Keywords are definitely a big deal. The general rule of thumb is that you’ve got to please Google because it’s the biggest search engine in the world, and if Google sneezes, all other websites follow suit.

Each page of your website should have 300-600 words with your keyword sprinkled throughout it 10-15 times. I’ve seen somewhere that 5 times is usually enough, so you might want to start out with five. This allows Google to pick up your keyword and index it.

Secondly, you need find out what kind of competition you might have. Type in a keyword or a keyword phrase in google related to your niche. If you get 2 million search results or less, you’ve got a good keyword phrase for a homepage. 3 million or less, you’ve got a keyword page for other pages in your website. Anything more than 3 million, you’re going to have a hard time getting noticed.

Third, you’ve got to make sure that keyword has enough of a search market. Anything less than 400 searches per month is lousy. You’re not likely to make sales. Go to Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool. Type in your keyword or keyword phrase.

Wordtracker gives daily search counts. So multiply the daily search count by 30. This will give you a monthly count. 400 or more, good deal. Less than 400, look for a different keyword.

You can:
Create a web site that contains meta tags, content, graphics, and keywords that help improve your site ranking.
Use keywords liberally on your site, so long as they are used in the correct context of your site topic and content.
Include reciprocal links to your site from others as long as those links are legitimate and relevant.
Encourage web site traffic through many venues, including keyword advertising, reciprocal links, and marketing campaigns.
Submit your web site to search engines manually, rather than waiting for them to pick up your site in the natural course of cataloging web sites.
You can’t:
Trick search engines by imbedding hidden keywords in your web site. This is a practice that will very likely get you banned by most search engines.
Artificially generate links to your site from unrelated sites for the purpose of increasing your ranking based on link analysis. Most search engines have a built-in mechanism that will detect this type of deceptive practice.
Artificially generate traffic to your web site so that it appears more popular than it is. Again, there are safeguards in place to prevent this from happening, and if you trip those safeguards, you could end up on the banned list for many search engines.
Force your web site to appear in search engine rankings by submitting the site repeatedly for inclusion in the rankings. A good general rule of thumb is that you should submit your site once and then wait at least six weeks before submitting it again. Submitting it repeatedly will, again, only lead to something nasty like being banned from the search engine.
Expect search engines to automatically rank you at the top of your topic, category, or keyword as soon as the site is picked up. It could take a little time to build the “status” that you need to reach a high search engine ranking. Remember, SEO is a process.

-SEO book by Jerri L. Ledford, http://www.neuracom.com