Everyone is talking about long-tail keywords. How do I find long-tail keywords?

There are many ways to get long tail keywords but I would recommend to use keyword research tools such as Keyword research and analysis tool

These tools provides a lot more data than long tail keywords and their search volumes. It’s crucial to know the keyword difficulty and the actual SERP so you are able to evaluate whether you are able to rank for them.

Besides research tools you’ll find useful:

• quora
• reddit
• customer feedbacks
• internal data

Another great source of inspiration is LSIGraph: LSI Keyword Generator but yet again, don’t forget to analyze all of them in keyword research tools.

You can also find keywords in Google Keyword Planner but you will get only search volumes and PPC competition in Adwords which isn’t too much for proper keyword research.

I wrote a very detailed blog post on this topic as a part of SEO Academy I’ve been working on since January, so feel free to learn more here: SEO Academy for beginners part 5: How to do keyword research - mangools blog

First, let's get a better definition of long-tail keywords:

Keywords you can easily rank for because few other websites are effectively targeting them

Because otherwise, what's the point?

You're not looking for long-tail keywords just so you can get less traffic.  You're  looking for long-tail keywords because you can't compete for fat-head keywords (or for that matter, fat tail).

Now, if you agree with me that this is the correct definition of long-tail keywords, you also need to agree with me that nearly every other answer to this question is wrong.

Why?

Because every tool on this list pulls keyword suggestions from the same source: Google AdWords or Google Suggest.

So, basically, everyone is looking for long-tail keywords in the same places.

How well is that going to work out if we're trying to find keywords that few other websites are targeting?

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Second, you need to understand that since Hummingbird, Google doesn't really give a *&%$# about exact keywords -- they're more interested in figuring out the meaning behind the words.

So if you're thinking "ooh, I can go long tail and rank even though my website has no links!" and start building pages for things like "best women's nike flyknit size 8 blue", then you're going to be in for a big surprise when you discover that

1. the results are basically the same Big Brands as the fat tail "women's Nike Flyknit"
2. basically none of the top ranking sites are targeting that long-tail keyword, and Google doesn't care because they're more interested in the big idea
3. competing for that keyword is almost as difficult as the fat tail version

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I call these "red herring keywords", and any keyword research tool that makes long tail keyword recommendations based upon exact keyword usage will recommend tons of red herring keywords to you. They'll tell you that because nobody is using the phrase "iPhones 6s cases best" that it's going to be easy to rank for, even though the results are the same as "best iPhone 6s case".

Don't fall for red herring keywords.

So what do you do instead?

Don't look for long-tail keywords, look for information gaps. It's not enough to find some variation of popular phrase that isn't frequently used. You need to find a concept or idea or question or some other form of information that isn't covered elsewhere on the web (or at least not on high authority websites).

To do this, you can try New incredibly accurate Keyword Difficulty & Competitor Analysis SEO Tool (disclosure: Founder), which looks at meaning and topical relevancy to determine difficulty rather than just keyword usage.

I'm kind of surprised no one has said to reference Google and Bing Webmaster Tools (GWMT & BWMT).

You don't necessarily want to start out targeting long tail. Some situations may call for it, but often you want to build on what you're already ranking for.

If you verify the site with Google and Bing WMT then you'll see some of the queries that are already generating impressions for the website. It may happen that you're ranking in the 80th spot of search for a particular query, but at least you aren't starting from nothing.

Here's a simple example of the process, let's say it's for a doctor's office. 

1. I verify the site with GWMT
2. From the dashboard I click on the graph that's showing clicks and impressions.
3. I see that my doctors office ranks on the first page of Google for "fast doctors in my area".
4. I also see that my doctors office ranks on the 5th page for "flu and cold doctors and physicians".
5. Therefore, I go back to my website and create a webpage specifically devoted to a service we offer related to "cold and flu treatments".
6. Then, I write a blog post or article about "seasonal cold and flu remedies for adults".
7. Finally, I link the blog/article to the "cold and flu treatment" page from within the body using anchor text. Likewise, I link the cold & flu treatment page to another page on my site describing the doctors and physicians at our office.

The result is 2 new pages of content focused around "cold & flu", which are linked to related pages across the site.

Here's the thing about long tail keywords: They're not what they used to be.

After Google's Hummingbird update they're now able to understand the topic of a page much better than they previously could. So you can target long tail all day, but if the other signals aren't there - such as a linking a strategy, semantic language, and a strong topic hub - then the page is going to struggle to rank well.

Use webmaster tools to identify which topics search engines already associate with the website. Then focus on strengthening those topics across the site. Once the site ranks well for various topics, build on that foundation by expanding the information horizontally. This will help the entire site to rank and it will save an enormous amount of time trying to guess what long tail keywords you should focus on.

I just want to clarify, too, keywords do matter. They especially important in the url, titles, and headings. But they aren't what they used to be. It's more important that organic visitors find the information helpful and stay on the site (enter one function of the linking strategy).