Need clarification!! Please help - keyword(s) Question

Should an entire site be optimized for a set of keywords or can individual pages on the site be optimized for related search terms?

I can't figure this out and am a little confused with the material that I've read.

Are the search engines going to look at the KW's on my home page and then go through the entire site and rate it on these KW's or is each page going to be looked at and weighed on an individual basis?

I just want to begin building from the ground up after a great foundation has been put in place.

This is causing me a great deal of pain. Please help if you can.

Thanks,

Ignacio

google looks at each page and ranks it separately. optimize each page for the keywords that are relevant to that page.

Donna or anyone else...

I've spent the past month going through a lot of SEO material.

Why would someone emphasize to choose around 10-12 keywords and emphasize those same 10-12 throughout the ENTIRE site?

I can't figure it out.

From what I'm understanding here (at this sitel) is that it's okay to optimize my pages for whatever KW's I desire based upon the content of the pages. Of course - the entire site revolves around one central theme, but there are about 7-10 sub themes that I would like to optimize for as well.

I know this is probably sooo basic, but out of everything I read in the past 3 weeks (a lot), no one was really clear on this.

I just want some reassurance that I'm going to be okay optimizing individual pages in the site for KW niches in addition to more popular search terms and then of course the top search terms.

If anyone would caution against any of this, please let me know.

I've spent a lot of time on WordTracker and have gone through several thousand KW's and feel good about the research and am now at the place where I'd like to move forward with it.

Again, if anyone has any cautions, please let me know.

Thank you!

Ignacio

I believe you are going about it exactly right. I can see some instances where an entire (small) site might be targeting one kw phrase, but in general, your plan is a good one. jump in with both feet! :-)

Ignacio http://www.seo-guy.com/tutorial.html is a good place to start. Never dilute your results by going for too many kw's per page and be assured Google is page to page not site to site so every page "must" have different focus (keywords wise) in order to use your real estate appropriatelty. Why would you want to go for the same keyword on lots of pages - only one (2 max) will show in the listing anyways. Your on the right track