What Are Long Tail Keywords Phrases

Long tail keywords are a type of keyword phrase that has at leas three, and some times as many as five words in the phrase. Long tail keywords are used when the website wants to refine search terms to the web page, as well as when the searcher is looking for something rather specific. Like normal keywords, long tail keywords are used to define what is on the web page and what the publisher wants to be found under in search engines and on search engine results pages. These keywords are highly specific, and draw less traffic for the website, but tend to draw more quality traffic, which leads in more conversions than normal keywords. Long tail keywords can also be used by publishers and visitors in different ways.

Long tail keywords are 3 to 5 keyword phrases that are much more specific to the product or service that you are selling. These search phrases are used by people who are further along the decision making process and therefore much more likely to convert. E-commerce sites (online stores) need traffic to generate revenues. These stores can get this traffic via paid search (search engine marketing), but at the same time they should be putting effort in to organic SEO. Free traffic, even if untargeted is good traffic if it can lead to revenues or back links. Long tail keywords can often lead to traffic if spread across enough different phrases.

The basic definition of a long tail keyword (key phrase, search) is a keyword phrase that is extremely targeted to a specific niche so that it gets a small amount of extremely targeted traffic. The theory is that you can possibly get more overall traffic to your site by using a large amount of long tail keywords (all of the small traffic for each one being added together) than you can using a small amount of general keyword terms. Basically, long tail would be the dozens and dozens of keywords and keyword phrases that a website is found for, but are not considered a large focus of your marketing efforts.

There are many free keyword tools out there. Both Google and Yahoo offer these tools too. They will show you the most relevant long tail keywords according to the search volumes that match your single keyword.
Analytical SEO tools can help in selecting the best, most profitable and lucrative long tail keywords.
Writing quality content targeting such phrases can prove very lucrative and the increase in web site traffic generated collectively by choosing the right long tail keywords can meet or exceed the traffic generated by more competitive keywords. This is especially true when applied to new web sites and domains which have few quality links.

For an example of long tail keywords, let's consider the SEO sector - "SEO consultant" is one example of a highly competitive search phrase, whilst "SEO consultant London" is an example of a less popular long tail keyword term

Long Tail Keywords are less popular, less searched for terms which when targeted collectively by a website can result in significant levels of traffic, leading to improved sales. The principle behind long tail keyword theory is to identify moderately popular search terms (with reasonably high search volumes) that people often need to go onto page 2, 3 or even 4 of the search results panels to find relevant results to their query. This implies that existing websites have poor quality content or little relevance to the search term.

Obviously creating content to match the possible long tail searches is probably the best way to go to accomplish long-term organic results. This is done by creating new web pages, using the long tail search term as the topic of the page, the page title, but then considerable content needs to be placed on that page to support the phrase or concept to rank well. It can be challenging, especially when you are a small business person and have so many other responsibilities to juggle.

Brainstorm a list of long tail keywords and use them! This may seem like obvious advice, but sometimes the simplest solution is overlooked. Try to come up with a list of keywords and phrases that really describe the content of your site, and start creating new content that includes the phrases. Especially with something like a blog that is just starting out, you need to keep adding new content frequently. Create new posts make sure that you are using your keywords and phrases in the titles, tags, and inside the post as well. The key here is to add this new content frequently, and add a lot of it. This will help you to start to increase your visibility on search engines, and start to attract new visitors to your site.

Whether you can achieve high rankings for competitive keywords or not, long tail keywords could be highly beneficial for you. If you have a website selling Armani Suits' but can't pull any search engine traffic, rather than targeting the keyword Armani' or Armani Suits' try targeting more specific keywords such as Armani Mens Suits'. Hopefully you will see an increase in conversions and sales.

Whether or not you plan to use keyword advertising, tools such as Google Ad Words Keyword Tool tell you the advertiser competition and search volume of keywords you enter (if they have data for them). When you enter a few keywords, it suggests additional keywords to consider. You can also search for keywords related to your site content by entering the URL of your site.