When writing SEO blog posts, you want to first research your keywords and their popularity among what people are typing in on the search engines. Doing keyword searches to determine search popularity can be divided into two distinctive groups – short tail and long tail

keyword searches.  In other words, short tail keyword searches are broad while long tail keywords are narrow and more focused.

An example of a short tail keyword is mortgage.  The word “mortgage” is too broad and competitive.  An example of short tail would be “Miami FL FHA mortgage.”  I’d much rather target the short tail phrase even if there is less search volume.  By writing short tail keyword phrases in your blog posts, you’re targeting a specific niche.  Instead of casting your fishing net trying to catch everything and getting nothing, you’re much more likely to catch more fish by narrowing in on a specific and narrow phrase.

Let me explain what I mean.  The benefit of targeting short tail phrases is that there is much less competition, which means it’s a lot easier to get ranked on the first page of Google than it is writing a post with the keyword mortgage where most likely you’ll never get found.

Also, when someone searching the web based on their keyword search and they see your post with the exact same keywords, they are much more likely to click on yours.  This is because your post matches the target phrase.  You’ve automatically built an initial trust factor and therefore there’s a greater chance of converting that person to contacting you for additional information.