Recently, I received an email with the following question about whether keywords mattered.  With her permission, I am posting A’ra’s question about the Value of Keywords, along with my response.  Hope it helps you, as well.  Here’s A’ra’s question:

“Are keywords still useful? What is the latest on website optimization. Talked with someone lately who told me that using keywords was so overdone that google doesn’t look for them any more. I know you’re always up on these things, so I was wondering what’s new with the latest and …

Today there was a post on Ragan’s PR Junkie’s Blog (self-proclaimed “For Communication Junkies Everywhere“).  The blog post was written by Michael Sebastian about a press release from PitchPoint Public Relations –which consists of Chicago-based PR pro Mitch Delaplane, an Apple computer, and his dog Sally–issuing a press release titled, “The most amazing press release ever written.”
Here is the link to the post: http://blog.ragan.com/prjunkie/2011/01/did_this_pr_pro_write_the_most.html
When you read Michael Sebastian’s post, you’ll note his mention of the press release getting a #1 Google ranking for the term “amazing press release.” I’ll talk …

Jill Whalen CEO and Founder of High Rankings wrote an interesting article about SEO Expectations in her newsletter, shortly after I posted my SEO post on this site.
It is a sharp read, about being realistic in your SEO campaign. It doesn’t sugarcoat anything, so if you are looking for someone who is going to tell you they can get you to #1 overnight, this is not the place. This is actually why I trust Jill – she doesn’t make false claims, she is realistic about what it takes …