Keeping your eye on the prize when it comes to content marketing can be difficult – especially when it feels as if the rules are changing faster than you can master them! Well, let me clue you in on a secret: if you stay ahead of the changing rules, you don’t have to worry as much about them changing. I am a strong advocate of questioning the way things work and testing your theories.

When it comes to creating unique, credible, and valuable content, as a writer you have a lot to consider. Allow me to introduce another theory to the mix: long-tail keywords.

Your audience is a trinity

Wouldn’t it be nice if you only had to worry about one target audience when you were producing content? Unfortunately, technology and digital media makes that far from the case. You have a trinity to consider:

How can you please all three while still creating content that is unique, credible, and valuable? You have to get inquisitive. You have to get creative and, of course, you have to leverage your expertise! Google changes the rules often, but one thing remains consistent: the prize goes to the content that is socially engaging. When it comes to search engine optimization, or SEO, the third part of your trinity, have you considered straying from the simple, but popular, terms and utilizing longer tail keywords instead?

What are long tail keywords?

We have talked and talked about keyword research, haven’t we? You understand the basics of using Google to your content marketing advantage, but perhaps you do not fully understand the difference between a “keyword” and a “long tail keyword.”

• Long-tail keywords are popularly searched terms
• They are not “head terms” – these are the popularly searched, one word terms, for example, “blogging”
• Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific
• They are less common, however, their competition is much lower, enabling you to optimize much easier

The competition for “head terms” can make it difficult for you to optimize your content and gain traffic for those terms. If everyone else is using the same word, how can your content stand out in the search engines? And if it cannot stand out among the search engines, how can you consider the other two pieces of your audience trinity (spoiler: you can’t!).

Have I convinced you of the benefits? Great! Stay tuned and we’ll learn more about how you can find long tail keywords and what the benefits are for your trinity and SEO.