SEO Tip: Mine The Long Tail

One of the many counter-intuitive aspects of SEO is the concept of mining the long tail of your keywords. This not-so-obvious strategy involves paying attention to and adjusting your SEO to maximize the performance of your lesser-searched for terms.

Why on earth do you care about the little-searched terms that are associated with your main keywords?

1. Internet searchers are looking for those terms, no matter how few they may be (remember, you are in the business of Internet marketing to help those who come online for a specific purpose to accomplish their purpose!)

2. Less competition. You will face much less competition for keywords related to your main keyword that are less popular. Less competition translates into fewer advertising dollars you will have to spend to get that keyword seen by Internet searchers.

3. A little times a little adds up to a lot. By mining 50 long tail keywords you may only get one visitor per day for each keyword but that adds up to an additional 1500 visitors per month for your site! Imagine that.

As an example, I run a women's plus size site. Plus size, plus size woman and plus size clothing are very popular (and expensive) search terms. However, there are many more long tail keywords that are searched for but at a lower rate such as "cheap plus size" or "plus size belt" that can also bring visitors to my site.

As you are deciding on what keywords to target for your site, include long tail considerations as part of your SEO strategy.