How long is a long tail keyword?

[hamburglar]

Hey Guys,

I am new here. Actually lurked on over form DP. So much better here.

I have been trying to understand the use of long tale keywords. I have tried some with 3 words in a phrase but have had no effect. What is the best amount of keywords in the title tag for the article or just the page.

"XYZ widget component" or "Widget with XYZ on the side plus XYZ features"

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Josh Anderson]

Multiple words long and something people search which there is less competition for.

Long tail keywords are word combination that give more meaning to the search making it more targeted and less competitive.

How long your target phrase is is not nearly as important as how likely it is to get searched, how much traffic it can generate, how much competition for it (sites actually trying to get ranked for it on purpose), and how targeted the traffic is that it can generate.

[Andyhenry]

The long tail of a market is not directly related to the number of keywords.

This is a common misconception.

Long tail doesn't mean - lots of keywords.

The number of keywords depends entirely on the niche you're operating in. The tail goes on forever, so you can pick how far along you want to go.

If you're in the music niche - long tail might just mean very niche cult status music - it could still be one or two keywords.

The meaning of the long tail is related to the segments with lower and lower demand. The stuff that if you had to stock items on physical shelves you wouldn't give the space to because it's not popular enough.

On the Internet you can go as obscure as you want, so there are no limits.

The keywords just represent what people are using to search for those long tail niches, so there is no set number of keywords relating to this subject - it all depends on the niche.

The point most marketers are relating to with long tail keywords is search terms with less searches - that doesn't mean the same as long tail - so sometimes people get confused because of the misuse of the terms.

If you know your market and its sub and micro-niches you should be able to find some long tail phrases without too much trouble - just don't confuse it with terms that don't get searched much or you may end up wasting your time.

Andy

[ebuyer123]

Are you talking about "Long Tail" in the terms of SERP or PPC?

In PPC, "Long Tail" kws generally mean kw phrases with more than 4-5 word in a phrase.

In SERP, the theme of your site will tell the SEs that what "long Tail" kws they should really need to relate your site with. In that sense, a long tail kw can be a kw phrase of any length (e.g. a kw phrase consinting of 10 words or more).

Hope this helps.

[YellowDot Software]

Let's simplify the definition:

A long tail keyword is short enough to have a decent amount of searches, yet long enough to not have much competition.

[ebuyer123]

Originally Posted by YellowDot Software

Let's simplify the definition:

A long tail keyword is short enough to have a decent amount of searches, yet long enough to not have much competition.

Sorry, don't agree with that!

Long tail is long tail doesn't matter what is the search volume; "Long Tail" and "Search Volume" are 2 ENTIRELY different animals.

[hamburglar]

Ok,

i am getting a tad bit confused here. I just read the whole thread twice and am understanding a bit more.

So coles notes:

1) Long tail and long tail KW's completely different
2) Long Tail = Niche segments of the Market
3) KW's or phrase could vary depend on Long Tail (i.e. product types) as mentioned above.

[rtrotter]

Long tail refers to a probability distribution where much of the area under the curve (probability) is spread far along the x-axis (forming the tail) and a large spike around the origin. It is used to point out that in a particular theme, a large share of the search volume is distributed over many, many less searched keywords.

Name any theme and you can quickly come up with the keywords represented by the spike but then there are a huge number of less common terms that show up in the tail. The cumulative volume of search far those less common terms can be much greater than the volume for the common terms.

Rodney

[Zeus66]

Long tail is long tail doesn't matter what is the search volume; "Long Tail" and "Search Volume" are 2 ENTIRELY different animals.

Actually, the Long Tail concept is utterly dependent on search volume as it is applied to IM. Imagine a profile view of a rat's butt. The fat part where his hind end is represents all the keywords that are highly popular (get lots of searches) within a given topic or niche. As you move away from his hind end, the tail is skinnier and much longer. This represents the large number of less popular keywords (get fewer searches) within that same topic or niche. The Long Tail concept as it applies to IM uses is all about search volume. It's the whole point, in fact.

Andy was spot on, as usual. Long Tail has nothing to do with how many individual words are in a given keyword phrase. It just happens that for most niches, more words = less search volume. So people have come to equate Long Tail keywords with those that are several words long. This is a fallacy. It's ALL about keyword popularity.

EDIT: Forgot to add that just because a keyword phrase is Long Tail does not necessarily mean it will be easy to get high search engine rankings. This is another common misconception. It's not uncommon to find phrases way down the Long Tail (low search volume) that actually have quite a bit of competing web pages indexed by Google and the other engines. So the useful Long Tail keywords are those that meet both criteria: 1) decent level of monthly search volume -AND- 2) low competition.

John

[ebuyer123]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

...The Long Tail concept as it applies to IM uses is all about search volume. It's the whole point, in fact.

EDIT:...So the useful Long Tail keywords are those that meet both criteria: 1) decent level of monthly search volume -AND- 2) low competition.

Haha..! That was what I meant in my previous post: "Long Tail" and "Search Volume" are 2 ENTIRELY different animals. Because "Search Volume" is ONE of the components in the context of "Long Tail"; another component as you already said, is the kw "competitiveness".

Therefore, IMHO "Long Tail" is not all about search volume.

[hamburglar]

Ah,

Now I just have to go out and hunt for these long tail keywords and test these methodologies for myself.

Greatly appreciate the help.