Competitive vs. non-competitive keywords

[Event36030]

Posting this on behalf of a friends at a breast and ovarian cancer support organization...

We're trying to improve our web site's results in search engines. I've been reading up on SEO and learning that it's wise to optimize for more specialized keywords rather than for highly competitive keywords (e.g., "triple negative breast cancer," instead of "breast cancer"). Practically speaking, how does this work when you're optimizing content?

1. Does "triple negative breast cancer" need to appear multiple times in the page's content and is there an optimal place on the page where it should appear?
2. Do keyword tags actually work, or should we not even bother spending time on adding them? How about title tags and description metatags?
3. Will they help with search results? I know that increasing the number of outside links makes a difference, but will it help if I provide links from one page on our web site to another?

Thanks!

[jazavide]

The keyword should appear in the content but it does not have to be multiple times. First and last paragraph is sufficient.
Dont worry about meta keywords but do use titles and descriptions as these are what users see in the search engines.  Dont duplicate these across pages.
Internal linking will improve the structure on your site as well as a sitemap.

Check out the seo moz beginners guide as everything should be in here http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

[kadesmith]

1.  Yes it needs to appear, but not several times.  It is best if it appears in a title tag near the top of the page

keyword

.

2.  Keyword tags only tell your competitors what keywords you are targetting.  They have no weight for search engines anymore.  Title tags and description tags help with click through rate(CTR).  When a user sees a compelling title with a good description in the search results, they click.  Titles have some weight on SEO.

3.  Internal linking will help, but make sure they make sense to the user and are not just there for the search engines.  It's pointless to have a website that only makes sense to a search engine and confuses the people who find it via the search engine.