hello,
Are there some guidelines when choosing the right keywords to optimize a site? Like for instance, if a term searched on google produces a gazillion pages, should you give up on that keyword? How do you know that a keyword is good to use? How few results should there be for that keyword to be considered usable?

thanks in advance mr. seo expert...

Use the tools like digitalpoint's keyword suggestion tool or wordtracker or inventory.overture.com and find out how many times is the keyword searched and then how much is the competition and that can help you target slightly less competitive word and get almost same traffic as the other with gazillion pages

Thanks
Shabbir Bhimani

thanks for those tips shabbir

Originally Posted by howardroark

thanks for those tips shabbir

My Pleasure.

Target keyphrases instead of single keywords. If the market is big like HOSTING for example, then target keyphrases such as web hosting services or cheap web hosting....etc
You target hosting it self only if you wana be a well know brand and have the time and money for it.

If you like we have some interesting articles that may help you out with this question like http://www.auxic.com/fa_metatags.htm to figure out tips on how to build Meta tags or http://www.auxic.com/fa_searchspiders.htm. Hope this helps. The above advice is also great!