SEO: Long Tail Keywords vs. Generic Keywords

In an article I wrote as a guest on MKT Blog on Long tail I explained in a basic way how that theory works applied to Internet searches.

Now in this article I am going to explain how this theory of Chris Anderson It is applied when choosing the keywords for which to position our websites.

What exactly is a Long Tail keyword?

It is a very specific keyword or phrase about a product or service that you are providing, for example if we take the case of an online flash games website, the generic or broad head keywords would be: «Games», «Flash Games», «Games Online », etc. That is, very common and broad words within that niche.

While the Long Tail keywords could be a video game genre or even better, the search for a specific game. These searches are not broad, but refer to very specific content.

Advantages of the Long Tail

These types of keywords have a high conversion rate and attract well-qualified traffic due to the fact that they are specific, the navigator KNOWS what they want.

Another advantage is that these keywords generally have little or no competition.

Advantages of Generic Keywords

Generic keywords or broad head are however very broad keywords and with high volumes of searches per day, positioning ourselves well for a generic keyword can bring us a very large amount of traffic per day by itself.

Disadvantages of the Long Tail

Everything seemed perfect so far and we almost thought we found the holy grail of web positioningHowever, we bump into the harsh reality that being well positioned for one or two long-tail keywords doesn't change our situation much.

A keyword that is VERY specific can even lead to it not bringing us any traffic some days, the long tail is effective in quantity.

Disadvantages of Generic Keywords

Good long-tail keywords tend to bring "mature" traffic into the purchase decision stage which results in good conversion for those keywords.

However, generic keywords mostly attract people who are still in "diapers" within the purchase decision stage, this is not at all bad since we can always "breed" the visitor by asking for their email address in exchange for some freebie and keep sending more information about us over time.

What came first? the Long Tail or the Broad Head?

This question is the same as that of the chicken and the egg, when optimizing a website the ideal is to attack both sides at the same time.

Focusing on just one type of keyword leaves us ALL a slice of the cake off our plate, and that's something we definitely don't want.

By insisting only on generic keywords, it is most likely that we will not see any traffic for many months and concentrating only on long-tail keywords we leave out many visitors that we could take advantage of.

In short, the important thing is to find a balance of both types of keywords, there is no universal formula that works for all the websites there are and there are, but we must analyze each case in particular and reach a conclusion through testing.