Q: What keywords should I use if I'm offering a product/service nobody knows about yet? They won't be Googling for it... so I should optimize my site for more generic terms, right?

A: Say you've invented an automatic widget wrapper. This is so brand-new that no one will be searching for it, so you might think to just optimize for the widget itself instead. You reason that the market for your widget wrapper is the same as the market for the widget itself, so that's how you'll position your site to be found.

Let's say you did optimize for the generic widget term. Your site will still not come up in keyword searches for this, because the search engines will naturally place information-rich sites ahead of yours. If you want to be ranked for the generic terms, you will need to have such a site created and in existence for a few years. Take a look at the sites that come up now for the generic terms if you want to see what kind of site you'd have to create to compete with them (only yours would have to be even better!).

I do understand that few are likely to be searching for "automatic widget wrapper" in the beginning, but that's your challenge — to spread the word in other ways. If you publicize the phrase "automatic widget wrapper" enough, people can later Google the term if they forget where they heard about it. Your site is bound to be one of the few sites, if not the only site, optimized for the term, so it's a slam-dunk. (If you haven't registered the name automaticwidgetwrapper.com you should do so immediately, and point it at your site. However, there is a certain way it has to be done in order not to defeat the purpose. Read about it here.) It's imperative that your site be optimized for the terms you are using in your publicity so that those with foreknowledge can find you!