Need SEO site advice, please...

Helping a friend improve rankings so that I can get some experience with SEO: http://www.sazappeal.com

The site sells pre-made candles, candle holders, desk accessories, frames, etc...and it also tries to cater to couples in need of gifts for their weddings and wedding party.

The keywords I've been working on are:
1. candles
2. scented candles
3. candleholders
4. wedding gifts

The site has so many different items, though, that I'm not sure my efforts wouldn't be better spent on other keywords. I'd welcome an comments on that as well. (Because of that, when you look at the source code, you will see a bunch of keywords.)

I'd like to at least get the site listed within the first 30 web sites that come up for these keywords. (I figure hoping for the first 10 is a bit ambitious, considering it's not even listing until after the 30s at the moment.)

Any suggestions or comments about the site and what I might consider doing to get the pages listed would be appreciated.

Thank you!

We covered alot here!

http://www.seochat.com/topic.php?t=1150

I would just treat each section as a separate seo effort. So, on the wedding decor page, for example, make sure it has its own distinct title and keywords that relate to its major kw them. Don't use the same title throughout all the pages of the site. For example, on the wedding decor page, I would change the title to something like "Wedding Decor - blah blah blah by SazAppeal", where your keyword you are targeting is farthest to the left of the title. Then optimize that page just for your keywords for that page, forgetting about the keywords for the rest of the site. Then get links to those specific pages from related sites, rather than to the home page. Those are my thoughts!

Thank you, fathom. I did see that post and actually have it bookmarked.

dazzlindonna,

Thank you for the advice.

So if I am optimizing pages for a particular keyword or keyword phrase, do you recommend that I also submit these pages individually?

Thanks!

yes and no. it depends upon who you are submitting to. spiders will (eventually) crawl your entire site. some directories allow you to submit individual pages, and in those cases, i would submit each section separately.

Thanks, I'll try individually then.