So if you rank well for the long tail, does that help your ranking for the short tail?

[Bill4Time]

So say for instance you rank well in "online medical billing software." Does that help or influence your rank for derivatives of it (eg: "medical billing," "billing software," or "online medical billing")?

[AnthonyMangia]

They're probably positively correlated, but I wouldn't say there is causation.  Naturally, any website ranking well for a given long-tail term is probably doing a lot of things right.  That doesn't necessarily mean that they will be competitive for a short-tail term, however.  Oftentimes, long-tail terms are of such low competition that a website can rank well for them with on-site elements in the right places and perhaps a link or two.  Short tail keywords, especially the most competitive ones, oftentimes require very extensive linkbuilding campaigns.

[mozalbin]

Absolutely. If you're a good link builder and gets high rankings on "online medical billing software", you should absolutely get good rankings on the shorter tail.

[Bill4Time]

Awesome! Thank you Anthony and Albin.