There are a LOT of factors that go into determining where your pages rank in the Google search results, at last count more than 200 and climbing. And this is only a guess, using the available empirical evidence SEO's and webmasters have been able to divine from looking intently behind the scenes.
While SEO is at least in part a crap shoot, we can make educated determinations as to what we ought to do and ought not to do to our pages in order to try and get them found highly in Google search results.
One is through the use of keywords. We've always known that keywords play a big part in ranking pages. Back in the day people could rank highly simply by stuffing their pages with the keywords they wanted to rank for, and presto, they were sitting high atop the rankings.
This is not to say you can't do well by strategically inserting keywords in all of the right places. Indeed, you should do this. You just have to do it naturally.
How keywords fit into your search rankings
Shaping your page content to focus on a particular keyword ranking is something of an art. Many times the domain name might have little to nothing related to the keyword in question, and that is one reason why keywords in domain names are no longer the signal they once were.
Today having the keyword in your URL, title tag, H1-5 headings and sprinkled judiciously throughout the content is the best way you can help your cause.
What keyword tactics can hurt you
Try to stuff keywords in this era, or use cloaked content, and you'll find yourself on the wrong end of a Google penalty.
One more way is through the improper use of anchor text in your site's backlinks. Having all the backlinks for a particular page show up with the same anchor text, and all be followed links, is a sure red flag in this current algorithm. Go for as natural a link profile as you can build, and vary your anchor text with natural phrases that would occur, such as a few “click here” and the like.