Basic question about gaining rank in google

You need to find a keyword you can beat the competition with and backlink it. You shall have it as a title, tag along with long tail keyword in the same niche as the main keyword for your niche site.

You have asked a lot of questions. All are valid questions and I'll try to answer them one-by-one

1)If I have a site and I want to gain rank for X keyword, do I need to have X keyword as the title of that page, AND also have many articles with a good keyword density with X keyword?

>> It's not necessary to have title of the page as X keyword but it helps a lot. I've seen many pages ranking on top without X keyword in the title tag.

2) Does that article itself gain the top search results, or does it help my site gain the top search results?

>> The answer to both these is YES. What happens is when you submit the article to an article directory since it's an authority website (as compared to yours) in Google's eyes the article will rank on the first page (provided it's a low competiton keyword). Then as you gather more backlinks you'll see your website overtake the your own article from the article directory. This has happened to me many times.

Yes the article does help your website to rank well.

3) Do I need to have X keyword as my link tag in order to rank my site for that keyword?

>> It's better that you have your X keyword as your anchor text (link tag) This is a very strong mesage for the search engine where the link heads to (your website in this case)

4) I seem to have all of the concepts down, but am having a hard time figuring out what exactly ranks, is it the article or the page? Or does the article make the page rank?

>> Answered in youestion 2

5) How do I rank a page without the keyword in the TLD name?

>> By gathering more backlinks and relevant contect for the X keyword.

6) Do I just make sure the page has a good density (keyword) and I am getting lots of backlinks to that specific page, or is it that the articles get traffic and drive people to the site from the articles...?

The secret is in writing the article in such a way that it talks about your X keyword like a real person would talk to someone explaining about "X keyword". For example if you are trying to rank for the keyword "tropical fish". Imaginf which words you'll use if you were to explain someone about "tropical fish".

Now there's a way to find which words to use while writin the article so that you end umhaving the exact density. Use the Google adwords keyword tool and type in your X keyword and click "Get keyword ideas"

If you try to use the keywords in that list in your article. it will become a more natural looking "conversation" (just like a real one) from google's point of view.

7) I do not see how the articles increase the ranking of the site, other than having a backlink. Will someone please clarify this for me.

>> Your ranking don't increase because of the backlink. There a simple formula I learned in a free ecourse by Brad Callen (creator of SEO elite)

Provide a link to your webpage from a page whose title tag has the same keyword for which you are trying to rank.

Inshort, if you are trying to rank for "tropical fish" (without quotes) write an article withe the keyword "tropical fish" in it and submit it to an article directory. Now almost all article directories use yopur article title as their page title too. SO the above formula gets working immediately and this makes it easier for the search engine to rank your website for your chose keyword.

1. Yes, it makes your life A LOT easier if you have the exact keyword in the title of your page. You can rank without that, but why make it harder on yourself? If you're targetting "best blue widgets", your article title will ideally be just that: "best blue widgets".

2. Yes, you absolutely need to link with the appropriate anchor text. So again, link the page with this anchor: "best blue widgets". You might also want to vary it around and link like this: "blue widgets", "blue widget", "widgets", "widget". But focus on your main keyword.

3. Yes, the page your ranking should be all about best blue widgets, describing them, etc. Write naturally and your keyword density will be just right. Use H1 and H2 headers like: "How to Find the Best Blue Widgets", "Are Blue Widgets Really the Best?", "Blue Widgets vs. Yellow Widgets", etc. Google loves that!