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Long Tail Keywords - Long Tail Theory and Whether or Not to Optimize Pages for them
The question is should you optimize your pages for Long tail keywords?
Long tail search will make a good number of your traffic. So it is understandable when some people want to optimize for them.
But is it necessary?
The Long Tail Theory
What is a Long Tail Keyword?
The word 'Long tail' was coined by Chris Anderson in 2004.
Keywords that are referred to as long tail are those keywords with very low competition. Not necessarily with low searches.
Must people usually refer to long tail words as those keywords with two or more words. But this is not always the case. A single word keyword can be a long tail if it has low competition.
Long Tail Keywords Explanation
Though naturally when you start adding a word to another, the competition and searches for that keyword gets lower.
But that doesn't mean when a keyword has 3 or more words it's long tail.
There are keywords I have written on that were 4 even 5 words long but with good searches and reasonable and at times high competition. In cases like that you can not refer to those keywords as long tail.
Meaning that long tail has nothing to do with the searches or numbers of words a keyword has, it only refers to the competition for that keyword.
If a keyword's competition is really low, even if it's a single word, it's becomes a long tail.
Since long tail's have very low competition wouldn't it be better to optimize your blog or pages for them?
I have read some articles where the authors suggested that we optimize our pages for long tail words. That makes a lot of sense because keywords that are long tail are more specific in nature.
It is believed that people who do long tail search usually become customers when they visit a site, because they are looking to buy with the kind of words they use for their search.
Example is when someone types "where to find HP laptops" in the search engines. The chance that when that person gets to your site he or she would make a purchase is high.
So long tail searches are easily converted to customers than short tail searches.
But long tails in some cases if not most, have lesser searches. This simply means if you optimize your blog or pages just for a long tail keyword (s) you can be seriously reducing the traffic potential of your blog.
Moreover, most site topics have good number of related long tail words.
So you don't have to bother with just optimizing your blog for long tail because since your keywords are mixed with short tail and long tail, ranking for long tail words will come naturally.
Also if you write your pages well with a blend of variations and synonyms of your keyword, as discussed in Keyword search engine optimization , you will also naturally rank for long tail words that are closely related to the keywords and phrases on your pages.
Personal Experiences with Long Tail Keywords
I always visit the stat overview of my blogs and I have been found on the first page of Google for long tail words I didn't really used together in a page.
Just different closely related words that the search engines identified on the page and brought together when someone made a search.
These keywords individually don't bring you much traffic but together it adds up. You could have hundreds of long tail words each bringing one or two visitors every day that runs into 1,000 monthly visitors.
The truth is whether or not you optimize your pages for the search engines you will be found for some long tail words at the search engines.
But if you do optimize your blog and pages even the better.
They are usually the terms that will be bringing you traffic within your few months of blogging before your targeted keywords does.
But because you'll be found for some long tail keywords whether or not you optimize your pages doesn't mean you should leave page optimization and write for readers.
Like I always say, if you can please both parties comfortably while settle for pleasing just your readers?
Moreover you'll be limiting your search traffic greatly if you choose to do.
Finally I have found that lengthy posts usually gets found for several related long tail keywords.
See Pat's experience with Long tail keywords.
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