Social experience design by Brian Cray

My secret to finding the best long-tail SEO keywords with web analytics

This long-tail keyword research tutorial uses Google Analytics, but the idea behind this method can be applied to any capable web analytics software. Also keep in mind that keywords can actually be—and often the best ones are—short sentences.

Getting to your long-tail keywords in web analytics

1. Open your site in Google Analytics (obviously)
2. Select a reasonably long timeline (3 months will work)
3. In the left-hand navigation go to Content » Top Content
4. In the Top Content table, select the page for which you want long-tail keywords
5. In the Content Detail page just below graph and “This page was viewed xxx times” header, choose Keyword from the Dimension dropdown

6 things to consider when choosing the best long-tail keywords for SEO

Once you have selected your page in step 5 above, you’ll see a table that lists the top keywords for that page ordered by Pageviews. Here are 5 things to consider when choosing the best long-tail keywords for SEO:

• Look for keywords that are very specific and contain additional related words that might pop up again
• # of pageviews likely correlates to the number of searches for that keyword
• Look for long average times on page. The longer the time on page, the longer they were engaged in your content
• Look for low bounce rates. The lower the bounce rate, the more likely they explored your site
• You can sort keywords by Avg. Time On Page or Bounce Rate by clicking table headers
• Don’t always rely on one metric (such as bounce rate). Consider the content. Quick articles will have a short avg. time on page but low bounce rates. Long articles may have a long avg. time on page but high bounce rates.

Choose your top 15 keywords, slip them into your content and your meta tags. Watch your search engine traffic rise.

That’s all!

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