In Selecting Keywords, Emphasis is on KEY!
When asked for the keywords you want to optimize for, there is a great temptation to scribble down every word and phrase that even remotely pertains to your site. Resist that temptation. You can NOT optimize a site for 500 different words and phrases. Unless there is very little competition on the Web for your keywords, you probably can't optimize for 5. It's OK to list a few also rans, but focus in on the one or two phrases that you REALLY want to dominate.
      Phrases? Yes! Except for scarcely searched terms, single word searches rarely return specific enough results to bring a searcher to what she's trying to find. Let's say I want to put in a pool in my back yard. I go to Google and search for pool. That matches with over 80 million pages. The first one is The Font Pool. Next is MemePool.com. Then BookPool and Pool and Billiard Magazine. This is getting me nowhere, I decide. So I refine my search. I try swimming pool. That cuts the results to a bit less than 12 million. But the first match is a movie review of François Ozon's 2003 movie, Swimming Pool. I try again, searching swimming pool contractor. Much better, but I still get results all over the world and a bunch are above ground pools. I want an in-ground pool from a local contractor. So finally I zero in on in-ground swimming pool contractor Boston. Now I get a short list and evey item on it is a useful result. If you happened to be an in-ground swimming pool contractor serving the Boston area, this is the list you want to end up on.
       Whatever is the prime mission of your site, think through, in priority, the handful of lists you want to be on. Optimize your home page for 2 generic phrases and item pages for exact products, model numbers and the like.

META tags, SCHMETA tags!
Don't be seduced by the SEO gurus who take big bucks just for adding META tags to your pages. Google basically ignores them. The spiders that do bother to read them consider them as the least important indicator of what your site is about. Yes, you should include them. But don't be misled into thinking they are some sort of magic bullet that will catapult you over millions of other webmasters pursuing the same visitors. On the Web, content is king.

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