When you do SEO for a website, do you usually need multiple keywords to rank in the search engines?

[Maple Leaf]

Are you supposed to just use one of those keywords for your webpage, and then put the other keywords in your meta keywords tag?

[Jake]

Some of the major search engines, including Google completely ignore the meta keyword tags, it was a too easy to misrepresent a site there, now the search engines examine all of the page content to determine keywords.
Certainly for most businesses multiple keywords are used, some are considered "money" keywords that attract people ready to buy, others are more indirect, attracting people with a passing interest in your topic. It's been reported that 50% of the searches Google sees are long tail searches (lengthy phrases) Google has not seen before. Just having lots of content on your subject is really the only strategy to match those searches.

Single keyword targeting is used in exact keyword match domain names like DietPills.com, these have given a great ranking advantage in the past but their influence may be diminishing.

[PRACHI]

See Google has been continuously updating Penguin updates which at some extent affect various things including keywords as well. So put only one or two keywords and use their alternatives as your other keyword. This will create a good impact on search engines.

[Chris]

When you are starting with your first SEO project, you may feel as if you have been told to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, there is so much to know and so much to do. Well, don't freak out, it is not as bad as it sounds. You simply have to look at it as a series of tasks to be done. The U.S. military works this way; they look at a goal (say "Force the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany") and break it down to what needs to be done, how they can do it, what resources are needed, how to get those resources, and budgets for money and time. You need to do the same.
There is one other thing to remember: SEO is marketing. Now, in the old days all you needed was a sign and a Yellow Pages ad, and you were set. SEO is not like that; it is much less expensive in money (if you do it yourself) than the Yellow Pages, but it is much more time-consuming.

GOAL OF THE PROJECT: Get on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo so you can increase sales and GET MORE MONEY!

ASSUMPTIONS: This article assumes: