Three reasons why Long Tail Keyword searches are so important?

• After studying the traffic to a popular website whose domain name is the same as its primary keyword, we  found that during a thirty day period the website received 500k visitors.  But only 12k of them where for the primary keyword.  The other 488k visitors found the site using long tail keyword searches, keyword searches with additional discriminators like the location of the service,  a specific model number, or brand of product.  The long tail searches drove the majority of the search traffic. 

• Long tail keyword searches mimic the spoken word.  With the ever so increasing popularity of  mobile devices and the regulation that comes with it, i.e. laws against talking and texting while driving, you can expect more and more mobile device users to use hands free devices to make their calls.  Internet searches through voice recognition will soon increase as a result and since long tail keyword searches mimic the spoken word they will a vital part of internet success. 

• The longer the keyword search term the higher probability for a sale or conversion whether it be a sale or a request for additional information.  For example users searching for a 2004 black Honda Hybrid are further along in the buying process than some who searches for a Honda and are more likely to convert into a sale.

So how do you capitalize on long tail keyword search terms?  Structure your URLs to support them. (i.e. yoururl.com/long-tail-search-terms instead of yoururl.com/story423).  Write content for people not search engines. I'm not saying to not use SEO fundamentals, but combine them with normal speech patterns.