Are you up to date on using long tail keywords? They could be the single biggest factor in your brand’s SEO success.

Picking a good long tail keyword is half art, half science. The art is in understanding your brand and your target audience. The science is in looking up data on how many hits your potential keywords get each month on Google.

With those two skills, it’s surprisingly easy to choose great long tail keywords.

What Is a Long Tail Keyword?

A long tail keyword is a keyword phrase that has at least four words in it. Long tail keywords are less popular, and therefore more affordable, than shorter keywords. Savvy digital marketers can readily compete for a wide range of these phrases.

Nonetheless, there are many businesses that aren’t using long tail keywords at all. They either don’t understand how to do it or aren’t willing to put in the work. This is a huge mistake. Your business will get more online traffic if you use long tail keywords properly.

The Brainstorm Process

There isn’t much pressure at the beginning of the process of researching keywords. Here’s how you do it.

Grab a piece of paper, a nice pen, and a comfortable chair. Set a timer for ten minutes. Write down every relevant combination of four or more words that pops into your head. If you run out of ideas, sit still and see if more phrases come to mind.

It’s okay to have some ridiculous ideas in your list. That’s why it is the brainstorming phase. Nobody else will ever see what you write down, so don’t be embarrassed. Everybody has to start this way before they can find the best ideas.

How to Use Google Keyword Planner

After you finish brainstorming, you should have a list with dozens of potential long tail keywords. You want to narrow this list down.

Google has a great tool called Keyword Planner that is free to use. You can access this tool through your Adwords account.

Search for every phrase you brainstormed. Google will tell you how many hits that phrase gets per month. You want to keep the phrases that get between 25,000 and 85,000 hits. This is the perfect target range for your SEO efforts.

If you want to find more keyword ideas, you can get them from Google. Click on the “More Like This” button to generate new keywords. You can find some great options this way.

You now know how to choose the best long tail keywords for your brand.