Promotion of the site on low-frequency keywords

August 10, 2023

Table of Contents:

Low-frequency queries - "what they are and what they are eaten with"

Before talking about how we - SEO-specialists - develop a strategy to promote a website for low-frequency queries, we should start by understanding: what types of search queries even exist.

  • High-frequency queries (HF) - the most frequently requested words, search phrases in the subject (usually from 5000 impressions per month to infinity)
  • Medium-frequency queries (MF) - something between HF and LF (usually from 1000 to 5000 impressions per month).
  • Low-frequency queries - words and phrases requested with low frequency (on average from 200 to 1000 impressions per month)
  • Long Tail or micro-low frequency queries (mLF) - rarely requested phrases, most often consisting of 4 or more words (frequency of less than 200 impressions per month).

Don't memorize specific numbers - the boundaries between queries are highly blurred and directly depend on the topic.

Beginning internet marketers and SEO specialists often refer to low-frequency queries as low-competitive and high-frequency queries as highly competitive, but this is not true.

Frequency does NOT = competition

Competition is defined by several criteria, the main ones being:

  • Number of main pages in the top;
  • Total number of sites in the search results;
  • The number of direct occurrences of the query in the Title pages (i.e. the number of pages promoted for a specific query);

Studying the terminology is over, go directly to the promotion of sites for low-frequency queries.

Examples of topics with a large number of low-frequency queries

A large number of low-frequency queries can be in both commercial and informational segments.

Commercial websites

To the question - what commercial sites have the most "big tail" - many will not hesitate to answer: "online stores" (whatever they sell there), and, in part, will be right. To date, "online store" - is almost synonymous with terms such as - " product", "buy", "order", etc. , "order ", etc., but, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately - not everything is so simple.

One of the most important factors for measuring demand is assortment. Demand gives birth to supply, but if there is a limited number of offers in the topic, it means that either for this niche this number is quite enough to satisfy the consumer, or the niche is quite new and is in the process of formation. In any case, with a small assortment of promotion strategy for low-frequency queries may not give the desired result.

Let's move from theory to examples. As promised, here is a small list of commercial topics where a huge number of low-frequency queries "hide":

  • Clothes
  • Baby products
  • Car parts
  • Digital and home appliances
  • Construction equipment
  • Building materials
  • Goods for sports and tourism

If your project falls under the above examples and has a wide range - optimizing your site for low-frequency queries should definitely be on the agenda.

Information Resources.

As a rule, information projects are closely related to popular commercial niches, and vice versa. For example, for construction topics, informational construction portals describing everything that can be done "with your own hands" are popular: "laying laminate with your own hands", "how to make a door from boards with your own hands" and so on.

In the baby theme - popular forums where new moms are looking for answers to all sorts of questions related to feeding, dressing and raising their babies.

Unlike commercial resources - owners of information projects are not limited by the range and can write about everything that more or less interests users. Here are some examples of topics that hide a large amount of informational low-frequency traffic:

  • Construction portals
  • Culinary recipes
  • Women's portals
  • Children's portals and forums
  • Medical directories
  • Blogs about technology and electronics
  • Travel portals

At the initial stage of development of an information project, it is not a good idea to "fight" with large and reputable portals for the TOP for high-frequency queries. Working out low-frequency semantics can have a much greater effect. In the information sphere, there are many approaches to finding topics for writing articles and posts for low-frequency queries. Here are some of them:

  • Draw ideas from your competitors,
  • Demand fragmentation (from a broad topic, you can always pick something narrower and less competitive):
  • Search for topics among UGC (User Generated Content) - who better than your readers to tell you what to write about.

It is not uncommon for commercial and informational low-frequency queries to be promoted within the same site. For example, sites of many subjects use an article section within a commercial site. This is quite enough to promote low-frequency info queries.

How to calculate low-frequency queries in a topic

There are various ways to determine the volume of low-frequency queries in a topic. One of the popular solutions is to analyze the spectrum of queries with the Google Search Console tool. The procedure is as follows:

  • Make a small list of high-frequency queries for popular website categories.
  • To get the full picture, you need to select the promoted region(s) in the Google Search Console panel.
  • Calculate the total and exact frequencies for each query in turn (the exact frequency can be obtained using the construction "[!word1 !word2]").
  • Subtract the exact frequency from the total frequency - the resulting figure will characterize the volume of low-frequency queries for the category being tested, albeit approximately.

Let's consider this methodology on the example of the commercial topic "car tires".

Let's assume that the site is promoted for the region "Detroit". Let's take one of the brands in the catalog, for example, "Continental" and check the total frequency of the query "tires continental". We get a number of 3321 impressions per month.

Next, we check the exact frequency of the query on Detroit - we get 173 shows per month.

As you can see from the example - about 95% of shows with the query "continental tires" are the very low-frequency and low-frequency tails that we are so interested in.

Once again, we note - do not take numbers as the only search criteria.

In this example, the difference between exact and total frequency is important to understand the approximate amount of tails for a product category. Next, you need to explore what those tails (queries) are! Scrolling through the Google Search Console pages one by one is a long and routine job, but it is the best way to assess demand, separate the necessary queries from the unnecessary, and understand what the structure of the site should ideally be.

Continuing with the tire example - we see certain patterns, patterns (call them whatever you like) that will help us determine the structure of the partition.

The following intersections can be distinguished in this case:

  • continental tires + radius (r16, r17)
  • continental tires + season (winter, summer)
  • continental tires + size (215 65 r16)
  • continental tires + model (contivikingcontact 6)
  • + general queries (buy continental tires)
  • + information requests (reviews, tests)

After scrolling through a few more Wordstat pages, the "second level" of queries for this category gradually emerges:

  • tires continental + radius + season
  • continental tires + size + model

As we can see - the diversity of search for the necessary goods is in adding to the HF query various properties, characteristics of the goods.

Online stores often use lists of product characteristics to customize filters within categories. Based on these filters and

For clothing it could be size and color, for jewelry it could be collection, style, material, for car tires it could be radius, season and size.

Queries like "product name + specifications", "product name + reviews" are unlikely to be highly ranked on a commercial landing page, so you can create a separate indexed URL for each tab. In this way, the search engine will see that your site contains the most complete information about a particular product, and you will get additional low-frequency traffic on informational queries.

This approach does not mean that it is possible to multiply all possible characteristics without looking and get a ready-made structure for promotion for low-frequency queries. As a rule, each topic has its own pitfalls. For example, in tires radius is part of the size, so pages like "tires continental + size + radius" - will be logical doubles for pages "tires continental + size".

When analyzing topics, to get a complete picture, it is recommended to use also synonyms for HF queries, especially since Google itself kindly shows them on the Google Search Console page

As a conclusion to this block it is worth noting: for commercial topics, the main volume of low-frequency queries (except directly commodity queries) lies in the association of goods in groups by certain properties. This can be all sorts of characteristics of the goods, and in some cases the areas of application of goods (insulation for walls, tiles for floors, etc...).

What do I do if I have a website with services?

For sites with the provision of various types of services, HF traffic lies in a detailed analysis of each nuance of a particular service. For example, for a legal site dealing with registration in the assay chamber, a great advantage will be the presence of a glossary (articles) on the topics:

  • sole proprietorship registration
  • online store registration
  • list of documents
  • For whom registration is mandatory

The volume of data on the service/procedure - forms the user's trust in the Internet resource, so the more useful information on the site, associated with the promoted service - the higher the probability that the client will choose you.

I understand the requests, but what's next?

The next step in developing a strategy for promotion on low-frequency queries is to analyze competitors. Without analyzing the leaders of the subject - in SEO-promotion will not go far. In our case - a thorough analysis of the top sites will answer the most important question - what should be the structure of the site. The structure of the project is the cornerstone of all promotion, so "missed" in this matter - with a high probability the project will not develop as you hope for it.

Having analyzed the competitors and the output for all types of low-frequency queries that we analyzed using the Google Search Console tool, there is an understanding of what should be the structure of the site for further optimization. In the case of tires, we get about 15 different types of pages (1, 2 and 3-th level), connected with each other logically competent internal linking.

Ways to implement the resulting structure

There are several options for implementing the structure into the site.

  • Fully automatic method (generation)
  • Partially automatic method (generation followed by manual page elaboration)
  • Completely manual method

Automatic generation of pages and content

Returning to the example of tires - landing pages for low-frequency queries must be created in huge numbers and it is almost impossible to do it manually. Therefore, the best option would be a fully automatic generation of pages, metadata and content based on product properties.

We have already obtained the properties of goods by analyzing the demand and semantics of the selected niche. In our example, the product properties will be: model, size, radius, season and other characteristics.

General recommendations on how to correctly set up automatic landing page generation:

  • Analyze the site's database structure to assess the potential for generation.
  • define how the URL will be built (GET-parameters or CNC, order of variables in the URL).
  • prepare a typical output template for generation pages
  • prepare templates for generating metadata, H1 and text content for all page types.
  • think through and prepare a plan - how the internal link structure of the site will be built, including menus, breadcrumbs, linking between landing pages.
  • Make the fullest possible TOR for the creation of the structure for developers/programmers (in the TOR it is worth taking care of the XML site map for the future structure and a correctly configured 404 error)
  • monitor the execution, check everything from the correct configuration of generation templates to server responses of landing pages.
  • Monitoring of indexation of the obtained SAR structure

Special attention should be paid to the creation of a competent link structure. It is important to properly distribute the link weight between higher priority and lower priority pages.

Semi-automatic method

It is necessary to assess what properties and characteristics of the goods will be developed. Think through how the optimization of landing pages will be edited. Prepare competent technical specifications for the generation of landing pages, as well as the generation of metadata and content. As a rule, with this approach works the following principle - if for the page manually prescribed metadata and texts - they are displayed on the site, if not prepared - works generation.

Manual method

There are no specific recommendations for the manual method. The most important thing is to competently build landing pages into the structure of an existing catalog and set up correct linking.

Let's be patient

SEO-promotion in general and promotion on low-frequency queries in particular are not fast processes. While search engine robots will index your prepared landing pages can take quite some time. Do not just sit and wait - conduct periodic monitoring of resource indexing, evaluate how the landing pages are ranked as the dynamics of search traffic changes.

If you have implemented large-scale landing page generation on your site, evaluate the results segment by segment. Using regular expressions, set up reports for each type of page in Google Search Console. Compare which segments (page types) have positive dynamics, and which are stagnating. Segment analysis will allow you to thoughtfully manage the optimization of generated pages and improve the overall result of promotion for low frequency queries.

Hidden benefits of optimizing your site for low-frequency queries

Competent elaboration of the site for low-frequency queries will help in improving the visibility of the site on high-frequency queries. Low-frequency queries are the tails of HF queries. The more HF query tails are covered on the site, the better from the point of view of the PS worked out the segment itself, and accordingly, and positions on high-frequency sections will grow.

Conclusions:

As any marketing strategy - promotion of the site for low-frequency queries has its pros and cons. Among the pros it is worth noting:

  • low competition;
  • increase in targeted traffic;
  • wide coverage of topics and audiences;

But there are downsides:

  • complexity of implementation and therefore costs,
  • ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the site is required.

When choosing a promotion strategy - it is important to study the demand within the topic and make a rough forecast of costs and effectiveness of each of the possible ways of development of the project. This forecast will help not to make a mistake when choosing and making a strategy for site promotion.

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