Long tail PPC Keywords
I was running through the ‘see search terms’ list on one of my accounts recently when I was struck by how many clicks had been gained by extreme long tail versions of keywords I had in my keyword lists. An example of what I mean by extreme long tail is ‘holiday insurance for kayaking grade 5 rivers in Uganda’. This search query gained me 2 visits from 2 impressions last month on one of my campaigns and it got me thinking; could long tail keywords be useful in PPC advertising?
After a quick think, I came to the conclusion that by adding long tail keywords to a keyword list, anything other than sparingly, was probably not that useful of an idea. This is because the majority of long tail keywords would have no search volume and would struggle to gain a decent quality score. Therefore, spending time on writing copy and organising new ad groups would be time wasted. However, the addition of keywords that are more specific than a umbrella term and more generic and open than a long tail (let’s call them medium tail for the sake of this post), is a solid strategy for building your keyword lists when you have hit a kind of keyword wall.
The advantage of a medium tail is that the terms would be likely to have search volumes and quality scores that would warrant creating specific ad groups and copy for. The medium tail terms if on ‘phrase’ or ‘modified broad’ match would go a long way to capturing the multiple permutations of long tail applicable to your campaign. Thus meaning you are not missing out on all these bonus clicks. Thirdly any visits you gain from these medium tale ad groups would be by nature of the search, highly targeted. So although they would only represent a small percentage of your overall traffic, they would be more likely to convert to an enquiry/sale. Last but not least the final benefit of a medium tale keyword is it would be cheap due to its low search volume and competitiveness.
So if you are struggling for keywords to add to your PPC lists or would like to increase the amount of targeted traffic to site for not a lot of extra money, why not try adding some medium tail keywords to your campaigns.
