Understanding relevance and the effect of short-tail and long tail keywords

It's important to understand the distinction between short tail keywords and long tail keywords. The difference is simple: a short-tail keyword is a short, one- or two-word search phrase. A long tail keyword is a three-, four-, five-word, or longer keyphrase. An example of a short tail keyword would be "Dallas restaurant," where an example of a long tail keyword would be "Top-rated West Dallas pizza." As you might suspect, long tail keywords are almost always searched in much lower volumes than their short-tail counterparts. However, long tail keywords possess important and valuable advantages over short-tail keywords, as we will learn.

To understand the value of long tail keywords, we need to think about how a chosen keyword reflects the intent as well as the motivation of a web user. Let's examine a typical customer awareness cycle. First, a customer becomes aware of a product, or expresses interest in a product...