Importance of Long Tail keywords
How most of the keyword research goes in the industry? Will probably analyze the given website theme and keyword tools will be taken into consideration, extract count and competitions and finally go with a keyword with a good search volume (count). To some extend we may also look into Google trends, Google insight search and competitors optimization strategies as well. But how long does this going to help? If you want to target keywords that convert very easily it’s always advisable to go with long tail keywords.
What are Long Tail Keywords: Long tail keywords are normally three to four phrase keyword terms your customers or users would use to search / buy the service / product. These long tail keywords tend to be very focused with the users’ mindset and go almost hand in hand with what they are looking to buy.
Let us take an Example,
If you have a website which deals with Debt Consolidation and your target region is North Miami. Rather than targeting the more generic keyword “Debt Consolidation” you can target the long tail keyword “Debt Consolidation Counseling North Miami”. When you try to target the keyword “Debt Consolidation” the competition would be very huge also you would be directly competing with the big guys in the same niche. Whereas keyword like “Debt Consolidation Counseling North Miami” will be easier to rank and converts more easily.
The bottom line is,
- The long tail keywords are pretty easier to rank with.
- Shorter timeframe to rank for.
- Possibility of getting more traffic from more long tail keywords.
- People who search by using long tail keywords are far more likely to become customers.
Great post. Longtail keywords are the key to success. I’d say 60% of my client’s keyword traffic comes from long tail.
I recently wrote a post about conducting long tail keyword research using AdWords – http://positivevibesseo.com/researching-longtail-keywords-with-google-adwords.
Mercy,
Good Post and well explained
Where long tail keywords are been araised? hmm it’s from articles / news page results. SEO’s started thinking on seeing keyword search results and it has been mostly used in recent periods and named as “longtail” keywords
in fact it was a superior practice on earlier days too. Now search engine users are smart enough to type queries than typing keyword(S) and so, some combinations filters even from content more than so called long tail keywords and I mostly prefer to use How, what where, when, who and so in content part and take advantage on so called “longtail” + user queries 
And funny part is I don’t prefer complete long tail keywords for home page but use for inner pages lol
Hope some understand why 
Best,
Jag