Every once in a while a really quality piece of software comes out that really changes the way we do research online.

Long Tail Pro is one of those pieces of software.

I love searching for new keywords and niches, but hate doing the research!

If there was a way to make the process much easier and fun I would definitely go for it.

Truth be told, I started using Long Tail Pro early last year then kind of forgot that it was still on my computer because I was working on a few other project. Then I saw that the new Long Tail Platinum software had come out with a ton of new features so I made the upgrade and am loving it!

Before we jump into how you can start using long tail keywords to promote your online business and explore new and less competitive niches, let’s first break down what “long tail keywords” are.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

The majority of us have some form of web site or blog in which we receive organic traffic from the search engines. While you likely have some big keywords that send you a lot of traffic individually, there is even more traffic being generated from your overall long tail keywords collectively. Wordstream does a good job at summing up the best way to explain e

“Long tail keywords are the longer, more specific keywords that are less common, individually, but add up to account for the majority of search-driven traffic. Long tail keywords are the opposite of “head” terms, which are more popular or more frequently searched on. For example, “fish tanks” is a head term, but “compare prices whisper aquarium filters” is a long-tail keyword.” – WordStream

The excerpt and image below from Left Click is also a great way to visualize the long tail keyword process and how it resembles traffic to a web site.

Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine coined the expression ‘the Long Tail’. His example was how Amazon.com makes most of its revenue from huge numbers of specialised titles, not the blockbuster, high-selling books we see in bookshops. Each specialized title may only sell hundreds of copies per year, but there are just so many of them, compared with the small number of ‘top ten’ books (which is, of course, always only 10). - Left Click

Using Free Methods to Find Long Tail Keywords

This is where the Long Tail Pro software really comes in handle, but I will cover some free and traditional methods first.

There are plenty of ways for you to find long tail keywords, most of which are free. You can even start thinking about some of the most basic and generic keywords that focus around your web site or niche, then expand upon them.

For example, this blog is in the “affiliate marketing” niche, yet there is a whole world of keywords and terms that relate to affiliate marketing. Just by using Google Keyword Tool and the regular Google Search engine we can find a bunch of long tail keywords based off our original “affiliate marketing” keyword.

To the right you will see just a snippet of the Google Keyword Tool results when putting “affiliate marketing” into the tool. You will also see full stats on the competition level and search traffic for each term when you physically use the tool.

Even Google the search engine wants people to use long tail keywords in their search because they are more accurate and refined for results.

Go ahead, the next time you visit Google and perform a search they will try and recommend other useful long tail keywords for you to search from. Not only will you see the results within the search box itself, but also at the bottom of the page in the “Searches related to keyword”.

There are plenty of other free ways to find long tail keywords using search engines and just your thoughts, but at the end of the day these examples are just giving you more keywords and not all of the stats and details you will need to decide if it’s a new niche and long tail keyword worth exploring.

Using Long Tail Pro to Find Long Tail Keywords

Now that you have an idea why long tail keywords are important and how to start your research for finding a new niche, let’s show some examples of how powerful and time saving Long Tail Pro is.

To stay consistent with the article, let’s stick with the “affiliate marketing” keyword.

Once you download and install Long Tail Pro, the first thing you are going to do is select your seed keyword that you want to start finding long tail keywords for.

The main screen of Long Tail Pro is pretty self explanatory but I’ll walk you through the process step by step.

We are going to add “affiliate marketing” as our seed keyword. If you wanted to add more you can do so and click “add” each time. You also have the option to enter all of the keywords you would like to run a search for, as well as applying other data sorting and filtering options.

After clicking the “Generate Keywords” button the software will take a few seconds to go through several hundred related keywords and provide a report for you, which you can see below.

Just like we saw from using the Google Keyword Tool, this software also provides you with full details on each keywords search amounts and advertiser competition, but also include the average CPC (cost per click) amount.

However the most important feature of this software is it’s ability to analyze keywords and provide you with a Keyword Competition score!

The higher the score, the harder it is to compete in that keyword niche.

It’s recommend that you try and find a long tail keyword in the 20-30 range as it’s much easier to rank and compete in. Going after keywords in the 30-40 range is also possible, but anything above that is pretty competitive.

Let’s go with “affiliate marketing training” for this example, as it has a 40 average KC and a nice $8.16 cpc with 82 for advertiser competition. It has a lower volume of search traffic than I would usually go after, but this is only for example. Normally I would say to go after keywords with a 10-20k monthly search traffic.

Now that we have chosen a keyword it’s time to look at the competition and who is currently ranking organically for the keyword.

The next thing we are going to pull another report using the software, this time it’s a Competitor Analysis report. In this keyword report we will get to see who is ranking for “affiliate marketing training”, their site rankings and the overall competitiveness to rank for your selected keyword.

From the screenshot above you will see the top ten rankings for “affiliate marketing training” in Google, along with the full site details such as page authority, links, juice, domain authority, moz rank, page rank and site age.

Two of the most important factors in ranking among these listings is going to the be Page Rank and Site Age. In other words, if you were going to start a brand new site it would take a decent amount of work and content / link building to compete for this keyword since the majority of sites are in 4-10 years range. Though you will also see than there are a few PR1 sites listed, which means it’s definitely possible for you to rank in the top ten.

All of the stats here are important, but the Long Tail Pro software is still putting all of these details into consideration to show you that the Keyword Competitiveness is a 38 for “affiliate marketing training”.

Using Long Tail Keywords to Build a Niche Site

Lots of people think the long tail keyword and niche site business is now dead since Google is throwing exact match domain and thin sites out of the search results. Actually it’s the complete opposite! This just means that you now need to focus on quality content and link building more than ever.

In this example we used “affiliate marketing” and broke it down to discover more long tail keywords we could use, but think about all of the other possibilities out there. What about the education training, small business, how to and exercise market? You can approach long tail keywords from so many different angles.

Don’t rush into the keywords you think you are going to use. Take the time to use Long Tail Pro to come up with new search and ideas… the stuff that you never even thought of might be the next hidden long tail keyword that does well for you.

If you’d like to grab a copy of Long Tail Pro for yourself, right now is an excellent time.

The software is usually $97 (and still is through ClickBank), but the software is available for the next few days only for the low price of $37!

Be sure to grab a copy. I’m sure you will love it and be addicted in no time!