There is a difference between how you would search and how you would pick keywords that are easy to rank. Go to Jaaxy and you will see that "internal doors" has lots of competition and will be difficult to rank. "internal wood doors" on the other hand will be easy to rank.

Go to "Live video classes" in the left sidebar. Watch the Article Creation & Promotion LIVE! video at the top of the page. Magistudios creates content live from doing key word research to finishing and promoting the article. It is a little over an hour, but it will answer your questions

The long or short keyword doesn't really matter to some but, to some it does matters a lot. To a searcher, I don't think it would make the much differences.

I think it depends. Your second example I would try the shorter version first but your first example you would get a lot of information that doesn't relate to buying. Also as mjdimarco said below he puts 'How do' in a lot. I read something recently about Google down grading rank with 'How to' (or maybe I dreamt this). Maybe this is the start of a trend down grading rank with others of this type of phrase.

You might enjoy this tutorial The dilemma? Too many keywords... And you need to consider your keywords for each page and post you write in answer to your question below.

Thank you so so much! Extremely useful and my knowledge has just grown 100%!
One final Q if I may - if I could get quite a few visits to my site - say 1000 - would I still need keywords? Are they only important for initial ranking, or something that really does need to be considered on-going?

good answers below from others. What you are seeing is the difference between just keywords, "short tail" and "long tail" keyword phrases. As said below, typically in a competitive niche, the shorter, stand a lone keywords and short tail are much more competitive and more difficult to rank for - it just takes more time. Yes, as you pointed out, the shorter ones are searched for more often for more traffic IF you have a high ranking page. The long tails have far fewer searches typically (as you said you wouldn't type all that in) but are far less competitive and you can more easily rank for them. Start with long tails to get traffic - and as your site ranks- you can then go after some of the more competitive ones if you choose. Many long tails add up to good traffic combined - especially if you get them ranked highly. To go after the competitive ones will probably lead to frustration and little to no traffic when you are just beginning as the other members shared.

Don't discount using 3- or 4-word keyworks. Several of my poly-word keywords have reahced page 1 ranking on Google. I've documented it here: Continued Early Success . The example you cite is actually quite revealing. I myself often start a google search with "Do I ..." or How do I..." I know many others who search this way as well.. Hope this is helpful.

Hi! Keywords can technically be any length, but if they are shorter they will likely be a lot higher competition and therefore harder to rank for. Early on it is important to choose the lowest competition keywords possible so you can rank.

Here's an example of what I mean by lower competition. Let's use your example of "Do I drink too much coffee?" vs "Drink too much coffee"

"Do I drink too much coffee" has a QSR of 30. In other words 30 pages indexed by Google have that exact keyword string.

"Drink too much coffee" has a QSR of 340.

You can see there's a dramatic difference in competition between the two. This is something to keep in mind when choosing keywords. If you need any further help or have any further questions let me know. Good luck!