Competing for high search volume keywords is often the most sought-after route to get traffic and convert. However, using high search volume keywords in a highly competitive USD 5.5 Trillion eCommerce industry is often a long-drawn effort where you spend more time trying to rank higher instead of getting traffic and conversions.
A simpler way is to focus on a select group of people/buyer personas searching precisely for your product and service with long-tail keywords. This way, you spend your resources, making your keyword search more profitable.
Another benefit of this approach is that once you choose the long-tail keywords, you can use them in your content marketing by building on FAQs, using tools, and scaling your business.
But first, let us take a look at why it’s worth targeting long-tail keywords.
Why Should You Target Long-Tail Keywords?
Most popular eCommerce categories are saturated with content. This makes content marketing less appealing to eCommerce store owners. They resort to social media and PPC for eCommerce marketing, both of which are more expensive and less reliable than organic content traffic in the long term.
Social media algorithms change all the time. With Facebook and Instagram reducing their visibility, you end up spending on paid ads, thereby impacting your bottom line. PPC pipeline dries up the moment you turn off advertising. It also eats up margins, forcing you to increase prices and become less competitive. And if you are a sole owner, you may have to rely on hiring someone to get PPC working for you, adding to your costs.
Are Long-Tail Keywords Profitable?
Long-term keywords, by nature, cater to a tiny subset of the topic. As such, they have a low search volume. But what works in its favor is that it is highly targeted, so when you use the correct terms, it can reach a high converting audience.
Another benefit is that it is very specific, making it easy for your customers to receive their answers when they land on your page, reducing the bounce rate. Since long-tail keywords account for as much as 70% of web searches, you’ll likely rank faster than short-tail keywords considering most eCommerce users are active users looking to educate themselves before buying.
Use Long-Tail Keywords to Educate Your Readers
Long-tail keywords can help you get traffic and direct the traffic to the correct funnels to convert. However, long-tail keywords need not necessarily mean blog traffic. Some ways to use it are in your video, infographic, or product FAQs.
ASOS does a great job of having their long-term keywords as part of their FAQs pages. All the FAQ pages are interlinked, giving users a seamless experience across their site.
Source: Asos
This way, it makes it easy for their users to get the information quickly, improve trust and build confidence in their brand, likely leading users to other pages on the site.
Lyft follows a similar pattern of putting its best resources as a cluster on its Help page.
Source: Lyft
The clean look makes it easy for the driver or rider to seek help without spending another minute navigating elsewhere on the website.
Niche Tools to Build on Long-Tail Keywords
Create niche tools that do not exist for your category. For example, a ‘cm to EU size converter’ if you are selling fashion items. Or a mileage to monthly fuel expense calculator for someone selling auto parts.
The fees in an eCommerce store can quickly add up.
Source: TheFeeCalculator
With the help of TheFeeCalculator, users can quickly calculate and manage margins without racking their brains on the merchant account fees. This way, users save time and costs considerably without relying on manual calculations, which can have errors. This develops trust, and users will repeatedly use it as a convenient tool, thereby building credible traffic to your store.
These tools are part of what is called interactive content, increasing engagement. Other forms of interactive content include surveys, polls, etc., that you can use if you already have an email list that you want to drive traffic from.
How to Scale Your eCommerce Business
By design, long-tail caters to a very small target group. So the only way to get meaningful results is by scaling up.
Once you choose your long-tail keywords, determine the number of articles you need to attract quality traffic. Then scale up your content creation by hiring freelancers to build long-tail content.
Include long-tail keywords in different ways on your site so your users feel that their answers are addressed in various ways. Use blog posts and videos and link them to other related content pieces so it’s a natural fit when users search for it on your site or your social channels.
Ensure you put out quality content to address the user intent and drive conversions. Quality content will also attract quality backlinks to your site, building authority and helping scale faster.
Automate processes wherever possible to reduce churn and improve customer service. Identify content gaps and plug them with the necessary content that addresses user pain points. This way, your product or service naturally fits in as an ideal solution.
Repeat this process until you have fine-tuned your content for conversions.
Final Thoughts
Your eCommerce store may have the best products in the market. But unless you attract the right traffic to it, you could be leaving money on the table.
While short-tail keywords have a high volume, they are tough to rank. Instead, focus your attention on long-tail keywords to narrow your focus on a niche audience to serve. Pick a few long-tail keywords and use them in blog posts, product FAQs, or the help page. Cluster your resources together to give a great user experience. You can also try interactive content like free calculators, surveys, and others to boost engagement.
And once your content is aligned to your users, scale your business to reach out to a broad audience with more relevant content. Use freelancers to create high-volume content, attract quality backlinks and build your authority to price your products competitively and reduce customer acquisition costs.
