using multiple keywords in single article when writing content

Hi bhw, I'm wondering if there are people here who can share their opinion/experience/knowledge on this question. I was initially told when writing content with the purpose of getting ranked in google to use the keyword in the title and then in your first paragraph but not to use it more than that as it would be viewed as "keyword stuffing" which google frowns upon. In researching keywords to use for my writing it seemed to me that several keywords could be used in a single article. I asked this question to my friends who are helping me and they said "no" only use one keyword per article. However after doing a little research it seems to me that using multiple keywords in a single article is the right way to go. I am interested to know if using more than one keyword in a single article is the right way to approach content writing to improve SEO results and if so, is there some direction you can offer in implementing that strategy. For example what is the best way to do that, would it be to make a paragraph heading using the second or third keywords and using that paragraph in the same way as the first paragraph was used to highlight the main keyword, use it once in the paragraph type of thing? Also would it be smart to create links, using the second and third keywords as links in your article to other pages on your site that dig deeper into that particular keyword? Any help is appreciated, thanks