1) Unless you are a big fish in a big pond, hunt for less popular keywords.

Using the Google adwords keyword tool in the “Descriptive words or phrases” section, you are more likely to find such words that have 150 to 2500 searches per month.

No, these Google results do not represent the whole picture, but they are a good benchmark.

2) Target keywords that are less competitive.

Do a Google search for any one particular keyword, and ideally the competing sites should be less than 10,000 near the upper right hand of the screen. In the image above, the results 26,900, are above the ideal … but not bad.

3) Use the Google Adwords keyword tool, Website Content section, for the site ranking highest in searches for related keyword ideas. The keywords generated are what Google considers relevant to the highest ranking site for the search you did.

4) Use each of your best keywords in their own article or blog post titles and once or twice in the body of your content.

Your blog posts and articles are more likely to rank well (Page Rank) if the titles contain keywords that have at least a moderate number of searches per month with a modest number of sites competing for the same keyword.

Further, the body of the article or blog post should have the keyword in it once or twice (do not overdo it) to tell the search engines and human readers that the title and content match.

Of course, the keywords should fit the context well. One keyword per article or blog post.

5) Use keywords as anchor texts in the resource boxes and biographical sections of your articles.

Most article directories have a separate section for the author to place self-serving information that may also be helpful to the reader.

Use the keyword as the text on which the reader may click. This helps search engines and human readers know what is relevant to the content of your article and to the site or page that will appear if the human user clicks the link.

… In which case, you should make the anchor text keyword relevant to your article and the page that shows up when the reader clicks the link.