smaller websites using long tail keywords??

How is a small site that uses long tail keywords to be found if they cannot use exact match (or very close match) contextual links. Will the internal linking we do be the only way for Google to know exactly what the page is about. Unless, they want to start using meta keywords again. I guess header tags would also be an indicator and we know they use those to determine what the page is about.
Does any of the above sound right and what else can I do to distinguish my blog from the giant sites.
I cannot compete for the a term like Firecracker but I should be able to compete for the term Black Cat Bottle Rocket. What do I do to let Google know what I am after? If I cannot find a way to do accomplish this I might as well stop.

 

Don't know much about blog ranking in Google, but I think that you should use main title in blog post for which you want to rank.

 

Your content has to be relevant, updated regularly and interesting enough for others to share. Connect with bloggers from your niche, as that usually works wonders. If you're doing link building, branding and long tail is the way to go from topic relevant sites, prefarrably with bloggers who write content with a link to your site (the link should also get you some natural clicks). Don't give up blogging, it takes a while to get up there.

If the competition is too high, it takes a long time to get up there. Smaller sites always do need some time to get up there.

How should you build links correctly
- Connect with bloggers from your niche
- use platforms where bloggers offer blogs. teliad and linkworth are noteworthy

 

Is Google not doing a keyword for each page. Are they looking at blogs like they are a theme. I do an addiction blog, it has huge competition but the competition usually does posts on the general topic.
So I cannot compete with the Mayo Clinic on the word "Alcoholism" but I can on terms like "alcohol withdrawal symptoms". Am I wasting my time in this niche. If Google is going to force me to compete on general terms I am going lose.

 

That is the thing, neither Google, nor someone else is forcing you to do anything. For all its worth, long-tail keywords can bring you a huge benefit. Sure, the most common keywords are already taken, regardless of the niche you're going with. The more saturated it is, the harder it would be to rank for them. And this is where long-tails come onto the stage - you have a much larger uncharted territory to expand in. With the Hummingbird update, Google has shown they are going towards serving contextual searches. People are more and more using longer words and phrases to find results, just like they normally would in a normal conversation. So you have a mountain of different combinations and if chosen and optimized in the right way you can easily rank top places for all of them