Affiliate Starter

If you are going to advertise your site through Pay Per Click, then you will need a list of keywords that match your site.

Long-tail vs. Short-tail: What’s the Difference?

You may have heard the above phrases and not understood what they represent. A short-tail keyword is usually just one or two words, e.g. “Nike shoes” or “hosting”, as oppose to a long-tail keyword e.g. “black leather Nike Air Max shoes” or “reliable managed dedicated hosting free domain”.

Clearly there is a big difference. Although the short-tail will get you a large amount of impressions, the conversion rate will be low, as someone may be looking for white Nike shoes whereas you only sell black ones, causing the customer to leave.

In contrast, long-tail keywords usually target exactly what a customer is looking for. The impressions may be low, but the CTR and the conversion rate will be high because it is what the customer is looking for.

If you are just looking to get traffic quick, then short-tail will quickly achieve your goal, whereas if you want repeat customers and good conversions, go with long-tail keywords.

How do I Find Good Keywords?

Put yourself in your customers shoes and think what they would search for looking for a specific item or service. Generate as many keywords as you can think off. It is good to use a good variation of long and short keywords.

There are many free and paid tools available to generate keywords, below are some that I have used along with a short description about each one.

1. Google AdWords: Keyword Tool (free)

Generate keywords free of charge straight from Google. What I like about this is the option to input a website and automatically get a list of keywords matching that site. You can also tailor keywords to a specific location.

Price: $ FREE!

Go to the Keyword Tool now

2. Wordze (paid subscription)

Wordze is a very powerful tool for gathering a very large list of keywords. However, they also have many extra services available to improve your advertising. This includes the latest trends and what is being searched, downloads of the latest top search lists, competitor keyword data and more.

Price: Day Trial $7.96, Monthly Subscription $45

Sign up for Wordze here