The data shows up in the results like this.  A search on “redbones, somerville ma”, turned up the Redbones site at first, and Yelp third:

To me, this is a more attractive and compelling listing than the standard listings, and should result in higher click through rates, making this a potentially very significant develpment for SEO.  We will have to see how this affects the rankings, but  it certainly looks like an opportunity for sites that have strong reviews to increase their click through rate.  My guess is that Yelp and CNet are going to get a big boost from this, especially in the short term, until other review sites are included.  Definitely something to keep your eye on.

First, you need to know what phrases are common in your long tail.  They often consist of a variety of combinations of a few keywords.  One great way to find them is to use your server logs.  Use any good log analysis tool, (I like Deep Log Analyzer to see what terms people are currently using to find your site.  If your site has a decent amount of relevant content, you should have some traffic coming in using relevant keywords.  You can then see what words and phrases are being used.  Additionally, you can set up Google Analytics for free on your site and it will give you some great keyword data.  Of course, and especially if you don’t currently have much SE traffic, do some keyword research using a variety of tools like Google’s Keyword Tool or WordTracker. 

Look at what words and phrases are common in the long tail.  Often a great deal of the long tail will be made out of different combinations of just a few words.  Targetting the most popular of these words and prases will usually bring in the most traffic.

What you will need to do to optimize for these phrases depends on how competitive the landscape is and how many words you are going after.  In general, sites with the most keyword rich content do the best in the long tail.   Though  local business looking to grab more local traffic may only need to make sure their town is mentioned in the meta description and at the bottom of the page to suddenly rank well for queries that include the town name.    Consider ways to add more keyword rich content:

1. Make sure your pages have a good amount of TEXT.   If you can write a few paragraphs about your topic on each page, that is much better than just a few words next to a picture or video for SEO purposes.
2. Make more pages.  Sounds simple – and it is.  Make relevant, themed pages, with keyword rich internal linking.
3. Consider adding a blog.  A blog is the fastest and easiest way to add a great deal of content, and usually has very good internal linking built in.
4. Make sure to link to these pages internally with keywords in the anchor text.

Depending on how competitive your phrases are, you may or may not want to add specific pages with the long tail keywords in the title.  A good first step is to add some content, and make sure the most common words found in your long tail are found in the content.  If you find you are not ranking well for them, then consider adding dedicated pages with keywords in the title.

One of the best tools to help you quickly size up the competition is SEO for Firefox, or alternatively the SEO Toolbar for Firefox.  They allow you to quickly see the PageRank, number of backlinks, etc. for all the sites in the SERPs for any query or for any site you visit.  Now you can quickly gauge the competition.  If you the top ten results are filled with domains having tens of thousands of inbound links, great domains with good age and keywords in the domain, and well optimized sites, you may want to target less competitive terms.  If you have the budget and the time, you can still go after ultra competitive terms, and this process will give you a good idea of what you will have to achieve to rank well.

If the competition looks too tough, and you don’t feel like taking on that challenge, do some keyword research and find some more specific phrases that may be more attainable.  Some good 3 or 4 word phrases can be much more easily won, and often convert very well.  The truth is that the long tail makes up the majority of searches, so a site that is optimized for a variety of related terms can often to very well, despite not ranking well for high volume 1 or 2 word phrases.

With millions of websites on the Web, it can be very difficult to get your site to rank high in the natural results.  Thousands of sites related to yours can be competing for those spots.  You often need a highly optimized site to rank anywhere in the first page of results.  This can be a complicated task.  At Webthinkers, we have been involved with SEO for over a decade and have the knowledge and experience to help your site greatly improve it’s rankings.