Focusing on long tail keywords can be one of the best ways to compete in a niche that is competitive, and can provide almost immediate traffic to a brand new website or web page. Many SEO gurus and internet marketers have completely overlooked the true power of harnessing long tail marketing as part of their campaign. Opposite of what many conventional SEO’s have been practicing, long tail focuses not on the top 10 keyword terms, but instead on the hundreds or thousands of less searched keywords:

However, don’t let the phrase “less searched keywords” fool you! It doesn’t take an expert to realize that, if you’ve ever developed a ranked website, in most cases, over 60% of your traffic comes from these obscure, long tail keywords. They may not be as highly searched as much as the top terms on an individual basis ‘per se’ but they DO HAVE have advantage in numbers! Furthermore, these keywords are usually always less competitive, making long tail SEO marketing the”hidden gem” of SEO strategies. After reading nearly every article I could find on optimizing for long tail keywords, I realized that few SEO experts actually discuss how to properly implement this strategy into your campaign. I have first outlined some of the advantages of this SEO strategy followed by a step by step method to benefit from long tail keywords:

• Less competitive keyword terms
• More immediate and less volatile traffic
• Quicker results (no waiting for competitive terms to rank)
• More #1 SERP positions which typically generate 60-80% of the clicks on the first page.
• Higher conversion (potential buyers are usually ready to purchase and have already done there research)
• Diversifies your traffic sources (you’re putting your eggs in different baskets) so your less dependent on one or two major keywords.

So How Do I Start Using Long Tail Keyword Marketing?

Being the “SEO information philanthropist” that I am, I decided to take a step-by-step approach to walk you through an example. In this hypothetical example, lets pretend I own a digital photo frame retail e-commerce website.

Step 1.) Research the Long Tail Keywords

Using free tools such as hittail.com, Keyword Discovery’s keyword suggestion tool, and Google’s Suggest Lab I came up with the following list of long tail keywords:

Keywords (searches per month):

frames digital 71
kodak digital photo frames 53
digital frames under 100 52
digital photo picture frames 51
photo frames digital 44
digital fun frames 41
compare price digital photo frames 38
free digital picture frames 35
cheap digital picture frames 35
free disney digital photo frames 32
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digital phot frames 25
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digital camera frames 19
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picture frames digital 18
digital pcture frames 17
best resolution for digital photo frames 17
compare digital picture frames 17
free digital disney photo frames 16
winnie pooh free digital photo frames 16
disney digital frames download 16
“digital picture frames” 16
digital camera picture frames 16
digital scrapbook frames 16
digital frames on line uk 16
7″ digital photo frames 16
free digital picture frames clipart 15
best digital picture frames 15
digital photo frames target market 15
digital frames with usb ports 15
‘digital photo frame with interchangeable frames 14
phillips digital photo frames 14
3.5 inch digital picture frames 14
free digital baby photo frames 14
free shipping digital frames 13
free digital winnie pooh photo frames 13
digital pictuer frames 13
sony digital picture frames 13
cheapest digital frames 13
digital photo frames 10 inch 12
digital picture frames reviews 12
woolworths digital photo frames 12
decorative digital frames scrapbooking 12
free digital photo frames to download 12
free digital picturew frames 12
key chain digital photo frames 11
portable digital frames 11
kodak digital frames 11
kodak digital picture frames 11
lcd digital picture frames 11
frames for digital pictures 11
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24 frames per second digital camcorder 11
disney digital frames 11
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free frames for digital photos 10
free digital photo frames printable 10
free digital photo frames and borders 10
fun baby digital frames for free 10
westinghouse digital picture frames 10

Step 2.) Use the Long Tail Keywords in your Content

Google absolutely loves well written, quality content and this is the best method for increasing traffic from your long tail terms. The most important aspect is to determine which words most of these keywords have in common. In this case, these include: free, digital, frames, Kodak, and photo. After that, its just a matter of creating separate article pages on your site using these terms in the content. For best results, you should bold, italicize, and underline the most common words found in the long tail list that you generated in your newly created articles.

Another useful tip, is to make sure you use the keywords in a different order throughout the article. For instance, try and use both the phrase “frames for digital photos” and “digital photo frames”. When you flip the keywords around in your content, you increase your chances of ranking for both in Google. Remember, if the search engines come up with an exact match for the keyword you optimized will perform better in the SERPs.

Step 3.) Use Variations of Long Tail Keywords to Link to the Content you Created

The good news is that you shouldn’t need a lot of inbound links to rank your sub-pages for long tail keywords because there is significantly less competition. However, deep linking is helpful for ranking these pages and you should use a variety of long tail keywords in your anchor text. This has two benefits: your linking strategy will look more natural to Google so you can avoid getting “Google slapped” and, secondly, you will rank for more than one keyword. In addition, if your homepage ever achieves the #1 spot in google you might also get sitelinks, which takes place when Google shows more than 1 page of your website in the first result:

Step 4.) Track Your Results and See What Works

While this is probably “common sense”, it should still be mentioned. Find out which long tail keywords you are ranking for and determine what methods are working best so you can duplicate your results successfully in the future! Remember, that you shouldn’t ignore your main primary keywords; long tail marketing should be an addition to your campaign and not a replacement for the top 10 keyword terms in your niche. With a proper strategy consisting of SEO for both highly searched phrases and long tail keywords you should be well on your way to abundant traffic in no time!

Chris Anderson YouTube Video on SEO for Long Tail Keywords:

Chris takes a while to get to the SEO aspects in this video, however it gets quite interesting towards the end of the video and he has many useful comments and insight.

More Articles on Long Tail Keyword Marketing:

• Search Engine Guide
• Dosh Dosh
• Buzzle
• Marketing Hub

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