Defining Keywords

Are you talking about  pay per click? or organic SEO?  

If you are talking about organic...I have a handful of answers here already and I like this the best...

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28351708/how-to-get-the-search-engine-and-keyword-when-my-website-is-connected.html
"keywords" are not as important as they once where and google has pretty much stopped reporting what they are although if you pay for ads, you can get a clue.

What you are really asking is how to do I get people to my site.  
I have some extensive write ups http:Q_28330259.html#a39755212 and I will repeat this http:Q_28201608.html#a39374636

The concept is simple.   Have great content and well formed code.  Any other tricks and shortcuts you have heard about, throw out the window.

1) Make sure your code is valid http://validator.w3.org

2) Have a lot of great content that is not copy pasted from someplace else.  Your content should be created to make the reader want to be engaged rather then chasing "seo"

3) You should have your "local" taken care of.  Google+, Bing local should be up to date as well as any professional business listings

4) Content

5) Content

6) Use webmaster tools https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

7) Avoid "seo tricks" or anything else that seem like a shortcut.

A good example of having a lot of content in a handful of categories that are cross referenced with each other.  http://www.compendium.com/blog/

Good compelling content that makes you want to read more and submit your email to get good information http://www.hubspot.com/

A spammy looking site that is not inviting or worth reading http://seo-indexer.suggestsoft.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

These two sources are some of the best for SEO along with their tools.  I'm not advocating to go out and buy, but at least read their sites:

http://moz.com/
http://www.seobook.com/

One thing you will notice, especially with moz.com is they are talking more about inbound marketing rather then what we used to think of as SEO.  A good source to learn about inbound marketing is http://hubspot.com.  They have a lot of good info and are ready to sell you an expensive tool but if you can learn to use google analytics and compare your own server analytics and study them every month, you will get some good insight.

With hubspot, notice the way they have landing pages throughout their site and search for inbound marketing on google and notice how they show up.  Apply for a demo and notice how they treat you and the type of messages you get throughout your process.  Just going through the demo is a good learning experience as to  how one company doing it right works.

Another for inbound marketing is http://www.compendium.com/ and how their blog is set up http://www.compendium.com/blog/  This site is worth looking into if for nothing else how they do things.

When you ask about SEO and you are looking for ways that people can find you, It does come down to having great content, well formed html and a few good people that are linking back to you

@scott

Thanks for the response and the good advice regarding optimising the website.

However, I am talking about defining organic keywords. I don't need to know how to optimise the website or "get people to my website" for now.

This is question specifically about keyword definition, not keyword metadata. In order for me to optimise the home page for specific searches, I need to define the keywords of the searches I am optimizing for. So I am trying to find out for this specific example what a good method is to work out what the best keywords/keyword phrases would be for this business example.

>This is question specifically about keyword definition,

The point is, "keywords" are not as important ...."

>In order for me to optimise the home page for specific searches, .....
That is the "old" way.   Have you checked your stats lately, did you notice the small percentage of referrals that even have keywords passed?

If your site is about dogs, then you should have a lot of compelling content about dogs on your site.  In addition, specific pages about each bread and bread specific issues etc.

If you still want to get a feel for what key phrases people may use, you can log into google adwords and use the keyword tool.  By playing around there you can see what has a lot of searches and what is competitive.  You can also use google trends http://www.google.com/trends/.  

The problem is you have no way to test or verify if this works.  

This is a good video from moz that backs up what I am getting at http://moz.com/blog/topics-people-over-keywords-rankings-whiteboard-friday

That was from Dec 2013. This was from August of the same year. http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization

@scott  

That article's an interesting one, however, even making this mental shift from specific keyword targeting, one still needs to do a lot of keyword research and also using this shift, one may still want to know which keyword they would want to favour for a home page. I don't think it's saying forget keywords or forget what I'm trying to do here - which isn't really any different to what they're stating. ...and after implemented there are many ways to detect and measure KPIs

In fact the last paragraph states
"
So, yes. SEO has gotten more complex. It's gotten harder. There's a little bit of disassociation away from just the keyword and the ranking. But this process still really works and it's still very powerful. And I think SEOs are going to be using this for a long time to come. We just have to have a switch in our mentality. "

...so I'm still left wondering about my initial question...  

"Can anyone offer what the best way to go about considering keywords for this typical case scenario be and offer what their results may be? "

...specifically relating to the primary ones I mentioned in the question..

Thanks

Thanks Scott, very well put - gets me into that creative thinking area and some strategic ideas and resources for working things out!   :-)