Dive summary:

• Many marketers get focused on a long term strategy of one big keyword or set of keywords, but there are a number of near term wins that can help you along the way.
• First, sort organic landing pages by visits, and export the top 10 to 25 pages after filtering out branded traffic.
• Ignore the ones you rank well for (top 5), and hone in on the words where you're in the 8-20 range.  Put them in the Google Adword keyword tool and notice the search volume for the terms.
• Take action!  Since these words probably haven't been a top priority for your department, a focus on them can lead to a nice boost up results pages and drive traffic to your site.

From the article:

While you work toward long-term SEO goals, don’t ignore short-term opportunities – terms that rank at the bottom of Page 1 or the top of Page 2 of search engine results and may simply need a little more focus to help nudge them a little higher.

The problem is that many wear proverbial “blinders”, dead set on the single keyword obsession. Ultimately you find yourself many hours and resource dollars down the road albeit closer to your goal but still waiting for the money train of traffic that will undoubtedly take longer to attain.