Have you heard terms like search engine optimization (SEO), keywords (short tail) or long tail keyword phrases?

Confused by the similarity of terms like short tail versus long tail keyword phrases?

Well most of us are when first attempting to learn how to get the search engines to notice our content and provide exposure on their front page listings.

Short Tail Keywords Versus Long Tail Keyword Phrases – What’s the Difference?

Short tail keywords are typically one or two letter keywords that are both highly popular and very competitive.  Long tail keyword phrases on the other hand usually involve three to six word phrases but at times can include even more.

Though less popular (there will be far less people searching the exact phrase), long tail phrases are also far less competitive than the short tail keywords.  Therefore it is much easier to achieve higher search engine page position (such as Google) using long tail phrases.

In the end this approach provides greater potential exposure to your target audience since it is far easier to list on Page 1 (or at least the first few pages) for long tail keyword phrases opposed to short tail keywords.

How to Identify Long Tail Keyword Phrases …

Even though the goal is to identify long tail keyword phrases to use when preparing content, it all begins with selecting appropriate short tail keywords and conducting a little (or sometimes a lot) of research on the keyword or keywords for the subject of your article or video.

One approach when undertaking the keyword research is to start with a popular and competitive short tail keyword then use a search engine (like Google) to evaluate the term and determine the popularity.

Next use a keyword suggestion tool such as Wordtracker’s Free Keyword Suggestion Tool or Google’s Free Adwords Keyword Tool to both evaluate the search volume and create a list of suggestions for expanding it to an associated long tail keyword phrase.

After several possible long tail phrases are identified, enter each into the search engine to again check popularity (and likely competitiveness) then select those terms to use when creating your content.

I used this exact approach used when preparing the different content pieces highlighted in the following video:

The Bottom Line:

Taking the time to conduct keyword research and identify potential long tail keyword phrases when writing content can ultimately help:

1. Increase your position in the search engine page listings;
2. Increase the number of pages indexed in the search engines (Google);
3. Increase your message delivery effectiveness (or sales conversions if marketing!).

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The Morning After Follow-up

As a follow-up to the original post about using long tail keyword phrases (LTKWP) to help gain optimal page position on the search engines, I searched some of the LTKWP I used when writing  the original post in Google the next morning.

Since I built the original post around the phrase “long tail keyword phrase” knowing it was still fairly competitive, I expanded it to include “search engine page position” in the final post.  My thoughts were that many people looking for the effectiveness of LTKWP for gaining high page position on the search engines wouldn’t just type the original but add additional words about page position.

The following morning, I did a quick check of a few LTKWP combinations and here is what I found:

Searching the phrase “long tail keyword phrases” by itself landed the blog post at the first position … on Page 7 of Google (oh well , but the Viddler video associated with the post was #5 on Page 2 (overall #15) of 106,000 total pages using those terms (see image below).

Search on “long tail keyword phrases”

When I expanded it to an alternate LTKWP – “long tail keywords page position” and the results improved.

The blog post landed at the number two spot of Google’s Page 1 and my Twitter “Tweet” announcing the post at the number five spot of Page 1 as shown in the image below.

Search on “long tail keywords page position”