With your core keywords grouped into buckets based on exact local monthly search volume, you will most likely notice that the longer the search query, i.e. the more words in the phrase, generally the lower the search volume.

As a general rule of thumb the more words in the query the easier it is to rank for that phrase. This is certainly not an absolute but has been the case for a majority of the terms I have worked with. *If you know of examples where this theory does not hold up, please share in the comments.

Below is a graphical representation of what is meant by the long tail of search:

Image credit: Marketing Hub

As you can see above, shorter query phrases receive the most volume, these are your head terms, followed by body (usually 3-4 words) and then the tail which usually consists of keywords that contain 5+ words.

When optimizing any website digital asset for the long-term it is important to capture the low-hanging fruit to begin creating conversions as soon as possible.

This is best done by optimizing backwards; from tail to head versus the other way around.

What I mean by that is to focus on acquiring traffic for the relatively non-competitive terms and working your way up the tree, by optimizing for your long-tail terms and building toward your head terms over time.

What this allows you to do is create content that is targeted to rank for your long-tail terms in the short-term while building relevance and authority for your body, and ultimately head terms, since these are often included in the long-tail queries.

For example, the head term SEO Blog there are 349 million pages competing for the #1 spot on Google. But for the very long-tail term SEO blog focused on user experience philadelphia there are only 12.6 million competing pages, and this phrase contains your head term.