How to find long-tail keywords: free methods, a worked example, and which ones to target

What are long-tail keywords?

Long-tail keywords are specific search queries that each get relatively few searches, such as “standing desk for a tall person” rather than “standing desk”. The name comes from a demand curve: a few broad “head” terms get enormous volume, and a long tail of specific searches each get a little. Together, the tail is a large share of all searches.

Long-tail keywords are usually three or more words long, but length is a symptom, not the definition. “wordpress hosting” is two words and highly competitive; “cheap wordpress hosting for a small blog” is longer, more specific and has less demand. What makes a keyword long-tail is that it is narrow: it names a use, a problem, a place, a comparison or a question.

Why target long-tail keywords?

Long-tail keywords are worth targeting because their intent is clear, fewer strong pages are written for each one, and a single good page can rank for dozens of them at once. For a new or small site, they are usually where the first rankings come from.

• Clear intent. You know what the searcher wants, so you can write the page that gives it to them, which is what Google is trying to rank.
• Less competition, usually. Big sites write for the head term. A specific question often has only a handful of pages that answer it directly. Check rather than assume: our keyword difficulty checker scores a keyword in seconds.
• They add up. A page that answers “how tall should a standing desk be” well will also appear for many variants nobody would think to target one by one.

Two honest caveats. Volume estimates for small keywords are rough, so treat a figure of 30 or 50 a month as “some demand”, not a forecast. And many long-tail searches are too rare to show up in any tool, which is why the next section starts with your own data.

How do you find long-tail keywords in Google Search Console?

Open Search Console's Performance report, filter the Queries table with a regular expression for question words or for four or more words, and sort by impressions: those are long-tail searches your site already appears for. It is the best free source because the numbers are measured, not estimated, and every query is one Google already connects with your site.

1. Open the queries

   Go to Performance → Search results and set the longest date range you can. The Performance report groups data by the query people typed, with clicks, impressions, click rate and average position.

2. Filter for questions

   Add a Query filter, choose Custom (regex) and enter what|how|when|why. Google's regex filter tips use that exact pattern as a way to find questions your content should answer. Add which|who|can|does|is for more. The filter matches anywhere in the query, so “somehow” would match too; skim the results.

3. Filter for four or more words

   Replace the pattern with ^[^ ]+( [^ ]+){3,}$, which matches queries of four or more words. Search Console uses the RE2 syntax, which supports this.

4. Find the ones you nearly rank for

   Sort by position and look at queries averaging 11 to 20, with real impressions. These are long-tail searches Google already tests your pages for. Read what Search Console's average position means before you trust a single number.

5. See which page ranks

   Click a query and open the Pages tab. If the page that ranks only mentions the topic in passing, a section written for that query, or a new page, is the opportunity.

6. Exclude your brand

   Set the filter to Doesn't match regex with your brand name to drop navigational searches. The negative match came with the June 2021 update.

Two limits apply. Google's deep dive on Performance data explains that anonymized queries, those not issued by more than a few dozen users over two to three months, are hidden from the tables, so the rarest long tail never appears. The same post says the interface exports at most 1,000 rows, and the API returns up to 50,000 rows per day, per site, per search type.

How do you find long-tail keywords in Google Keyword Planner?

In Keyword Planner, start from a narrow seed rather than a head term, then use the keyword text filter to keep only ideas that contain question words or modifiers such as “for”, “best” or a place name. Keyword Planner is free to use with a Google Ads account, though its help page says you must enter billing information to finish the account setup; our guide to using Google Keyword Planner for free walks through it.

• Narrow seeds give a longer tail. “standing desk” returns broad ideas; “standing desk for tall person” and “standing desk height” return the specific ones.
• Filter by keyword text. Keyword Planner lets you filter ideas by competition and keyword text. A “contains: how” filter is a quick question list; “contains: for” finds use cases.
• Start with a website. Enter one of your own pages, or a competitor's, and Keyword Planner suggests keywords related to its content. Google notes that combining a keyword with a URL can produce more ideas.
• Read volumes as estimates. Keyword Planner gives estimates of monthly searches. For small keywords, a measured impression count in Search Console is the better signal. Our guide to finding keyword search volume compares the sources.

Where else do long-tail keywords come from?

The long tail that no tool shows comes from people: your customers' questions, your site search, and the suggestions Google shows when you type. These sources catch searches too rare for Search Console to report.

• Sales calls, support tickets and reviews. The exact wording customers use is the exact wording they search.
• Your own site search. If your site has a search box, its log is a list of things visitors expected to find.
• Google's suggestions, by hand. Type your topic into Google and read the autocomplete suggestions and the questions it shows. Do this yourself; Google's spam policies count automated queries to Google as machine-generated traffic.
• Forums and communities. The way people phrase a problem in a forum thread is often the long-tail query before anyone wrote a page for it.

How do you find long-tail keywords with MrKeyword?

Search a topic in MrKeyword's Keyword Research and its tabs split the Keyword Planner ideas into the kinds of long tail you are looking for, with the selected website's own Search Console numbers next to any idea it already appears for. Each search is one live Keyword Planner lookup; the tabs, filters and groups work on the ideas already on the page.

Two more details help with very specific phrases. If Keyword Planner has no ideas at all for your exact phrase, MrKeyword searches a shorter form of it and keeps the low-volume long tail of that topic, easiest first (only Easy ones when there are any), and the page says it did. And the Queries page lists the website's own Search Console queries with quick filters for Page one, Almost there (11–20), and Seen but not clicked, which is the Search Console method above without the regex.

The Free plan includes 10 keyword lookups a month; Starter includes 200. You can also try a single lookup on the free keyword research tool.

Worked example: long-tail keywords for “standing desk”

Here is how a small furniture blog might work through one topic. The keywords are realistic; the volumes and positions are made up for illustration.

Seven keywords became one improved page, two new pages and two sections, and two keywords were set aside on purpose. That ratio is typical: most long-tail keywords belong in a section of a page that answers a broader question, not on a page of their own.

How do you choose which long-tail keywords to target?

Target a long-tail keyword when its intent fits what you sell or know, a page of yours can answer it better than what ranks now, and there is evidence of demand, ideally your own impressions. Work through four questions for each one:

1. Does it fit the business?

   A long-tail search nobody who could become a customer would type is traffic, not business. Skip it however easy it looks.

2. Is there demand?

   Impressions in Search Console beat any estimate. Without them, an estimate from Keyword Planner, or the same question showing up in customer emails, is enough to justify a section.

3. Can you be the best answer?

   Search it and read what ranks. If the top pages answer it in passing, a focused page or section can beat them. If they are excellent, pick a narrower variant.

4. New page or new section?

   New page only for a new intent. Variants of a question you already answer go on that page. Google's spam policies describe pages created to rank for specific, similar queries as doorway abuse, and a page per variant drifts into exactly that.

Record each decision in your master keyword list with the page it belongs to, so the next person does not write a second page for the same question.

How do you track long-tail keyword rankings?

Track the long-tail keywords that have their own page or matter to revenue, and watch the rest as part of the page's total clicks. Tracking hundreds of variants individually mostly produces noise, because a query with a handful of impressions moves several positions from week to week for no reason.

• In MrKeyword's Rank Tracking, track a keyword straight from Keyword Research. Positions come from your connected Search Console, not from scraped results, and a target URL plus tags keep each keyword tied to its page.
• The Closest wins card lists tracked keywords just off page one, with an estimate of the extra clicks a move to page one could bring.
• The Free plan tracks 25 keywords and Starter tracks 500. For a one-off check, the keyword rank checker reads the same Search Console data, and our guide on how to track keyword rankings covers the method.

What can't MrKeyword tell you about long-tail keywords?

• Long tail too small for Keyword Planner shows no volume rather than a guess.
• Queries Search Console anonymizes cannot appear in On your site, Queries or Rank Tracking.
• Question headings are not demand. “Questions pages answer” counts the sites that use a heading, never searches.
• No autocomplete or “People also ask” data. MrKeyword does not scrape Google, so read those yourself.

Questions and answers