Keyword Practice & Keyword Tools

I am currently trying to better the SEO for my website.
I used the keyword tool on google adwords to find keywords/phrases that are relevant to my website.
I choose 10 keywords with alot of monthly searches, but not too much as im starting out & i think it will be slightly easier to get better rank in the less used keywords. I also checked the competition on each keyword/phrase & went for low - med competition. I then added these keywords into my website/webpage & then started to build article, blog, forum & web-directory back-links to my website using the keywords/phrases i choose as the anchor text in the backlinks.

This is as much as i have done so far regarding keyword targeting.
Is there anything about what iv done that you would consider wrong?
Is there anything else that i should do to improve what iv done already?
Is there something that im not doing in regards to keyword targeting that i should do to help improve my results?

Please comment on this thread with your thoughts as im quite new to the SEO game & will appreciate any help, tips, etc… given to me!
Thank You!

Yes, you’re going about it backwards.

It sounds like you’re writing for the search engines instead of humans.

IMHO you should write about things that interest you and will interest others, then - maybe - tweak some of the words used in searches.

I don’t see anything wrong here, keep working on contents and backlinks building, and if you target longtail keywords now, you might want to try article submitting and use web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, they are good ways to promote longtail keywords and generate traffic.

First make sure to have unique and high quality content. Then target keywords according to your targeted visitors. Analyze how your visitors found your website. When using low competition keywords make sure whether it helpful for your conversion or not.

I created the website, added the content & text for the visitors point of view. I didnt consider or search keywords untill i was happy that visitors to my website would be able to read & understand what to do on my site. I then searched for keywords/phrases based on what my website was about.

Ah yes, rereading your post I see now you did say “relevant to my website” :blush:

Never try to over optimize your website. Keyword placement should be perfect and there should not be keyword stuffing in your keyword. After Panda update google is very strict about the quality of content. And try to do some quality off page optimization for your website.