Online “experts” are always offering conflicting keyword advice. This is because different keywords are good for different reasons. Once you know the factors involved, you can decide which ones are best for your web site.
I have a page of my backpacking site optimized for the term “dirtbagging.” I think I get half the world traffic for that keyword, but that only means ten visitors a month. I was new to online marketing when I put up that page. Obviously you need decent keyword demand to get much traffic, but demand is just one factor.
My Keyword Advice
1. Make sure there is enough total demand for a keyword. This will vary according to the nature of your site. If you are making a few cents per visitor an average, you need more traffic than sites that average a dollar per visitor. I won’t optimize for a keyword that is searched less than a few hundred times per month.
2. Look at keyword demand/supply ratios. Last month there were 289,000 searches for “fishing,” but with 35 million results showing up on a Google search for the term, can you compete? Probably not. A Keyword term like “bass...