I have this rolling around my head today. I don't know where these thoughts come from, but bare with me... This SEO stuff stimulates my brain I guess:)

I'm thinking that it is very important to not only optimize for one keyword, but when doing your keyword research to create relevant sets of good keywords or phrases. Even if they are not obviously related to each other.

I would assume Search Engines probably fuse keywords or phrases together on the same page? Probably Making it easier to figure out the relevance of IBLs and in turn effecting PageRank?

Here's an example:

Keywords - First Set:

Hammer and Nails
Saw
Drill Press
Crow Bars

Keywords - Second Set:

Purchase Nails
Order Screwdrivers Here
Equipment Delivered
Purchase Building Supplies

Fused:

Hammer and Nails/Equipment Delivered
Crow Bars/Purchase Nails
Saw/Order Screwdrivers Here
Drill Press/Purchase Building Supplies

You wouldn't normally think of optimizing your site for equipment delivered. That's not a very niched or descriptive keyword. It has nothing to do with the products your selling. BUT, you may want to...

Instead of just working on optimizing my page for the phrase "hammers and nails", I would optimize for both "hammers and nails" and "equipment delivered"... this in turn defining my relevance.

I would then conclude the Algorithm is set up to match these seperate keywords or phrases and in turn draw the conclusion that this site sells equipment... it's not just information about the equipment.

I could see Google using this to calculate PageRank. They would be able to weigh the importance of inbound links better.

So I'm thinking I may start doing that:)

AM I just thinking to hard?... I suppose they would have to do this to figure out relevance. It's probably old news.

Thoughts?