Aiming for long tails on a long piece of content, without over-optimisation and attracting Panda...

[azu25]

Hi,

I'm currently in the process of optimising a new ecommerce site with tons of content.
We're really well-researching our information and are aiming for one page a week, so each page (such as category pages etc) is getting 5-7 days of research before the content is written, so that we know our info is correct and that more than enough content is available, rather than a simple 300-500 word article.
One category page in particular has the potential for maybe 4,000-6,000 words, or even more (I don't want to hit that, as it's not needed, but I'd like to go into enough detail about enough things to bring us up on top as the market leader) - Our biggest competitor is currently hitting around 2,500 words on the category page for their site and they're ranking for a lot of long tails. (Of course they're also getting a lot of links too!)
To put it simply, we have a better quality product and a range of options (we're one of the first [if not the first] in the UK to have several options for this product where you have the choice of going for the cheap option, or going for higher priced and better quality options etc), whereas our main competitor simply has one stand alone product. By default this gives us much more to work with regarding potential content.

While building this site we haven't bothered to consider 'keyword density', as we're going for as white-a-hat as possible, but when it comes to long tails I'm finding that I may have to consider it for this page at least.
We have a few dozen long tails such as 'Where does X come from', 'Why is X so expensive', 'What is the difference between X and X' etc - You know the kind of keywords.
To help specifically with the long tails we've opted to include a FAQ section to that category page, but it seems that by doing this I have accidentally gone up to ~3% density on the 'X', which I suppose isn't too bad, but at the same time that one keyword has already made ~30 appearances in the content - and all we have done so far is the FAQ section.
I'm going through now and rewording it so that it's less 'keywordy' (although there does seem to be a limit to the number of times to can say 'it' before that starts to sound odd..), but was just wondering how you manage to write a long and detailed piece of content that is all specifically about one thing, without having to use that one keyword too many times, while also hitting plenty of long tails at the same time?

[Vizergy]

You never 'have' to use the keyword at all, actually.  Simply make sure you are writing about it and chances are you will use it exactly how many times you should.  It isn't the keywords, or more specifically it isn't mainly the keywords.  It is the surrounding text.  Are you describing your keyword?  Are you staying relevant and on topic?  And as far as your content volume I would suggest never write content for the sake of having content.  If the page requires 4k words then write 4k words.  If it requires 1k then write 1k.  Quality over Quantity.  I promise.

Cheers.

[azu25]

Thanks Billy,

I'll try wording it without so many keywords then and keep an eye on how the rankings for different long tails go.
Don't get me wrong - I definitely understand quality over quantity (the point of our products themselves is quality over quantity - a premium above what you can get elsewhere), there's just so much to say that this requires a kind of 'quantity for quality' approach, if you know what I mean. It'd be very easy to write 2,000 words of quality and useful content for this specific product and still have a boatload of stuff left unsaid which could persuade the visitor to convert.

[Vizergy]

Definitely don't cut yourself short.  If it takes 15k words to properly describe something then that is what it takes.  It sounds to me that you have a good handle on what you are doing.  Keep it natural and all will be well.  Good luck!