Just had a look at my google top keywords for the last 3 months and although I have had just over 39,000 visits the keywords bringing me traffic have nothing at all to do with my blog – carrot fit – shampoo – food – etc

The blog is full of – inspiration stories – confessions from mums – blog anonymous posts – real life parenting ideas - 

I have no idea why those top keywords are even ranking so high as cant even think what single post they have come from

Im getting a headache trying to sort the seo out on my blog and failing miserably ;(

Can you be more specific?  Some people “get” keywords and some don’t.  I’ve taught many people on how to do keyword research – most understand but some just can’t grasp it.  Or are you just struggling with the “best choice”?

@EmmaWhite  Rather than “re-inventing the wheel”, if you start with some seed keywords (basic keywords) and then use the Google Keyword Tool to gather the best derivatives to use and start incorporating them into your future posts, you will gain a following to your new entries.  Often your readers will then start exploring through your blog for other posts that interest them.  I hope you have an RSS feed on your blog so people can subscribe to your blog if they find your content good.

I checked out your site.  In viewing the “source code” on it, I cannot find any keywords.  You would not only want to drive traffic to your blog but to your site as well with appropriate keywords.  Rather than focus on “parenting” which I agree is huge in your field/industry, you can use the Google Keyword Tool and/or other sources to find more targeted keywords – you should look for the less competitive keywords that still get an acceptable # of hits.  I did a video some time back that kind of explains how this works:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_x6ubZ6ZE&feature=plcp

meta data – do you define your keywords, tags, categories and all that stuf behind the scene?

do you use keywords in your blog post titles and then is subheads in the articles?

do people link to your blog with your keywords? Google up ‘click here’ and you will find the link to download adobe reader. Does adobe want that as a keyword, or does everyone  write on their blog that you can download the reader if you click here.

@therealsupermum I wrote a series of posts on how to do keyword research…

• http://blog.kissmetrics.com/keyword-research-part-1/ 
• http://blog.kissmetrics.com/keyword-research-part-2/ 
• http://blog.kissmetrics.com/keyword-research-part-3/ 

I haven’t concentrated on key words. I make a conscious effort to use some key theme words early in a post, including headlines and subheads, but I haven’t listed them in source codes.

I spend more time on tags. Is one better than the other?