For example, a great webmaster will build sites that can be easily found when searching for both top keywords & phrases, i.e., by using <meta name="keywords" content="arizona real estate, arizona, real estate,real,estate">:

	Arizona real estate
	"Arizona real estate"

You'll find that you'll likely rank differently on each depending on the design of your page and the engine.  Most search engines will find the exact phrase search on your page ONLY if the words "Arizona real estate" appear on your page with those three words all together (or in the least, these 3 terms must be in close proximity to each other), and the case of the words are the same.  Therefore when designing pages, it's important to integrate the most likely keyword-phrases people would use to find that site into the pages text.  Without a search query string using quotation marks, most engines will simply look for a page that happens to contain all of the above words and rank the so-called best matching or most "relevant" pages at the top of the list.  What query string will the user search for?  That is the big question.

More experienced Web users will try to do an exact phrase search first, then they will try an inexact search if that doesn't yield any good results.  Novice users may not know to use the exact phrase option unless the search engine defaults to that.  Advice:  monitor your positions for both.

It is impossible to monitor ranking positions on keywords that people are highly unlikely to use.  For example, we had a well-meaning customer sent a list of his keywords for the "cheap airfares" that his company sold.  His list went something like this:

	cheap
	flights
	"cheap flights"
	quote
	discounted
	airfares

The first word "cheap" alone does nothing to target their audience.  It has to be paired with other words like "flights" or "airline reservations" to have any meaning.  It's the same with "quote" and "discounted" -- too broad.  Pair them with one or two other words.  Statistically, most people search for two to three word phrases to avoid getting back too many unrelated matches.  Keep this in mind when you design your pages!

Don't worry about there not being enough top 10 slots where you can achieve a high ranking.  True, there are some keywords that are very competitive.  If you find that no matter what you do, you can't get in that top 10 spot for that word or phrase, just be creative!  There are SO MANY other keywords and keyword combinations where you can achieve a Top 10 ranking.  It's really NOT very difficult at all, once you know how to do it!  Once you tap into some phrases people are searching on to find your type of site, you'll have tapped into a continuous stream of free advertising for your web site which sure beats paying out a $1000 or more a month in banner ads.

For example, if you don't achieve a good ranking on "cheap airfares," keep trying, but also be creative and target "inexpensive airfares" too.  See, it's all about thinking like your customer or clientele - and it's really pretty easy to find a keyword combination that you can dominate in the search engines.  You'll often find that there are more people searching for these other phrases than were searching for the first phrase you thought of.  In marketing, this is called carving out your niche.

If you're Microsoft, you can afford to fight over who has the best "Browser software."  But, for the rest of us, we know we can't always fight the big boys.  So instead, what savvy marketers do is to identify a "niche" that few others are targeting and go after it.  

I've created pages for other web sites where I posted doorway pages that remained in the Top 10 for months.  Other slots may change more often, but that's why you have me to help you stay on top of your rank under ALL the important keywords and keyword-phrase combinations.  

Continual web page management and search engine promotion is the key to achieving a range of good rankings, each of which will bring you scores of new traffic … if you choose and utilize the proper keywords and keyword-phrases.

Brian Taylor ... Professional Web Site Developer, Graphic Designer, Search Engine Promoter & Webmaster in Seattle Washington