so I know everyone wants to focus on the big, high traffic keywords but don't forget to put a little effort for long tail keywords as well. All of the long tail keywords will definitely add up to alot of traffic over time. What I would recommend doing is figure out what your number 1 keyword you want to rank high for, something that gets tons of traffic, like 250,000 searches per month. Try and focus your homepage to rank well for that keywords but it will take a while to get there. In the meantime compile a list of related keywords. To do this simply go to the google homepage and use the list of keywords it gives you for suggestions. So if your keyword is seo then go to the google home page and type: seo a, then seo b, then seo c etc. Write down all those suggestions into an excel file. Then simply start adding these specific pages to your main site. Make sure you follow the on-page seo tactics perfectly. So for example having the search term in the page's title. Make sure the pages have some quality to them. Remember, the google search suggest tool is based on other user's search queries. What this means is that this is specifically what people are looking for. Perhaps you could write an article about that term to satisfy what the user is looking for. For your overall goal this will help you out ALOT. It will start bringing in traffic almost immediately and it will help people discover your site. As you begin to rank well in the long-tail keywords you will start to have alot more weight for your primary keyword. I've done the above method with very good results!
I will love to check the popularity of long tail keywords also with the help of Google Trends before initiating my SEO practices.
sandy121, unfortunately Google Trends does not provide data for long tail keywords (they do not have enough popularity to get into GT). Use the following tools instead: AdWords Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Overture, Yahoo! Search Marketing SEO Book Keyword Tool
Same here. My traffics to homepage a little dropped even it has no changed in position but a boom traffics for inner pages instead. Should I glad or not?
True, i'm actually focus more on long tails keyword since it is more easy to get good SERP and more targeted traffic.
Thanks for the nice post. Howver I believe that backlinks add a greater value to sites ranking in SERPs.
this is the good idea but i dont get your point to implement it you said use it on home then what about inner pages should we placed 2phase or 3 phase keyword on inner pages or we use long tail keyword? please tell me limit of long tail keyword also
I have to agree long tail keywords are easier to rank for and bring in some nice traffic i use this method also.
It is really good idea which i use for 3 years already. I have a lot of loooong keywords on my sites. These are "Information" Pages with links to main pages. They bring very good traffic
This is great advice - something I did not really consider when I first started promoting my sites. Another great thing about long tail keywords is that the conversion rates and bounce rates tend to be a lot better since you're providing the surfer with exactly what they want.