Grab Customers With Long-Tail Keywords

Once they get to your site, they need to know immediately that they've found exactly what they were looking for. Here are the top three ways to realize that goal:

1. Create a landing page for each long-tail keyword cluster. Keep your landing pages focused on one problem statement. Use one to three very similar, long-tail keywords that address that problem; include synonyms.

For instance, along with "honeymoon ski vacation aspen colorado december 2009," you'd include a couple of other honeymoon- and Colorado-related keywords, but not keywords about spring skiing or family ski vacations.

Search engine spiders -- particularly Googlebot -- love Web sites with lots of pages, so with your new set of landing pages you'll be able to please both human and robot readers.

2. Optimize your landing pages for each long-tail keyword cluster. Be sure to use the keywords you've optimized in the important places in your code: page title, meta description, headers and image alt text.

Your title tags are particularly important here. In your keyword research tool, look for the top three 24-hour results for each cluster. Use those in your title tags (up to 100 characters).

Make sure the phrases also appear naturally in the content of the page at least three or four times, along with synonyms. Watch for duplicate content, too. Most of the content on each page should be unique. The goal here is to get to the top spot in natural search results.

3. Mix your long-tail keywords with short keywords. Short keywords play an important role, too. Short keywords drive a high volume of less-focused traffic to your Web site, providing an opportunity for you to ask for your visitors' email addresses.

Short keywords are also really good for establishing your business as a brand because people who recognize your business name or URL from the early phase of the buying cycle are more likely to click on it later, when they're getting ready to buy. It's not the priority to get the top ranking for your short keywords (although it's great if you can do it), but the closer you can get to the top, the better.

Long-tail keywords are ideal for connecting with your niche market, they're easier to rank than short-tail keywords and they launch you into a customer's buying cycle at exactly the right time.