Although there are many ways to find long tail keywords and there is less competition for those keywords, there are still a few things you must do in order to gain market share of those queries. Here are 4 tips to generate high volumes of traffic from long tail keywords.
Tip #1: Create Killer Content
If you do not create great content, you will not rank for any keyword, especially not long tail keywords. Because long tail keywords are very specific searches, you must ensure that you are answering the questions that the user looks to answer. Irrelevant content will be penalized by Google, and you won’t generate any traffic.
Tip #2: Look for Search Intent
An easy way to see what content is relevant is by looking at the search intent of the SERP for the long tail keyword. Google chooses the best and most relevant content to rank higher in the SERP, so why not write about what is currently ranking high?
There are four ways to categorize search intent: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. An easy way to determine what the search intent is for each long tail keyword is by seeing what pages rank highly, and match each page with a category of search intent.
If the majority of the ranking pages in the SERP match your content goals, then you will have a better chance of gaining market share for that long tail keyword.
For example, if you are trying to write a blog post using the long tail keyword disadvantages of cloud ERP, and you see that the top ranking pages are blog posts, then it will be a lot easier to rank for that keyword than if you are creating a transactional page around that same long tail keyword.
Tip #3: Insert Related and Head Keywords
Although ensuring that you are properly targeting your long tail keyword of choice is important, you can actually be penalized for overly targeting just that keyword.
Studies have shown that over-optimizing for either long tail or short tail keywords can increase your risk of being penalized by Google, and can lower overall web traffic.
Ever since Google Hummingbird, it has been proven that creating the best content will help you rank higher, and the way that you do that is by including related keywords and phrases. A good way to find these related keywords is directly on the Google SERP or with SEMrush’s SEO Content Template.

By including related and head keywords, you are increasing the readability of your content, but also giving yourself the ability to drive traffic through other related searches.
Tip #4: Analyze Your Competitors
There are two types of competitors that you need to worry about: business competitors and SERP competitors.
Business competitors are the companies that you rival based on your specific product or service. For example, Oracle and SAP are business competitors for cloud ERP solutions.
SERP competitors are those competitors that you are fighting for rankings and traffic on Google. For example, TechTarget and Software Advice are SERP competitors for the long tail keyword cloud based ERP vs traditional ERP.
Both business and SERP competitors should be an important focus because you may find different niches of content and long tail keywords in one that you may not find from the other. By extending your reach, you are covering all aspects of Google and maximizing your ability to rank for more long tail keywords (and keywords in general), and therefore driving more traffic to your site.