Lest say I want to target "used cars" (i know, i know, tough keyword, etc... but this is for the sake of an example)
Using google keywords webmaster tools, I have a list of keywords: They are exact phrases and the number is total searches.
[used cars for sale] 201000
[used cars ni] 110000
[used car] 74000
[used car prices] 60500
[used cars for sale by owner] 49500
[used car values] 49500
[used car sales] 27100
[buy used cars] 27100
[used car parts] 27100
[cheap used cars] 22200
[used cars uk] 22200
[used cars for sale uk] 22200
[best used cars] 18100
[japanese used cars] 18100
[used car search] 14800
[used car dealers] 14800
[parkers guide to used cars] 14800
[used car dealerships] 14800
[parkers used car prices] 12100
[used cars usa] 12100
[used cars ireland] 12100
[used car value] 12100
[kbb used cars] 9900
[used car for sale] 9900
If you were me, what would you do?
Build trades with all the anchors, and after some time wait for the website to rank for some of them? This is in conjunction to a post I read about a seochat member talking about searching patterns and that is best to target a wide variety of anchors... eventually you will start ranking for lots of keyword combinations. This way the site also obtains a natural linking profile, especially combining with url only anchors, click here, etc.
This is what I am inclined to do: Get the easiest keyword, least competitive. I haven-t done any competition study but lets assume for the sake of the example that the least competitive term is the one with the least number of searches, used car for sale. Build links only with this keyword but add some buffer words for keyword diversity like: UK used car for sale, best used car for sale, buy used car for sale - many of the buffer words being extracted from other searches above. Wait until I reach good position in serps and then move to another search term and so on.
Which method do you think is best? More importantly how would you do it?