If you’re looking for a great keyword research tool, there’s always Long Tail Pro. In fact, it’s one of our favorites to use for our search engine optimization efforts here at Greyphin. But, even though we use this tool quite often, there are pros and cons to it - just like with anything else in this world.

What is Long Tail Pro?

Long Tail Pro is an online software that offers a suite of search engine optimization tools designed to help you rank higher in the search engine results pages. These powerful tools include the following:

• Keyword Research Tool
• Rank Tracker
• Site Audit
• SERP Analysis
• Backlink Analysis

Below we’ll talk more about the pros about each of these tools as well as some of the shortcomings people have experienced with Long Tail Pro.

Pros of Long Tail Pro - Review of Each Tool 

Before we start discussing the cons of Long Tail Pro, let’s dive a little deeper into the things we like about each tool from Long Tail Pro’s lineup.

Keyword Research Tool

If you’re familiar with SEO - which you should be by now if you follow our blog - then you know that keywords are one of the most important aspects of your search engine optimization strategy. You know what they say? Keywords make the world go ‘round. Okay. Maybe they don’t say that. But the truth is this: using the right keywords in the content on your website will make a huge difference in how search engines see your content and how they decide to rank your content on the results pages.

Long Tail Pro’s keyword research tool allows you to enter your domain so you can view which keywords are best suited for your website based off of your authority score. Users are able to enter in seed keywords, which the tool will then analyze and provide the keyword competitiveness score and search volume for each. Long Tail Pro will indicate whether or not these keywords are ones that your website has the ability to rank for based off of your website’s authority score. 

The keywords that Long Tail Pro suggests for your website content are long-tail keywords; these are keywords that are made up of multiple words, typically around 3-5. These types of keywords tend to have lower monthly search volume than keywords that are only one or two words long, however, they also tend to be easier to rank for since shorter keywords tend to be more difficult to rank for due to high search volume. 

The biggest pro behind the keyword research tool is the fact that Long Tail Pro provides a long list of suggestions and identifies which of those you’ll have the best chance to rank or. It also allows users to see what keywords competitors are ranking for, which may provide insight on keywords you may not have thought to try to rank for before.

Rank Tracker

After you have your keywords chosen for your website, you can use the rank tracker tool to track your website’s progress in the search engine results pages. This nifty tool allows users to gain insight to how close their website is to ranking for specific key terms on the first page of search engine results pages. The best part? This tool is very user-friendly and sends weekly updates to the email address of your choice about your keyword rankings. 

Site Audit Tool

While the keyword tracker tool gives information and suggestions about what keywords may work best for your website, the site audit tool takes a more in-depth look at the technical side of search engine optimization. Use the site audit dashboard to view the health of your website. Long Tail Pro will give you suggestions on how to fix certain technical issues as well as on-site SEO pointers to boost your rankings. 

This feature also provides reports on website performance such as website speed, and shows suggestions for how to improve your internal linking structure.

SERP Analysis

The SERP, also known as the search engine results page, is where people find your website when searching for information through a search engine such as Google. The main focus of any business with an online presence is to try to rank on the first page of Google in order to reach a large number of high-quality leads. 

Long Tail Pro’s SERP analysis feature provides the ability to enter up to 200 keywords in a session to see where your website ranks in the search engines for specific keywords. Here, you can also check out which websites are providing backlinks to your competitors, which will allow you to get some inspiration for link building strategies. 

Backlink Analysis Tool

If you’re a regular here on the ol’ Greyphin blog, then chances are you’ve seen our posts about backlinks. If not, you can learn more about the importance of backlinking here. 

The Long Tail Pro backlink analysis tool has many benefits. For one, this feature allows users to track every single backlink that is linked from other websites to their main website domain. This tool also provides a list of opportunities for other back linking opportunities, and also provides a list of broken links to your website. This is crucial since backlinks play a huge part in the authority score of a website.

Cons of Long Tail Pro

As evidenced above, there are plenty of great pros to the Long Tail Pro software. But, unfortunately, there are some cons to it as well. Let’s get down to business.

Con #1: Pricing

Depending on the size of your company and your budget, Long Tail Pro’s pricing may not seem that bad at all. But to small businesses that are poised for growth, every cent matters. There are three different pricing options offered through Long Tail Pro at annual and monthly rates. Of course, the more expensive plans come with more tools and features than the basic plan. For some businesses, these price points may not be affordable - and that’s okay! There are other tools on the market that may work better for you price-wise.

Con #2: Manual Entry

For some tools, such as the keyword research and rank tracker tools, there isn’t an ability to upload a spreadsheet or large bulk of keywords at once. Instead, these have to be manually added to the input field. While this isn’t necessarily the end-all-be-all of Long Tail Pro, it can be very time consuming - and we all know that time is money.

Con #3: Learning Curve

While Long Tail Pro is relatively easy to navigate, there is certainly a learning curve for each of the tools. Of course, this takes time, but if you have the resources or a dedicated team for SEO efforts, then putting in the work to learn the tools will come in handy. Long Tail Pro does offer a variety of video tutorials that you can watch here to help you on your journey to better SEO.

So, what’d you think of our Long Tail Pro review? Overall we’d say we like this tool quite a lot; especially when used in conjunction with SEMrush.

Have questions about your search engine optimization strategies? Our SEO and inbound marketing services are designed to help your website and your business grow. Learn more by contacting Greyphin today, and be sure to check out our list of other resources we love!