What are Long Tail Keywords? Meaning, Strategy and Examples

What are long tail keywords? They are phrases of two or more words that target popular searches in search engines.

By popular, we don’t necessarily mean the kinds of searches that total thousands or even hundreds of searches each month. That kind of volume does happen with long tail keywords.

Instead, popularity is just about any meaningful volume that brings value to a content or advertising campaign that finds value in them.

Long Tail Keyword Examples

For example, a Realtor may launch an advertising campaign to market a house that targets searches for home listings of just one neighborhood. The volume may total only 50 searches a month, but all it takes is one lead to make a sale worth thousands of dollars in commissions.

An example of this type of long tail keyword is “Fox Head Ashland neighborhood” or “Fox Head homes for sale”. Both are long tail keywords of at least four words. Note the targeting of a specific geographical location.

Another example uses content targeting rather than advertising targeting. A local media site in the same city as the one above may create a content section dedicated to “Ashland Virginia” or “Ashland Virginia news”. Search visitors use both phrases in search engines. The media site targets at least one if not both phrases.

If the media site is hyperlocal, it might even have some of the content segmented into a subsection about the neighborhood, especially if it is large enough. (Some neighborhoods have thousands of homes and are big enough to qualify as villages.)

Long Tail Strategy

It’s important to note that longer long tails usually have lower volume of monthly searches. The longer the phrase, the lower the volume.

So there is a limit about how much effort should go into chasing after every long tail phrase. In the long run, it makes the most sense to target as many long tails as possible without putting too much time and energy into any single phrase.