Short Tail vs. Long Tail: Which Type of Keyword is best for Your Website?

Keywords play a big role in Search Engine Optimization of your Website. The question of which type of keyword your web pages should be optimized for simply has no clear-cut answer that applies in all situations; short tail and long tail keywords both have a role to play in driving traffic to your site. Your choice of short tail or long tail keywords largely depends on your marketing goals.

The idea behind his words still resonates with today’s SEO practitioner: 

“Use head keywords to generate volume and long tail keywords to generate profit.”

We're sure that some of you might already know what long tail keywords are. For others, here is the definition – 

“A long tail keyword is a combination of 3-6 words that are specific and relevant to the products you sell. In simple terms, any generic keyword that has product features, Model number, SKU no. price range, etc. can be taken as a long tail keyword.”

Here is an example of both long tail and short tail keywords:

Long Tail Keywords:

• Canon power shot digital camera 2MP
• 17 inch LCD TV free shipping
• Barack Obama action figure

Short Tail Keywords:

• Digital Camera
• LCD TV
• Desktop
• Mp3 Music player

Long Tail keywords vs. Short keywords

A short tail keyword, also known as a head term, is a broad root keyword that represents a single idea. A person who is using short tail keywords (general keywords to be specific) such as digital camera may be looking for different brands/models available in digital camera or might be conducting some research on how digital camera works. So it is better to make your category pages filled with short keywords. Example: Digital Camera, Desktop, etc…

Ranking well for short keywords is not a bad idea, but at the same time it may not work always. A person who is using long tail keyword such as “Canon power shot digital camera 2MP “has already done some research and may be evaluating the product price, merchants selling it, etc… and is more likely to purchase the product.

Short tail keywords generally have more search traffic potential than longer phrases, but are also harder to rank for.

While long tail keywords deliver less traffic than short tail head terms, they are usually considerably easier to rank for than short tail keywords.

In addition to being easier to rank for, long tail keywords deliver a better conversion rate. When users type in longer and more specific search phrases, they are generally closer to making a purchase decision. Users who are still in the product research phase tend to use shorter and less specific search terms.

Advertisers running pay per click ad campaigns can also benefit from long tail keywords. When you bid on long tail terms, there is usually much less competition than for shorter head terms. Less competition means that your cost per click is going to be considerably lower.

A good marketing strategy is to have pages that will target bigger subsets of users by using short tail keywords and others that will attract specific users by using long tail keywords. You aren’t limited to one or the other so use both types of keywords.

Optimize for a Combination of Short and Long Tail Keywords

Most websites will benefit from optimizing for both short and long tail terms. Short head terms are great for driving volumes of visitors to your site who could potentially be added to your email list as well as for establishing brand awareness.

What is keyword Stemming in SEO point of view?

Keyword stemming is a word that should be highlighted in the minds of everyone who plan to build a website on their own and look forward to succeed in the highly competitive area. Before we start talking about keyword stemming, we should gather a clear idea on what a keyword is. It is nothing else other than the word that we search for, and keyword stemming is bringing up the variants for the keyword by adding prefixes or suffixes to it. It is also done by stripping the suffixes or prefixes. It is a technique used by the search engines. Algorithms for keyword stemming have been studied in the field of computer science since 1968, says Wikipedia. The first ever published stemmer was written by Julie Beth. That was also in 1968.

Definition

Keyword stemming is the process of generating new words from the same root word. 

The Process of Generating New Words

The new word is generated with the help of the following options:-

 Adding a prefix to the word

 Example:- Adding "en" to the word "large"  makes it "enlarge".

 Adding a suffix to the word

 Example:- Adding "ful" to the word "sorrow"   makes it "sorrowful".

 Pluralizing the word

 Example:- Adding "ies" to the word "baby" makes it "babies".

This process helps webmasters and search engine optimizers to generate more traffic by creating words that are similar to their base keyword. Words generated with the help of the base word or stem are treated as synonyms by the search engines. For this reason, keyword stemming helps a web page to achieve greater relevance for search terms without the use of spamming.

A stemming algorithm reduces the words "practicing", "practiced", and "practices" to the root word, "practice".

Keyword stemming is a useful tool for web pages and search engine optimization. The process of keyword stemming involves taking a basic but popular keyword pertaining to a particular website and adding a prefix, suffix, or pluralization to make the keyword into a new word. 

When searching in Google, it shows results for the keyword query as well the similar to those terms and even at times in plural or singular form. 

What is Keyword Prominence?

Keywords prominence is one of the various important factors for search engine optimization. It means, your keywords should be at prominent area in content of your web pages. To make higher prominence, you need to keep your keywords close to html tags such as <b> or <strong,>, <body>, <Meta tag>, <Title>, <p>, <br>, <i> or <em>.

By practicing this method of optimization, you create weightage of your web page by keywords. Keep in mind that you should not target unique keyword on every page. While targeting keyword on page, you should follow right method of keyword targeting.

Example of Keyword Prominence:

Keyword = Keyword Prominence

<body> Keyword prominence is to place keyword near tags. </body>

Here we’re using keyword “Keyword Prominence” absolutely close to body tag. It will make prominence high and will help to optimize web page with keyword.

What Is Keyword Stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is the practice of inserting a large number of keywords into Web page content and meta tags in the attempt to artificially increase the page's ranking in search results and drive more traffic to the site. A keyword is a significantterm that is relevant to the content in question.

Keyword stuffing is considered an unethical SEO (search engine optimization) technique at best and an attack technique at worst. The practice is often used to drive traffic to fraudulent or malicious websites.

Keyword stuffing in content is known as spamdexing. Hiding keyword stuffing from the sight of webpage visitors can be accomplished in a couple of ways if keyword stuffing is used. While it no longer works, webpages still attempt to hide keywords in different ways. These ways included:

• Coloring text the same as the background color
• Positioning text far away from the center of the webpage
• Putting text behind a picture so that it cannot be seen

According to Google, keyword stuffing is not only unethical - it's also ineffective. Meta tags are no longer used to rank websites, so keywords placed in that field are ignored. Increasingly sophisticated algorithms help Google identify not just when terms are irrelevant but also when they are out of context or overused. Furthermore, if hidden text is detected in content, Google may remove a site from its index so that it doesn't appear in search results at all.

Google offers some advice: "Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context."

What is Keyword Proximity?

Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. Your keywords should be close to each other in content of web page.  In general, the closer the keywords are the better.

I know. It is very difficult to understand this term with definition. You can only understand it by the help of example.

Example:

Someone searches Google for “SEO Services India”

The important thing toconsider is that it is not one keyword. It is keyword phrase with threekeywords in it. Therefore,

Here we have three keywords

Keyword 1: SEO
Keyword 2: Services
Keyword 3: India

I am going to make two sentences for this keyword to explain it in better way. So have a look below.

Sentence 1: SEO Services Company and Internet Marketing India

Sentence 2: SEO Services India by ABC Company

If someone searches Google for “SEO Services India” then website with the text written in sentence 2 will rank on the top because all keywords are used closely compared to the text used in sentence 1.

Sentence 1 Keyword proximity

The search term proximity between “SEO” and “Services” is Zero but between “SEO” and “India” is five words. In the same way the distance between “services” and “India” is four words.

Sentence 2 keyword proximity

In sentence 2 search term is used very closely to each other. So, it looks more relevant than the first one. If we talk about proximity in sentence 2 then it is zero because keywords are used very closely and perfectly.

Our advice is to maintain keyword closeness as much as you can while writing title or content for your website because it really helps to rank better in Google search engine result page.

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

For example, if you have a Web page with exactly 100 words on it including all headlines, captions, alt text, and advertising, and you have a keyword phrase that is on the page 3 times, your keyword density is 3%:

Keyword Density = Number of repeats of the keyword / total number of words on the page * 100

When you're evaluating keyword density, you need to decide on your keyword phrase and then write your page. Once you've chosen a keyword phrase for your Web page, you need to start using it. As you probably already know, you should use your keyword phrase in:

• the meta title
• meta keywords
• meta description
• h1, h2, and h3 headlines (and h4-h6, if you have them)
• the first paragraph of text in the HTML
• in link text
• in alternate text for images
• scattered throughout the rest of the text on the page

But if there isn't a lot of text on the page, repeating your keyword phrase that many times could end up with a page that is too keyword heavy. In other words, your keyword density is too high.

Strive for a Keyword Density of Around 5% or Less

This means that out of the entire Web page content, your keyword phrase should be no more than 5% of the total words. If it is more than that, you risk appearing like a keyword spammer to search engines or annoying your customers with hard-to-read pages.

Don't let keyword density rule your Web writing. I aim for a keyword density of 3-4% for my target phrases. I've found that this works to get the keyword phrase into the mind of my readers.

What are Keywords and why do we need them?

Keywords are the words and phrases a person types into a search engine, looking for relevant websites products and services or just information. Using the right keywords on your site is the vital first step in effective search engine optimization (SEO).

When someone is searching for information on the web, they will usually visit a search engine and type in some words describing what they are looking for. The search enginethen checks its database and returns the results listing pages that meet thewords submitted.

Search engines use keywords when they include your website in their search results. Keywords can make or break your search engine ranking. Adding keywords to the content of your website can improve its ranking, but overusing them can cause your site to be banned for spamming.

When identifying keywords, make sure select words and phrases in the content of your website that someone is most likely to use when searching for your online business or website.

 “Keyword Is Also Known As Query Terms You Enter In Search Engine According To This Query Its Show the Results”.

How to determine what keywords to use

So, how do you determine what keywords are relevant for your site? Firstly, you need to put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes to determine what words they would submit to the search engine when they are looking for you. Also, review your web site pages and pick out key phrases and words that describe your business, product or service.

List these words and phrases as they will form the basis for optimizing your web pages so that they will rank higher on the search engines. The more specific your keywords the better. Remember that single word keywords will have a lot more competition for top ranking search results than phrases.

Conclusion

The appropriate choice of keywords combined with optimized web pages submitted to the search engines can result in free targeted traffic to your site. This is a source of traffic that should not be overlooked.

So if you are building a business website, you want to ensure that when customers search for relevant keywords, your website appears as early as possible in the list of results. That is what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about.