Hi, Long tail keywords are used to describe the strategy of targeting less competitive niche markets than the highly competitive Short tail keywords. For example a long tail keyword "Small Business Web Designer Templates" while a short tail keyword is like "Web templates".
Long tail keywords are used for a small competitive business. Because user wants to get a quick access regarding their query. So they use short tail keywords in their query.Very few user wants to describe their query in their keyword. So long tail keywords are less competitive. Cheers...
Long tail keywords are less competitive than short tail keywords. And for me I prefer using long tail keywords for it's easy to rank a website, though short tail keywords can give you more good benefits than the other. See this for your info.
In simple, long-tail keywords are used in the first phase. When your website is new, it is recommended to go with long-tail keywords first.
I think long tail keywords are very easy and used more to rank a website very quickly as they are less competitive in comparison of short tail keywords.