My keyphrase strategy is simple. At the very basic level, it's simple math. If you are trying to get on the first page of a search engine for your keyphrase, you are basically saying you want to be within the first 10 results displayed when a search is made.
If there are 100 pages that the search engine finds for your keyphrase, and your page is one of them, that means that your page has to be considered more relevant than 90 of them to show up in the top 10. It is reasonable to assume that if your page is relevant to that keyphrase, and you have a decent strategy in place to target it, you will have a good chance of making the first page of results.
If you own an online electronics store, and you are trying to target "digital cameras", a search on Google will bring up over 100 MILLION results. Now unless you have a revolutionary concept that you think is better than 99.999990% of your competition, your not going to be in the top 10.
A happy medium must be found in your keyphrase strategy, between the generic terms you think people will search for and the keyphrases that you actually have a chance for. This includes the analysis of keyword families to find variations of your search terms that have the least amount of competition. This type of service is more closely explained in my keyphrase optimization page.