Jensense.com’s Jennifer Slegg spoke at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in London about the importance of excellent content for maximizing traffic via the long tail of search.“Long tail search is less competitive and it narrows the market.”Marketers don’t focus on the so-called ‘long tail’ realm of keywords because keywords become less popular.  Slegg believes building long-term website traffic comes from providing unique content. Unique content improves the site’s chances of placing high in search ranking for lesser-used keywords and keyword combinations that together bring more traffic.Slegg believes the problem comes from where to find unique content. Slegg warns against pulling articles from free article databases, as they often link to spam-oriented sites, or attempt to sell users products. Slegg wants website owners to know if they buy content, that “you get what you pay for.” She says to beware of dishonest writers who resell their articles months later.Regardless of where the content comes from, though, focusing on the long tail means narrowing the focus of content to become less competitive. For example, instead of optimizing for “Valentine’s Day gifts,” narrow down the terms and shoot for “Valentine’s Day gifts for teachers.”Slegg suggested at the end of the presentation publishing seasonal articles six months ahead of time so that search engines index them by the time people start looking for them.