Short Tail Keywords

This post is keeping with the contrarian theme of the last post. When people talk about keywords these days, all you hear about is long tail keywords. These generally refer to the low volume, low cost, higher word count keywords in a niche. I am all for using these words to your advantage; I certainly do. But it seems people have forgotten the importance of the “short tail” or top keywords. There is usually a group of 10 terms or less that account for 95% of the search volume for a given niche. So much time and energy is given to working that long tail, that some people seem to ignore that the vast majority of money to be made in a niche is in the top keywords. They are definitely harder to rank well in, and more expensive, but you can make your margins in sheer volume working the “short tail” keywords.

So my advice for the day is, let everyone talk about the long tail, but don’t forget about where the real money is made = the “short tail”!