Another effective method of gaining free traffic is by using long-tail keywords in your blog title and blog contents.

Long tail keywords are, as the name suggests, usually phrases of several words. It is a term originally coined by Chris Anders of The Long Tail. One of the great things about them is that very few websites will match them exactly, so ranking high for them is much easier, even with a brand new site. They are usually attempts to get a targeted answer to a question from a topic that gives many search results.

How to Use Long Tail Keywords

Most of these search phrases will naturally have very little traffic. How are we then going to benefit from them? The answer is sheer numbers. The fact is, most searches are actually long tail searches. Even if these are phrases that only get a search a week, if your site can match enough of them, you’ll get some steady traffic in return.

How to target this kind of keywords then? It would be quite stupid to write an article around a phrase that gets little traffic. Therefore we should target multiple long tail keywords with a single web page. Since long tail keywords are usually extensions of one or more common keywords, like “profit from website traffic” is a combination of “profit”, “website” and “traffic”, we can often have our article rank for terms that are not even on it as such.

Use related keywords around a central one you choose. For example, write an article on “website traffic”, then mention “revenue”, “profit”, “strategy” and whatever else you think someone searching for your central keyword would be interested in. Use these close to the main keyword. Since Google does not count prepositions or articles, you may then rank for terms like “profit from website traffic” and “a website traffic strategy”.

How to Find Long Tail Keywords

For finding or creating related long tail keywords I suggest SEO Book Keyword Suggestion or WordTracker Keyword Suggestion. Both create long tail keywords around the keyword you enter. Unlike you would do, when targeting a single important keyword, I advice you to use many on the same page. This will make more combination of words possible, and increase the number of long tail keywords you can rank for.

Another way to find long tail keywords is to look at your traffic logs, like I did above. Try to add those that are searched for often into actual page content, if they are not there yet. This will make you rank higher for that phrase and increase your traffic.

Benefits of Long Tail keywords

Here are four main reasons why you should consider optimizing your website for long tail keywords:

* Long tail keywords lead to higher conversions. Visitors arriving through multi-phrase search queries might be more likely to make purchases or convert on affiliate programs or recommendations. By targeting these longtail phrases, you are effectively targeting a market of potential buyers.

* Long tail Keywords are Easier to rank. It is much easier to make your website rank well on search engines for longtail keywords because of the generally weaker competition.

* More Visitors to your website. Targeting long tail keywords will gradually lead to more search engine traffic because you’ll have a lot of pages indexed and ranking for specific phrases related to your website/business. This means increased visibility and therefore a much larger amount of search engine traffic.

* Higher monetization potential. Search engine visitors are very valuable because they are targeted individuals who are seeking specific information and hence are more likely to click on contextual ads or subscribe to your site newsletter or blog feed. This grows your audience and allows you greater monetization potential in the long run through product sales or the use of third-party ad networks.

Why Long Tail Keywords Mean More Traffic

I’ll try to explain it with an example. Suppose you have optimised your website for “web designer” and you are getting, say 1000 hits per day because your link appears on the first page of the SERPs. Please keep in mind that “web designer” is a highly competitive word and you have to make a lot of effort first, to get there, and then, to remain there.

What if along with your primary keyword, you select 15 Long Tail keywords that will fetch very little traffic individually, but lots of traffic collectively? Since Long Tail keywords face little or no competition, it’s very easy to get a good ranking for them, and in fact, a lot easier than obtaining a good ranking for a highly competitive phrase like “web designer”. If you appear on the first page for almost all your Long Tail keywords and each Long Tail keyword fetches you say, 100 odd hits everyday, you’ll be getting 1500 hits all in all, and they will be more relevant because people are more likely to do business if they find a website for the exact phrase they are searching for. What if you can optimise for 30 Long Tail keywords? You can easily do the math.

More articles and resources on long tail keywords:

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From Long Tail Keywords – Incredible Free Traffic Secret

The majority of Internet marketers believe that the success is in getting the website ranked high for one or two primary keywords, and they put all the efforts to achieve this goal. This works, but not always.

If your market niche is too popular on the Internet and you have many competitors, it’s very difficult to rank well for 1-2 best keywords. And even if you do this, your success is less likely to be long-lived. Expenses are maximal, output is minimal. Thus, it simply doesn’t worth your effort and time.

Sometimes to achieve better results and convert your website visitors into customers, you need to think outside of the box, be original and unique. No, I don’t mean you need to create a totally new product. You can have one of the products of the kind but approach its marketing and promotion from a different angle.

One of the secrets for a stable success is to rank for long tail keywords (keyword phrases consisting in four, five or more words). It’s much easier to rank for long tail keywords because they are more specific and are not as trite as primary one or two keywords.

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From Targeting Conversions and Traffic with Long Tail Writing

As personalized search and universal search continue shaking up an industry that used to be dominated by "top ten results," more and more small businesses are learning the value of focusing on the keyword long tail. While there's no doubting the value of bringing in highly targeted traffic, many companies still don't quite get how to target the long tail in their copy. They also don't know that long tail friendly copy is also user friendly copy.

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From DoshDosh How to Find and Target Long Tail Keywords for More Search Engine Traffic

The benefits of increasing search engine traffic to any website are many. For online retailers and affiliate marketers, this means a higher potential for greater product sales and referral commissions.

For the average blogger, the increase in search engine traffic means a bigger audience and possibly more long term profit from the display of on-site or privately arranged advertisements.

Understanding how to consistently send more search engine traffic to your website requires an appreciation of the Long Tail theory and subsequently the effective manipulation of traffic-directing long tail keywords.

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From Use Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are those 3 and 4 word phrases that tend to be very specific to the subject of your post,

web page, article, etc.

In other words say you write a post for your gardening blog about growing leeks in a hot climate, you could target the keywords “gardening” or “organic gardening”, but showing up on the first page of Google would be very difficult.

Target instead “growing leeks in a hot climate” (a long tail keyword phrase) and you could easily rank number one in a search for that keyword phrase. The number of searches would, of course, be fewer, but the chance of somebody visiting your site would be much higher being on the first page of the search results.

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From Increase Your Traffic By Focusing On Long Tail Keywords

Long Tail keywords aren’t actually your conventional keywords like “web designer” or “copywriter” or “pole dancer”, they are sometimes complete sentences. For instance, a lawyer looking for a web designer for his law firm may search for “web designer for law firm” instead of merely “web designer”, or someone looking for a pole dancer in New England will most likely search for “pole dancer in new England” rather than just “pole dancer”.

The fundamental focus behind Long Tail keywords is that instead of focusing on a few highly competitive keywords for your niche, you should also optimise for longer, less competitive phrases that can easily catapult your website to the first page of the SERPs. This I have noticed even while trying to optimise blog posts. I have often observed that it’s easier to rank higher for blog posts containing the entire search term expression. For instance, if you search for “tips to boost SEO” on Google our post appears (at least as of now) on the first page. You can observe many similar expressions.

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From Deliver The Traffic By Long Tail Keywords

Long Tail Keywords When website traffic is up, owners can experience greater sales or increased ad revenue. Knowing this and actually making it happen requires a little strategizing. This is where the use of long tail keywords can be extremely helpful.

Most Internet users instinctively understand what a long tail keyword is. They are really nothing more than the natural phrases that are typed into searches to help users land on the pages they really want. The more detailed the phrase, the more likely it is for a searcher to obtain the information they really need or want.

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From Traffic Generation - What Are Long Tail Keyword Phrases

It is said that searches such as these are more likely to translate into sales because the searcher is closer to the end of the buying cycle. They may have already done some previous research and are now closer to making a buying decision.

If you plan to invest in pay-per-click advertising you should be familiar with long tail keyword phrases, they will probably bring you a better return on your investment as opposed to general keyword phrases.

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From Long Tail Versus Short Tail Keywords

Keywords can be split into two main groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords, or broad keywords and narrow keywords. A long tail keyword is something like ‘Small Business Web Design’ while a short wail keyword is something like ‘Web Design’.

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From Long tail keywords and website optimization

The main idea behind the Long Tail is that while most of your traffic will come from a few main keywords, some traffic will come from various, less targeted keywords and phrases. Sometimes if you combine all the traffic that came from the less searched terms you can find that it adds up to quite a nice number of visitors.

The extra added value of the long tail keywords is that they usually are quite relevant to your site and you don’t need to optimize for them. Another good thing is that the visitors that come using long tail keywords are more likely to convert on the site. The reason being that the more detailed a search query is, the more serious the visitors are going to be

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From Optimizing Articles for Long-tail Keywords

Regarding long-tail keywords, I often find it difficult optimizing them in an article, mainly because it can look unnatural if you include them too often. How do you recommend I deal with this problem? Apart from in the headline, at what density do they need to be mentioned in an article in order to maximize our chances of getting good listings?

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From Learn SEO Basics: Long Tail Keywords

Is it a Keyword or a Long Tail Keyword? Separating out short and long tail keywords is best done by counting the number of words, although there can easily be overlap between the two. Short tail keywords are often 1-2 words in length, sometimes 3 words. Long tail keywords are typically 3-6 words in length, but they could be even longer than that

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From Three Good Reasons To Target Long-Tail Keywords

Seasoned professionals in the arena of online marketing know it's clever to use keywords that target potential customers who are "late" in the buying cycle. So, how do you find out what these keywords are? ...and why are they so important?

In professional terms, what we are talking about here is the concept of targeting so-called long tail keywords.

Three Good Reasons To Target Long-Tail Keywords
1. easier rankings
2. higher sales conversions
3. and many more pages indexed in Google

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From Why Marketing to the “Long Tail” Makes Sense

What is the long tail in search? It’s all the smaller keyword phrases that refer traffic to your site. There may be only a few referrals, but all the long tail keywords can bring in more traffic and revenue than the larger, more popular keyword phrases.

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From Is Promotion with Long Tail Keywords More Effective Than Paid Search Marketing?

Some webmasters consider Paid Search Marketing as a fast and easy way to get targeted visitors to new websites. But with rising bids on popular keywords making profits seems to be impossible. Well, it is time to seriously consider promoting your website with long tail keywords in organic search results.

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From Targeting Long Tail Keywords for More Traffic

Affiliate marketers and online retailers always enjoy many benefits an increased traffic to their websites brings. This is because an increased traffic means greater sales and higher profits. This is also beneficial to bloggers because an increased traffic simply means bigger audience and greater profits from the sales of products promoted in on-site advertisements. Well, it is true that keyword density and selection of top keywords matter in the success of a website, understanding the theory of long tail keywords also matters in order to understand fully how you can bring more traffic to your site.

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From Long tail keywords for your press releases

If you want to get more traffic to your press releases, you have to know the Long Tail Keywords. The phrase was first coined by Chris Anderson in October 2004, and it is an important part of SEO for press releasing.

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From Long Tail Keyword SEO

New websites are just not going to rank right away for high value keywords as a general rule. Sure there will be the occasional exception, but by and large new websites are just not going to be a top 10 search result for a primary keyword (e.g., for a phrase like “SEO”) — No matter how well optimized the on-page factors or content. Long tail keywords can be the source of traffic needed to tide a website over until the rankings arrive for the primary keywords (e.g., “Richmond SEO firms” can provide a decent amount of traffic until higher value keyword rankings start to show up)