What Keywords are you focusing on?

First of all, if you've never asked yourself this question while working on your website, your marketing program is going to be lacking. The assumption is that everyone with any sort of web presence, across the board and almost without exception, wants traffic. Why else put together a site if not to have it viewed by other people? And keywords are one of the most important tools in getting relevant traffic to your pages.

For example, if you are an artist looking to get your name out to the world, a website is a pretty good way to do just that. But in all likelihood, nobody is looking for you by name (nobody knows how good you are yet outside of your friends and family, and that's why you are looking to put together a website), so what makes the most sense, what will be your best bet to be found by the people who are looking for an artist like you? Specific keywords.

Use Specific Keywords, Not Generic

Specific keywords are better in almost every way. The competition is quite a bit less for 'Pen and Ink Artist' as opposed to 'Artist', and even more specific still (with a lot less competition) is 'Pen and Ink Portrait Artists'. Search on all of these keyword phrases yourself to get a feel for the difference in competition.

Another reason why specific keywords are better than generic keywords is the idea that people who search on very broad topics such as 'Artist' or 'Real Estate' or 'Cars' are a.) not really sure what they are looking for, b.) are only looking for cursory - very high level - information on the subject, c.) are just 'browsing' and therefore not a good lead or target, or d.) all of the above.

Specific keywords are going to help people who are looking for what you have, be it goods or information or services, find you in a world full of websites fighting for traffic and visitors. And when they find you, chances are good that if your site actually delivers upon what was searched for - your site actually has anything a user could want regarding 'Pen and Ink Potrait Artists' - then odds are very good you have found a customer or client or someone who will return in the future to see what you have to say...