Howdy! I just thought of giving back to the community with this thread. I've just started SEO and kept notes for a month now. Here's the best I could bring for now about proper keyword usage. It originally served as a guideline for me while I was working on a shopping cart site. I can't assure of its absolute applicability after the recent updates from Google and other SEs rest assured these are in ways still contemporary and relevant IMO. Call me an SEO paranoid, but this is how I roll. This is as whitehat as I could possible make out of. Please don't hesitate to point on any misinformation that I may be included here as well as your suggestions for improvement. Read on. ------------- KEYWORD USAGE ------------- Note: - Overall density should be somewhere between 1-5%; - More than half of top ranking pages do not use their keyword in any ALT Tag on the page; ---------- URL string; ---------- homepage, information, category, product, & manufacturer pages; - once; - short but appropriately descriptive; - use hyphens as separators; ---------------------- Title tag / page title; ---------------------- homepage, information, category, product, & manufacturer pages; - full targeted keyword phrase; - once (or twice, as variation); keep the keyword as close to the beginning of the title tag as possible; NOTE: usually no more as this can appear spammy; - 8 words or less; at most 65-70 characters (recommended); if targeting multiple keywords (or an especially long keyword phrase), it may be advisable to go longer; - close to the beginning of the title; - consider leverage branding; start every title tag with a brand name mention; - compelling, high readability and emotional impact; - unique title for every page; --------- Meta data; --------- homepage, category, & product pages; - Any phrase used in this tag must also be included in the body text, or it may be perceived as spam; - meta tags; 20-40 words is a common amount; be mindful not to include the “money phrases"; be generic; competition may hijack the keywords from this tag. - meta description; at least once (sometimes 2X when it makes sense); first few words; 25 words or less; 150-160 characters (recommended); - consider synonyms; ---------------- Topic/post title; ---------------- possible for product pages if attached to the product name string; - once; ------- Heading; ------- - once; - preferably in H1; ------- Content; ------- homepage, information, category, and product pages; - average over 400-450 words; - main keyword phrase in the first 25 words of the page; - at least 2-3X in the body copy on the page (sometimes a few more times if there's a lot of text content); at least once in BOLD/STRONG; Content Tagging refers to bolding or italicizing your keyword phrase in the content - use appropriately and in moderation; - use highlighter tool to evaluate keyword usage; distribution (relative distance); density; - Referencing your own pages as an additional source of information is highly recommended; NOT in the anchor text of outbound links; ------ Images; ------ all relevant images being used; - ALT tags; at least once; only to describe an image; - file name; at least once; - file meta data; tags, title/subject, comments;