On-Page optimization for the Long-Tail
-
Does anyone have any thoughts about on-page optimization for the long-tail of keywords?
I know, I know, the way you capture long-tail searches is by having lots of content. The problem is that I can't convince some of my clients to do anything with content marketing.
Even so, I'm noting that as much as half the leads for some small business clients comes from long-tail searches. Meanwhile I spend all my time trying to get their pages to rank for a one or two terms.
It seems like there must a scientific way to approach increasing long-tail traffic on pre-existing pages. I'm now experimenting with looking at the frequency of words that appear in searches that the client only receives 1 visit from. Together these one-offs amount to about half the traffic.
For instance if I have data like this:
Visits Search
1 Training help for my German Shepard
1 German Shepard resources in St. Paul
1 German Shepard clubs
etc. etc.
Then it makes sense to add some language about German shepards, and perhaps try for anchor text with the 'german shepard' match. Perhaps add a photo with alt text of German Shepard etc.
The trouble with this technique is that my main target term for the page might be something like "Dog Training Twin Cities". If I try to increase my long-tail traffic about german shepards I risk creating a frankenpage!
I'd love to know if any one else has tried to approach this problem of maximizing long-tail traffic on existing pages without hurting UX.
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the reply.
Love the regex tools. Going to devote some time to experimenting with them.
Generally I don't make it a practice to steal from poor old Peter.
But in situations where you have a client opposed to making new pages, or in situations where you have a very high PA page that you want milk for all its worth I wonder about pushing the boundaries.
If you can't just borrow from Peter a little bit, do your best to make everything relevant, and optimize for a few extra keywords/phrases rather than the customary 1 or 2 keyword phrases per page.
-
I think you answered your own question. You have to compare search traffic potential for "dog training twin cities" vs "training german shepard". If you see enough traffic on the german shepard stuff, create a new page and link to it. Maybe focus on the top 5 types of dogs and have that as a section.
You are talking about stealing from Peter to pay Paul, but it looks like you are being smart and using analytics to try and answer your question. There is your science. You have to look at the long tail of search terms from analytics, and you should see some patterns there. That will guide you on where to build content over time.
There are some cool regular expressions you can use in Google Analytics to built keyword reports around 2 and 3 word queries. One example:
http://secretswede.net/seo/measure-longtail-traffic-google-analytics-mayday-update/
Take this and setup a segmentation to see as a whole if this type of traffic is really driving conversions. It may be that you get traffic, but less conversions. This adds another layer to how you look at this and if it is worth spending time building out content.
Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What keywords are people using that get them to my website page
I have several pages that get a lot of visits, and 90% of the traffic is from Google searches. How can I discover what the search terms are that bring people to these pages?
Keyword Research | | obgproject1 -
What Should I Do With My Home Page?
Hello, I own a fitness and sports performance facility called BIM Fitness & Performance in Fort Myers, FL. We have a simple site structure with 3 key pages; however, I'm not exactly what type of keywords I should rank for on each page and I think that they're actually conflicting to one another. That said, I'd like some insight as far as what I should do with these pages and what you would recommend that I do with the keywords and the meta descriptions. Any help is greatly appreciated! https://bimfitnessandperformance.com/athletic-sports-performance-training-fort-myers/ https://bimfitnessandperformance.com/adult-personal-training-fort-myers/ https://bimfitnessandperformance.com/
Keyword Research | | scottgray06200 -
Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
I had thought the answer to this was no with the way Google search corrects mispellings. But in Google webmaster tools queries for a page I see the page ranking for a misspelled keyword. And looking at Key Word Finder it tells me the search volume for that keyword is high. But, when I search for the keyword myself it Google it auto corrects the results to the correct spelling. Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
Keyword Research | | Azam_Khan0 -
How to leverage keyword research on-page.
I'm a newbie and I'm a little embarrassed to ask this question, but here it is. Let's say I've done my keyword research and have 200 keywords. How do I use that for on-page/site optimization? Or do I not use it for on-page/site optimization? I guess I'm unclear about the relationship of keyword research and on-page/site optimization. Thanks.
Keyword Research | | swolock0 -
Number of keywords for single page website
Hello, i have a question about keywords in Single page website. For how many keywords should i focus in single page website? For example: In my industry are important 2 different keywords - cabinet making and **made to measure furniture. **Should i focus on both keywords or its better to pick better keyword and focus only for that one (of course including different forms of that word and so on). Thank you for help.
Keyword Research | | Reyzer1 -
For an e-commerce page with more than 2,000 products, how should I conduct my initial keyword research?
Hi all, A confused and frustrated SEO noob needing a little guidance here 😞 I'm a bit lost on how I should conduct my keyword research for a start-up e-commerce site selling dietary supplements (~200 brands and ~2000 SKU's). From my understanding, there are two different types of pages I have to optimize for other than the Homepage & CMS pages: Category pages and product pages. As part of the fundamental on-page optimization, I'm planning to write unique category/product descriptions for better visibility (as well as to avoid duplicate content issues) on SE. Consequently, this process has prompted several questions related to my keyword research. My questions are: How would I determine which keywords to optimize for? How many keywords should I target per product page? per category page? Should I include product / brand name as keywords? The site isn't live yet, but is set to launch in mid-August. Any ideas on how I can conduct my keyword research to be used for category/product level pages? Thanks all.
Keyword Research | | byoung860 -
Is it considered spammy to have multiple pages on the same site optimized for the same keyword?
Is it OK to keyword-optimize multiple pages for the same keyword? Is it beneficial, hurtful, or not a major factor either way?
Keyword Research | | 406lucy0 -
Should I be optimizing for Keywords that we already rank for?
When selecting which Keywords to optimize for, should I choose all words that I want us to move up for? Like that my company appears ranked for 5, 10, 42, 44, etc.? Or should I select a mix of some that rank well (top 1-2 pgs in Google) /rank near pg 5/ and some that aren't showing up in the top 50 yet? I don't want to waste my time optimizing for words I don't need to. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | aircyclemegan0