If you have ever searched for a topic on a search engine, you have no doubt found that you sometimes have to search through several pages of topics to find what you are looking for.

This is because the most popular search terms are first on the list. Previously, you have read that you must find a niche for your product. A long tail keyword is a way of finding a niche. These are the words that are less searched for, therefore, less competitive.

In finding your niche, you may have to change your wording and utilize long tail keywords in order to reach the audience you are looking for. An example is if you want to have ribs for dinner, do you want pork or beef?

You would not want to type in just "ribs" into your search engine; you would have more than sixteen million results. You must be more specific. That is where the long tail keywords come in. The more specific you are, the more likely it is of finding exactly what you are looking for.

When you reach out to a specific audience, you are lessening your competition. Your competition is the generic terms that can distract from what you are trying to advertise and sell.

You can use a keyword tool to help decide what keywords would work best for your webpage. Google has an excellent one – just Google "keyword tool". The tool is pretty self-explanatory, and very easy to use. The keywords you input will give you suggestions which are relatively low competition. These are your bread and butter.

I personally have found that scattering the keywords throughout places such as within the link will help in returning searches. You will not want to load your article with your keywords, however, and I'll explain why in a little bit. Also, it is highly advisable if possible to put keywords in your headlines, sub titles, sub headings, above your site logo, within paragraph content, and also in the source code. For now, don't worry about the source code unless you are already familiar with it.

This is the equivalent to creating a title for a book that is related to the subject of it. When you add the keywords above your site logo you are adding something of relevance, and assisting your ranking at the same time. By understanding which keywords are low competitions, you can take 4-5 sets of keywords and place them strategically 3-5 times throughout the webpage. This may take creativity, but the general rule is not to overdo it. You don't want value or relevance to be decreased by attempting to place too many keywords into your page.

I have found it can be detrimental to your webpage to cram your keywords into the articles or content which you provide. Not only do you lose the flow to your articles, but your readers will lose interest if every other sentence reuses the same words.

There are also techniques where you can use the keywords in the source code for the webpage as well as in the meta-tags. You could spend a great deal of time learning about these techniques and still not master them - the techniques I am recommending can be put to use immediately, with only a basic knowledge. If you get the chance, by all means try to get the hang of utilizing meta-tags. They will help you out with your search results, but the space we have does not allow full examination of their use.

If you look twenty places on the internet, you will likely find twenty different opinions! No matter what advice you may come across, do NOT cram keywords in your articles. A large quantity of what used to be common practice is now severely frowned upon. These techniques, now common practice, are referred to as "black hat SEO" (search engine optimization), or "spamdexing".

Other things to avoid include using non-visible text with your keywords, or anything in general that is misleading. As a general rule, you already have the tools to be successful while being honest and straightforward. You don't need to resort to cheap tactics in order to drive your site traffic, because you already have your list, and it's growing, right?

E. Alan Cowgill