Understanding the concept of "Keywords"?

[NikhilM]

To run my campaigns on SEOmoz or google or other search engines, i need to have some clarity on what exactly a keyword means.

firstly, how do the comibnation of different words work?

Example :

1. Buy apple laptop in india, 2) Buy apple laptop india 3) apple laptop india

Are 1, 2, 3 considered as keywords OR Apple, laptop, India, Buy, considered as keywords?

to run campaigns in SEOmoz how do i use the tool more effectively, should i chose how my users would search in the search engine or use certain keywords.

in the above example the only difference between 1 & 2 is the word "in", and i see a significant difference in the search results. How do use/target my keywords?

[annasus]

"Keywords" isn't necessarily the best term for "keywords". What you're really looking for are the right Keywords OR Key Phrases. With that in mind, all of the examples you provided are keywords.