As competition gets stiffer for main keywords, more and more website marketers are looking to capture long tail keyword traffic. Let’s look at what long tail keywords are, their advantages and disadvantages, as well as how you can start benefiting from long tail keywords now.

What are Long Tail Keywords Exactly?

In essence, a long tail keyword is simply the niched form of a larger keyword.

For the sake of example, let’s look at the keyword “home mortgages”. To get your website displayed in the Top 10 search results for Google for the keyword “home mortgages” would be a rough battle to the top, to say the least.

Instead, opt for long tail keyword phrases like “home mortgages in Sacramento” or “home mortgages for students”…these kinds of niche, long tail keywords will not only be easier to rank for in search engines, but they also deliver the of targeted visitor you need to see decent conversions (clicks, leads, sales, etc..).

Long Tail Keywords - The Advantages and Disadvantages

Although long tail keywords see less searches than a competitive keyword, the competition to rank for long tail terms is often slim-none. With a couple of backlinks and some simple page optimization techniques like including the keyword in the title, you can easily rank your way right to the top.

In a short time it wouldn’t be difficult to snap up good rankings for multiple long tail keyword terms. The traffic you receive from these combined terms can easily match the results you would see if you were on the top ten for a competitive term.

Long tail keywords are also going to give you better conversion rates than a typical keyword. Since long tail keywords are naturally specific, this tells us that the buyer knows what he wants and is ready to buy. Continuing on with the “home mortgage” example, someone searching “home mortgages” is probably going to be less likely to go through with.

How Can I Start Mining Long Tail Keywords now?

An easy way to find long tail keywords is to use keyword research tools like Google Adword’s Keyword tool. Put in a term and it will show you suggestions for other relevant terms. Using other keyword research tools you will be able to dig deeper into the main keyword to find hidden long tail keywords ripe for the picking.

To effectively harness the power of all these little long tail keywords, you’ll need plenty of fresh content. Simply posting new content on your website will give you long tail traffic after your content has been completely indexed.