Your business or product is for someone specific.

A specific target market, audience or community.
You solve the problems this market has. That’s your speciality. So you design your services around their needs.
Every business card, brochure, and advertising piece is scrutinized heavily to meet their expectations.

But when you move online… that message is lost.

Each page is generalized, intended for a mass audience.
But you don’t want a mass audience. You want a specific audience. The audience who wants what you sell, and is actively looking for you online.
The key to more online success is by getting specific.
And online, specific means keyphrases. That’s how people search and identify what it is you do.
But not just any keyphrases. You want specific keyphrases that match what you do and what your specific audience wants.
How to get specific

Keyword research is a way to target a specific keyword phrase for each page or post, in order to rank higher in search results.
It isn’t about tricking or manipulating the search engines, but rather it’s a way to let Google know exactly what the article is about by being fully descriptive. This will help you get higher search engine rankings, which exposes your content to more people.
Why do you want to rank higher? According to SEOmoz, an SEO software firm, over 60% of the time people click on one of the top four rankings for a keyphrase. The top spot alone is clicked 42% of the time.


From SEOmoz.org
So our goal is to build long-term, sustainable traffic by targeting specific keyphrases.

The basics of a long tail SEO strategy

So you have an idea in mind for a post or page. At this point, you’ll want to check out some possible keyword variations that you should target.
Typically, these will be based on a brand, company, location, product or service.
Remember to focus on real words that your audience would use. Don’t use complex or “academic” type words. For example, you would want to use the word “cars” instead of “vehicles”.
We’re going to target long-tail keyphrases, as a way to go after search phrases with the most volume and least competition.


From DataDial.net
Now when you look at what people search for, you’ll see a huge “head” of searches for general terms or brands. The huge drop off is called the “tail” of search engine results. Although the search volume is much less, the entire tail actually makes up approximately 70% of user searches.

So for example, a “head” keyword might be “Las Vegas”, while the “tail” keyphrase might be “Best Show in Las Vegas”. Not only is it much easier to rank for the tail keyphrase based on less competition, but it’s also more relevant to what people are searching for.
If you wanted to find information about a show in Las Vegas, then just searching for “Las Vegas” won’t give you what you’re looking for. You’ll find information about gambling, restaurants, hotels, other shows, and other interesting things.
When people use search engines, they have intent. They use long-tail keyphrases because they’re looking for something specific. When they find what they want, they’re happy. They stay longer, and will hopefully come back.
So that’s the point of keyword research. You’re trying to make your articles as descriptive as possible so that they’re ranked higher for people looking for that information.
Areon Reviewed by Areon on . Long Tail SEO The Key to Online Success is Getting Specific Your business or product is for someone specific. A specific target market, audience or community. You solve the problems this market has. That’s your speciality. So you design your services around their needs. Every business card, brochure, and advertising piece is scrutinized heavily to meet their expectations. But when you move online… that message is lost. Each page is generalized, intended for a mass audience. But you don’t want a mass audience. You want a specific audience. Rating: 5