Keyword optimisation is the art of choosing the correct keyword for your content, it’s an SEO tactic that is often either overcomplicated or completely overlooked. Often webmasters will quickly think up some related keywords and try optimise their page for them, the majority of the time this kind of poor planning leaves for either targeting keywords that are out of their reach or keywords that turn out to have very little traffic and thus all the work being a waste of time.

You should be spending a good amount of time researching what keywords you are going to be targeting, this involves researching the amount of potential traffic, competitors that you are going to have to beat, your sites current rankings etc. The most important first steps to keyword optimisation is too make sure the keyword you are going to work towards is one that generates traffic. Checking keyword programs like word tracker and probably most importantly Google Adwords Tool will give you some estimation on the amount of traffic you may receive when you reach the first page.

The next step would be to check the competitors who currently hold the first page, if your site its fairly new and not currently holding a lot of power then targeting a high competition keyword with a first page full of large brands may not be the best step. Look for keywords that have first page rankings for websites that you feel your site is on par with or could get there with some work.

Take your time with keyword optimisation and make sure you are targeting achievable keywords. Start small and work your way up, once you hit some initial 3-4 length keywords start moving towards the 2 word and one word variations.