Long Tail Keywords Discussion - Need Help!

How Can We Possibly Be Confused?

I was in chat yesterday, and there was a lively discussion regarding long tail key words. Just how many blogs and how much "training" has been written about long tail keywords at Wealthy Affiliate? OMG... Put it into the search bar and weep. How could there possibly be any confusion about the concept?!

Well, There IS Confusion!

Anyone can write training here at WA, and everyone can write their blog here at WA. That's both a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing, because we can share what we've learned, to the benefit of everyone! It's awesome!

It's a curse, because anyone can write something, to be taken as the God's honest truth, and still be completely wrong. How do you know if what you are reading is true, mostly true, or just flat out wrong? There are a lot of people, myself included, that have opinions about how something works, based upon our own experiences. Our experiences may or may not represent the whole of something or the full truth of something.

It's Not Just Me

If I have this question, the mathematical odds say that MANY have this same question. Another person in chat yesterday, had the same quesion. That was two of us online, at the same time, out of all of the thousands of members. That means that the question is legitimate.

Back To Long Tail Search Words

This is complex, so please understand the context before commenting.

Let's say that you found a great search word; a nice long tail search word, that comes up with a respectable QSR. Great... Now I have to find an example in Jaaxy. Be back in a minute....

(Jeopardy theme song plays)

I'm back. I used a word from my own list. My long tail search word is:
"how to make a web page responsive"

Here's the way it came back in Jaaxy:

The Training

In the Online Entrepreneur Certification, Level 2, Lesson 3, it shows this:

Kyle adds words to the long tail key word, for his title.

What I Want To Know

When does adding words to the title of your post, change the keyword? Does it matter at all? When does it make it better? When does it demote it?

Back To My Example

My long tail keyword again, was: "how to make a web page responsive"

What if I changed it to: "how to make a web page responsive using a great tool"

Is that now a new long tail keyword? Let's look what happens in Jaaxy.

Well, that has low traffic numbers, and is not a very good key word, is it.

Again: What I Want To Know:

• If I add words to my original long tail keyword, what does the Google algorithm concentrate on? The original key word, buried in the title? The entire title?
• When does a long tail keyword morph into a longer tail keyword, and is the original disregarded?
• What specifically do you need to do to make sure that your original, good, long tail, keyword, gets chosen by Google, instead of a longer, lesser quality, keyword?

Another Example

What about posts in a series. I know that Google likes posts in a series, because there is a lot of linking back and forth between pages. Tutorial sites, like my own, may take one idea, and break it down into three or more posts.

For continuity, I want to make sure that my readers know that the posts are part of a series, just by looking at a title.

If I have my post's titles structured as: (assuming my post title is a long tail key word)

• "Post Title - Part 1"
  
• "Post Title - Part 2"
  
• "Post Title - Part 3"
  
• "Post Title - Part 4"
  

What happens with this? (PLEASE do not make suggestions for other title structures. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to know how Google sees THIS example.)

Not To Offend, Or Belabor The Point

Just try to find this information anywhere on line. Just what would you put in to the search bar? The number of results of people writing about this topic are staggering, but I never see it get THIS in depth. I'll cry if I have to read one more post about how to find the right long tail key word, that still doesn't cover this critical information. There are also a lot of people who will boast about doing this for years, and yet, their opinions are still just opinions, and they could still be incorrect.

Please Comment

If you have a comment that speaks directly to the examples, I look forward to reading what you have to say!

If you have similar questions, put them in the comments. Maybe we can wrangle this out and get some definitions that last until the next time Google updates its algorithm, lol.

If your name is Kyle, and you own a certain site about affiliate marketing, you can take over the whole post! LOL