Are long-tail keywords killing your message?

The Mailbag has already looked at using longer search terms to hook web visitors. But it's worth digging a little deeper...

The trickiest bit isn't finding long phrases - you can identify them with a tool like Wordtracker.  The tricky bit is writing effective copy that includes the full search string!

You'll see what I mean by a simple example…

Let's say your company offers hang-gliding holidays in North Wales. And Wordtracker tells you your prospects are using the search phrase "hang-gliding tuition in North Wales".  Great!  All you have to do is write web copy that's optimised for that exact search phrase.

But if you're not careful, you could easily end up with stuff like this:

Welcome to our site on hang-gliding tuition in North Wales!  Where we offer you the best hang-gliding tuition in North Wales. When you're thinking of hang-gliding tuition in North Wales, we're your guys!  Why…? Because we're the experts for hang-gliding tuition in… etc

And that's when your visitor will use anyone but you!  Yes, you've found them, but you've battered them over the head with a fistful of keywords instead of addressing their questions.  It's a common enough problem whenever you're including keywords - but a much bigger challenge if you're trying to match a long-tail keyword like this one.

Don't panic, though - there are a few ways around this:

1.  Use the words separately throughout the copy - it all adds to the overall coverage

2.  Include the exact phrase in your headline and sub-heads…as well as your browser, image and meta tags

3.  Use Q&As - it's a chance to repeat the phrase in the question and the answer!

4.  If you can't make the whole phrase grammatical, work it into a sentence that keeps the words in the same order.

5.  Keep the words together, but break up the phrase with punctuation to make it sound more natural.  (It's ok to do this - search engines ignore punctuation marks anyway!)

6.  In the latter example, you could break up "hang-gliding tuition North Wales" so it doesn't strangle the message.  Then you're free to and entice the reader with something like this:

Imagine it. Just you, the blue skies… and the silence. That's the gift of hang-gliding.  Tuition in North Wales takes you over the slopes of Snowdonia...

Or:

Why not take the leap with some hang-gliding tuition? In North Wales, you'll take your first step into the blue yonder…

Could you spot the search phrases hidden in the punctuation? There's no prize if you did, but when you embed a phrase like this it doesn't scream "keyword abuse" at the reader!

Adding long-tail keywords to your web copy is an invaluable skill and certainly one you'll be wise to develop.

...Unless you pay me to do the job for you!