and press “Go.”
This will download a file onto your computer, where you’ll see not only specific long-tails,
but also the parent topic, text, and URL.
For example, if you google “running sneakers” using SEO Minion, you’ll download a file
with such long-tails like “Is it better to get running shoes a size bigger?” and
“Can I use regular shoes for running?”
It’d be incredibly tedious to extract these keywords without this extension.
You most probably know that Google, including the SEO Minion Extension, displays information
based on your location and IP address.
This means that the results you get when googling a keyword from your iPhone in the USA will
differ from those that will be shown to a person who’s googling the same keyword from
the same iPhone but, let’s say, in the Philippines.
Just imagine how many targeted long-tail keywords you could find if you had access to those
results from both the US and the Philippines.
And what if you unlocked all those long-tail keywords not only from those two countries
but from any corner of the globe?
That’d bring you high-quality traffic that could significantly boost your conversion
rates.
Fortunately, this isn’t just a dream.
Your key to revealing long-tails from different parts of the world is proxies.
They will hide your real IP address so Google won’t show keywords only from your location.
You could sit in the UK but access long-tails from Brazil!
One of the easiest ways to use proxies is via browser extensions – for example, the
Chrome Extension from Smartproxy.
This tool hides your public IP address behind a proxy IP, allowing you to browse anonymously,
access geographically restricted content, and view localized ads.
Bear in mind though that it only works with proxies bought from this particular provider.
You can get the extension by going to the Chrome Web Store, typing Smartproxy, and choosing
the official extension.
Once added, the extension will let you pick a country and get a new IP address instantly.
You can choose a random location or specific countries like the US, Canada, or Great Britain.
Further down the list, you’ll see states such as Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, and so
on.
And the best thing is that this Chrome Extension is very easy to set up.
You don’t need to be a programmer or have technical skills – literally, anyone can
set it up.
But don’t take our words for granted.
Watch our tutorial on how to configure the Smartproxy Extension and find out yourself.
And what if you have a large-scale task to extract as many long-tail keywords as possible?
What if you need thousands of requests?
Google will block you if you send as little as 10 queries per minute from the same IP.
Thankfully, proxies come to the rescue again: they can constantly rotate your IP address
to avoid CAPTCHAs and blocks.
However, the browser extension will no longer be enough – you’ll have to roll up your
sleeves and do some coding.
Don’t worry, though – it’s easier than it sounds.
Smartproxy offers another tool called Search Engine Proxies which does the lion's share
of the work for you.
All you have to do is specify your keyword, and Smartproxy will return well-formatted
data 100% of the time.
If you want a tutorial on how to start using Search Engine Proxies, in the description
below you’ll find a link to a blog post about it, including some coding examples.
We hope that this video answered your questions about choosing long-tail keywords for Google
with the help of Smartproxy.
If we missed anything, don't hesitate to ask us in the comment section below.
And hey, just before you go, check out this video about SEO monitoring and learn how proxies
can improve the success rate of your Google search scraper.