Multiple Keyword Research Questions, Help

[arching]

Hello ,

I've been trying for several days to understand how keyword research works for a multi purpose website,I've read guides, articles even some chapters from the book" The Art of Seo" by O'Reilly and still no luck.

It seems i can't wrap my head around keyword research,lets say I have a social gaming community website and I'm trying to rank it first on some low competition keywords + some long tail keywords.The website has functions like leaderboards, profiles,events, competitions,etc so it's not actually a news related website but it will have a blog.

My website being on the games niche It would imply that I should target words that contain the word "Games" but this word generates millions of searches globally so ranking first its nearly impossible if the website is brand new.

This made me pursue generic keywords formed with 2 / 3 words like fresh games, new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc which still generate lets say 30.000 searches globally each.

Due to the different areas of the website like latest game events,latest games competitions,etc I'm confused If i should pursue website specific keywords like latest games events, fresh games events, latest games competitions, upcoming games competitions but these too generate 30.000 global searches each,so...

0.should i use generic keywords or keywords that include site features?

So let's say I decide to pursue generic "games" keywords,due to a high competition based on the keyword I decide to go a layer deeper and for the keyword "fresh games" I obtain keywords like** "fresh games 2011,top fresh games 2011, upcoming fresh games** " and thus building a list of 30 keywords that contain " fresh games".If i do this for the rest of the keywords: ** new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc**  I end up with a list of 10.000 keywords or more since each keyword generates other keywords.

1. Is this the correct approach ? since generating 10.000 keywords sounds a lot and I'm getting the feeling that It's not how it supposed to be done,like were would I insert 10.000 keywords?
2. So how do I know which keywords to pick and aim in order to try to get no.1 ranking? and why those?
3. How many keywords should I use? and where should i put them? since it's not a news website so writing a lot of articles isn't an option.
4. Should I focus on 2 words keywords with around 10.000-30.000 seaches or 2 words keywords + long tail keywords with less traffic like 100 - 5000?
5. Is there a guide for the Keyword Analysis Tool since if i enter "fresh new games" i get a 39% keyword difficulty,is that hard to rank? and I don't know what all those color mean since some of them have higher numbers then others that are found at the top and how can i get beat a website that has has rank 10.

So hopefully with your help & by some miracle I will finally be able to build a keyword list.

Thank you !

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

Use the keywords that people use to describe what you're offering.

It sounds like you might not have a keyword problem, but rather maybe you're not quite sure what exactly the site is offering, what the architecture is, and what products, services, functions etc you will be offering.

What are people going to be able to do on your site?  Why would they want to come to your site?  What will it offer that's so engaging and attracts visitors?  What's your "unique selling proposition"?

I hope I don't come across as trying to dodge your question, but I think if you can clearly answer these questions, it might make your keyword research much easier.

Also - be sure you're using "exact" and "phrase" match in adwords tool, not "broard" - broad numbers are unrealistically high.

39% is not too high for competition, in my experience.

Also, are you "branding" your website?  That's very important these days of course.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas!

-Dan