When you select keywords you should be looking for those that will generate you business and sales. In our experience these are not necessarily the most popular ones and so you should think very carefully before choosing them. Below we will look at the broad and long tail keywords and then consider which ones you should be focussing on.



Broad Keywords

These are usually very general search phrases that have a very high popularity. For example they may be words like Shoes, Dresses or Kitchen Appliances. You will probably find it very difficult to break into the top 10 for these and they are usually dominated by the big companies. It is also worth saying that most of the people that are searching for the broad keywords are probably looking for general information and not to buy. Unfortunately it is these general words that most people focus their SEO efforts on and find they get very little return from it.

Long Tail Keywords

These tend to be very specific keywords that often have a very low popularity and competition. To be a long tail keyword phrase it would need to contain more than 3 words. If we consider the examples we were looking at before they might be phrases like Smart Shoes for Work, Evening Dresses for Cocktail Party of Buy New American Style Fridge.

What you will find is that the people searching for these keywords will be looking to buy something there and then, if you have what they are looking for. You will also find that it is much easier to break into the top 10 for these phrases as a lot less people will be optimising for them.

How Should You Target Your Campaign

What we would recommend is to focus your efforts on the long tail keywords in order to generate sales. If you have a really large budget then you might want to look at the broad words for branding purposes. However in our experiences most people do not have the budget of companies like Nike or Microsoft to work on branding.

If you focus on the long tail keywords you will find you get to the top a lot more quickly. In addition you will find it easier to convert a much higher proportion of your clicks to sales which is what you are after. This results in a higher return on investment for your SEO campaign.

Remember that SEO is a form of marketing and so the aim is to get the highest ROI possible in order to make it a beneficial form of marketing. For that reason the more long tail keywords you can focus on the better. If you do want to focus on a broad keyword then be prepared to spend a lot to get near the top and that you may never break into the first page. Always think about the types of phrases you use when you are buying and think that other people will be just like you and so you need to tap into that and get the most out of your efforts.