Keywords definitely have something to do in increasing search engine optimization. According to my research over the internet, we must optimise for user intent, not simply what a user typed into Google.
Google will send people looking for information on a topic to the highest quality, relevant pages it has in its database, often before it relies on how Google ‘used‘ to work, for example, relying on finding near or exact match instances of a keyword phrase on any one page. Hope this helps you a little bit.