A few months ago, I conducted a little SEO experiment to show my clients how amazing a long-tail keyword can be. The first update to the SEO experiment, just three days after I created a page titled “What Animal Eats Begonias,” showed that I was in the 6th spot of organic results on Google for that term.
Today, I’m in the top spot. (Seriously — Google the term and you can see it yourself.)
Why Long-Tail Keywords Matter
The term I used is a great example of a long-tail keyword. It’s descriptive, and the Googlebot understands it. The page is optimized for Hummingbird, Google’s core search algorithm that’s brilliantly designed with a whole question and user intent in mind.
It’s also used in all the right ways on the page I created, which helps it rank — and stay ranked — on Google. Even this piece, which links to the page (in the first paragraph), is serving to help that page keep its place on the top spot.
Check out the screencast that shows you why it works:
It’s the #1 organic result for that search term.
It gets all the clicks.
It brings a ton of traffic to my website, actually, and because it actually answers the question, it’s locked into that top spot.
Simple!
You can always hire someone who knows what she’s doing with SEO if you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, too.
