Well.. Long tails are the only resort for Small Businesses & Individuals. Short keywords are the bastions of the Enterprises. It'd be too expensive & worthless to compete with them.
I have two and three word keywords on page one. Lots of times you can get short tail keywords on page one. Without spending any thing more than what you pay for hosting.
Well, it depends on the niche & competition - of course. I assumed it to be competitive. I have my blog on 1st page for even some 1 word keywords (ofcourse which don't have competition). We talk about long-tails only when there's a massive competition for short-tails.
I agree the niche is important. You didn't say that, you made a blanket statement. It will confuse new people.
Sickthing, Thanks for answering my question. I checked out some of the competition. Majority of the Url's sitting on first page for the long tailed keywords were Permalinks with page rank less than 4.
You're very welcome! Don't worry TOO much about PR. I think that's becoming more of an ego boost than anything else. My PR 1 site is stomping PR4 sites into the ground as far as page one ranking. Content and frequent updates is what Google wants to see. Page age seems to be important but not all inclusive. What is on your site. That's the most important part of this. I have expect Google to just do away with PR completely. At least to the public. They don't update it like they use to, the pulled it off there Webmaster Tools site and they keep telling us it is over rated. On the other hand, it would be good for me ego if my PR1 became PR9
basically, short term keyword is best but short term keyword must has les competition and high visitors. you can use googleadword for keyword search.
I find them both equally beneficial for our ecommerce sites. Long tail keywords give us great conversion rates (sales!), whereas short tail ones give us traffic, brand recognition & awarness, and sales ofcourse (lower conversion rates).