Careful research into keyword phrases is an essential step in proper SEO. All the site optimization in the world will do nothing for sales rates if the proper phrases are not targeted. Because single keywords are so general, and usually so competitive, it is important to research "keyword phrases" consisting of two to five words to optimize for on each page of a web site.
Keyword or keyword phrase?
Consider the keyword "cars." A quick search for this phrase at Google reveals nearly 20 million web sites competing for a ranking for this phrase. Since studies show that few consumers make it past the first few pages of search results, that means that all but about 30 of these web sites are unlikely to see any traffic from this phrase.
Apart from the fact that even the most skilled SEOs would be hard pressed to earn top rankings on this keyword, it's also not a very targeted phrase to optimize for. Will the searcher who types "cars" be looking for pictures of cars? Car sales? Car events? New Cars? Old Cars? The list could go on and on.
Web surfers tend to learn very quickly that in order to find what they are looking for, they need to target their search queries more carefully. So…get specific with your keywords.
Perhaps you sell muscle cars from the 70's. Your keyword phrases would go along the lines of " classic muscle cars," "classic muscle car for sale," and perhaps "classic muscle car dealer." A search for the last phrase reveals only about 25,000 results on Google. This makes it a lot more realistic for the average webmaster to work their way into the top positions.
Narrowing the Field
Now that you have all of this data sitting in front of you, it's time to decide which phrases you are going to optimize your site for. Depending on the popularity of your site's subject, you may have anywhere from a dozen to several thousand phrases to choose from.
How many phrases should you use?
This depends on how many pages are going to be on your site. A webmaster with a five page web site should not try to optimize their site for one hundred phrases. Likewise, a webmaster with a five thousand page web site shouldn't limit themselves to twenty.
A good rule of thumb is to optimize each page of your web site that will have a reasonable amount of content on it for one to three keywords or phrases. There's no need to go out of your way to optimize your "Contact me" page, but you shouldn't pass up an opportunity to optimize any page that contains a reasonable amount of content on it.
Which phrases should you use?
Usually, the phrases that can deliver the most traffic are also the most competitive and difficult phrases to optimize a web site for. Clearly the more people that are searching for a phrase, the more company there will be trying to capture that traffic.
If you are just getting started with search engine optimization, it's generally a good idea to start by optimizing your page for some of the less competitive phrases that can still delivery a reasonable amount of traffic. These phrases will be easier to achieve a high ranking for and thus will likely end up delivering more traffic than you would receive if you tried to optimize for a more popular phrase without achieving a high ranking.
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