Some words are simply in so much use that trying to get traffic to your site by using them is challenging.

You might have a bakery and "bread" is going to be a seemingly obvious keyword to use. Alone, the word "bread" will be difficult to attract attention to because it is a commonly used word. That word would be considered a "hot" keyword.

Be more specific. If your bakery is based in a suburb of Seattle and sells organic, gluten-free bread, you can create some keywords (which I believe should really be called key phrases) that result in far fewer pages being found when someone searches for it, giving your web page a better chance of being noticed.

If your keywords were "organic gluten-free bread, gluten-free bread, gluten-free, Seattle, Bellevue", your page will more likely be picked up for people searching for exactly what you sell.

This is what I mean...

When there are fewer search results, obviously, you stand a better chance of being seen, if of course your website is in the list that is returned.

The more closely your keywords match the search words, the better your MatchScore and the higher the likelihood your page will appear on the first page of search results.

There are fewer searches against the term "gluten-free bread Seattle Bellevue" than "gluten-free bread", obviously, because the latter will pick up the former set of pages in addition to many pages that do not include the keywords "Seattle" and "Bellevue".

What is the key to keyword success?

You can spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly which keywords people use to find your site. And SEO service companies will relieve you of your cash to help you doing it. There is a far more effective way, however. Like most things of value in life, it just involves a bit of work.

Answer: Create a preponderance of content relating to your subject and let Google do the rest.

When you make relevant, useful and succinct postings to your blog every day, you are creating just that preponderance of relevant content. That is what Google and other top notch search engines will match against the search words entered.

Keep your eye on this blog. In a couple of weeks I shall publish a posting relating to how that works.