I read an article today that suggested optimizing for longtail keywords was a myth not to be followed.

Perhaps I would believe them if I was not a first hand witness of this process taking my articles to the first page of Google search engines within 24 hours.

I found it amusing that this article did not show on the first page when I searched on the term…

“SEO”

However when I did a search on the long tail combination of…

“organic seo myths”

It was in the #1 position of Google against 2,700 other competitors.

Don’t get me wrong. The article had a lot of interesting points that it brought up. I just happened to disagree with myth #10.

Perhaps the authors point was not to avoid “long tail keyword” marketing but rather optimizing for those exact keywords would not be necessary. In either case I disagree with the final analysis.

Here’s why…

As more people become familiar with the process of targeting long tail keywords I believe it will be more competitive. Therefore, if you only list the keyword once as suggested it will be easy to overtake a given position. Thus, not only would I optimize for each long tail keyword you select but I would also choose 1 or maybe 2 keywords per page as your focus rather than 15 or more like I see some sites doing.

I would include your long tail keyword in both your H1 & H2 tags (which happens to be another point of disagreement I had with the article I read). It doesn’t take long to be working with SEO Elite before the reason to target these tags becomes quite clear.

Also, I would include the exact long tail keyword exactly once at the beginning of your article and once at the end. Not to mention adding it to your keyword & description meta tags as well as the title tag for the page.

Not only does this optimize your page for specific long tail keywords, but it also clearly positions you as a force to be reconed with if and when someone chooses to challenge you for your spot with a given long tail combination you happen to be targeting.

Guy Siverson (AKA SEOGuy) - Are meta tags relevant today? My opinion is @ http://seo-and-beyond.com/A-Art-Dir/Tit1/Search-Engine-Optimization-Basics/Top-Ten-Organic-SEO-Myths-Challenged.htm. - Partner of http://ViralMarketing4U.com