If you’re looking to boost your website’s search engine ranking, optimizing your content with long-tail keywords is crucial. Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases targeting a smaller, niche target audience. They’re an essential part of a successful SEO strategy, and one way to create them is through keyword modifiers. In this article, we’ll discuss keyword modifiers, why you should use them, how they help you rank in SERPs in Google, and how to organize them to create a successful long-tail strategy for your website via keyword research.

What Is A Keyword Modifier?

Keyword modifiers are words or phrases added to a base keyword to make it more specific. They help you target a different types more niche audience and increase your chances of ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). Keyword modifiers can be added before or after your base keyword, you can find these during the keyword research process.

Why Use A Keyword Modifier?

Using a keyword modifier is essential for optimizing SEO efforts. It helps to distinguish between key words and phrases by adding modifiers, such as location or time-based qualifiers. This increases the relevance of search engine queries, making it easier for users to find the information they are looking for quickly and accurately. By utilizing a keyword modifier, webpages can rank higher on SERPs, allowing businesses to increase their visibility online and garner more customers. Additionally, using the long tail keyword modifiers can help you rank for long-tail keywords with a lower search volume but are often easier to rank for.

Keyword Match Types: Exact, Phrase, and Broad Match Modifiers

Keyword match types are a critical aspect of search engine marketing, they dictate how closely the keyword you’re optimizing for or bidding on must match a user’s search query in order for your ad to be eligible to appear. There are several types of keyword match types, including exact match, phrase match, and broad match modifier.

Exact match keywords are the most specific and restrictive type. When you use an exact match keyword, will only show if someone searches for your keyword exactly as you’ve entered it or close variants of it. Phrase match keywords are a bit more flexible. Your ad can show when someone searches for your keyword in the exact order you’ve entered it, but there might be other words before or after it. Broad match modifier keywords are the most flexible of the three. Your ad can show when someone searches for any or all of the words in your keyword in any order, and it can also show for synonyms or close variants of those words. This type of match can help you reach a wider audience, but it might also lead to your landing page only showing for irrelevant results with no search volumes

How Keyword Modifiers Help You Rank In The SERPs

Keyword modifiers help you rank in SERPs by making your content more specific and relevant to search queries. Using keyword modifiers, you can target a more specific audience, leading to higher click-through rates and lower bounce rates. This tells search engines that your content is valuable and relevant to specific results and match the user’s search query, which can improve your ranking in searches.

Keyword modifiers play a crucial role in formulating a content marketing strategy that focuses on closely related variations of your business’s primary keywords, providing a realistic opportunity for landing pages to rank higher in the SERPs.

Primary keywords without modifiers can be highly competitive. For example, if you search for the search term, “hammocks” on Google, you will see results of popular retailers that sell hammocks:

These extremely strong and challenging to outrank in terms of positioning.

It will be a long journey for a small eCommerce store that’s just started selling hammocks to rank higher than these websites for the primary keyword “hammock.”

However, using keyword modifiers, such as “hammock for older person,” can significantly reduce the competition for main keyword and increase your chances of ranking higher. For instance, the top-ranking article for this keyword could be from a website with a AS of 22 and around 1.2k referring domains.

Achieving authority score of 22 isn’t particularly challenging with the right content and link-building strategies. By doing keyword research and targeting specific keyword modifiers in your digital marketing strategy, you could expect to rank higher in Google for an article on your website within six to twelve months.

Keyword modifiers are essential because they reduce competition for those keywords. While the monthly search volume for such words may be less, you can also target closely related terms, synonyms, and common word misspellings to expand your reach and attract organic traffic.

Types Of Keyword Modifiers

There are several types of keyword modifiers that you can use to create long-tail keywords in your SEO marketing strategy. Here are some of the most common types to satisfy match types and user intent:

Adjective Keyword Modifiers

Adjective keyword modifiers describe a characteristic of the product or service you’re promoting. For example:

Best

Cheap

Easy

Free

Great

High-quality

New

Popular

Reliable

Simple

Usage Keyword Modifiers

Usage keyword modifiers describe how the product or service can be used. For example:

For beginners

For professionals

For students

For women

For men

For kids

For seniors

For small businesses

For large businesses

Geographical Keyword Modifiers

Geographical keyword modifiers describe a specific location. Such as searching for a restaurant, you might, for example, search the phrase “restaurant near me” here are others:

In Los Angeles

In New York City

In the UK

In Canada

Near me

Local

Size Modifiers

Size modifiers describe the size of the product or service. For example:

Big

Small

Compact

Mini

Portable

One type of keyword modifier that can be particularly effective is the price or purchase modifier. These are words or phrases that indicate the user wants to make a purchase. Examples of price/purchase modifiers include “cheap,” “discount,” “buy,” and “sale.” By using these modifiers in your keyword phrases, you can target people looking to buy something, leading to higher conversion rates.

Another way to use keyword modifiers is to target different stages of the buyers’ buyer journey together. The buyers’ journey consists of three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. By using keyword modifiers that are specific to each step, you can create content that is more relevant and targeted to your audience. Here are some examples of keyword modifiers for each location:

Awareness Stage Keyword Modifiers

“What is”

“How to”

“Guide to”

“Tips for”

Consideration Stage Keyword Modifiers

“Best”

“Top”

“Comparison”

“Reviews of”

Decision Stage Keyword Modifiers

“Buy”

“Purchase”

“Deals on”

“Discounts for”

Adjective Keyword Modifiers:

Top

Latest

Recommended

Trusted

Quality

Affordable

Premium

Luxury

Exclusive

Unique

Innovative

Modern

Traditional

Vintage

Classic

Usage Keyword Modifiers:

How to

Tips

Tricks

Guide

Tutorial

Review

Comparison

Checklist

Checklist for

Benefits of

Advantages of

Disadvantages of

Reasons to

Importance of

Solutions for

Remedies for

Steps to

Geographical Keyword Modifiers:

Nearby

City

State

Country

Region

Neighborhood

Suburb

Downtown

Uptown

Rural

Urban

Size Modifiers:

Tiny

Full-size

Large

Medium

XL

Oversized

Price/Purchase Modifiers:

Budget

Sale

Discount

Promo

Clearance

Bargain

Deal

Value

Cost-effective

Reasonable

Worth it

Low-cost

Time-Based Keyword Modifiers:

Now

Today

Tomorrow

This week

This month

This year

Next week

Next month

Next year

Last week

Last month

Last year

Upcoming

Future

Historic

Emotion-Based Keyword Modifiers:

Happy

Sad

Angry

Excited

Bored

Hopeful

Fearful

Surprised

Disappointed

Amazed

Using these keyword modifiers can help you generate long-tail keywords more keyword modifiers that are more specific to your niche and more likely to rank higher in search engines.

What Are The Types Of Keyword Modifiers?

The keyword modifiers include:

Adjective keyword modifiers.

Usage keyword modifiers.

Geographical keyword modifiers.

Size modifiers.

Price/purchase modifiers.

Time-based and emotion-based keyword modifiers.

Why Should You Use Keyword Modifiers?

Using keyword modifiers helps create more specific and relevant content for different categories of your audience, allowing you to target a smaller audience that is more likely to be interested in your content. Additionally, using keyword modifiers can help you optimize your rank for long-tail keywords with a lower search volume but are often easier to rank for.