Optimising a page for multiple keywords

[JohnW-UK]

I remember reading a question a while back about seo for a page targetting multiple keywords but I'm blowed if I can find it now....

I have a page which is optimised for one phrase and want to add 5-6 phrases/keywords... obviously I can't stuff the all the keywords in the page title or the header 1 tag. So I have written the content to mention the other keywords trouble is not wanting to compromise the quality of the page so of the keywords/phrases I have only been able to use once in the content. I assumed as the phrases are all on the same topic/area that this should not really matter.

Apart from link building with the correct anchor text is there anything else I should be doing?

The other option is to create custom pages for the keyword but again I am not keen on this idea....

Any suggestions?

[JohnW-UK]

Cool thanks for this - I tried searching the SEOMoz site but could not find these.

I will see how things go.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey,

Both of these are a good read:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/targeting-multiple-keywords-vs-singular-keyword-focus

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tactical-seo-how-many-termsphrases-should-i-target-on-a-single-page

In a nutshell though, there are no hard and fast answers and it depends on the keyword.

Some basic rules we work with

• if it's a highly competative keyword, single page is best

• if several keywords indicate the same user (searcher) intent and they are moderate competive then they are a good set for a single page

Really, if you look at some of the results that get returned in good positions, more and more we see pages that are not targeting the exact phrase you searched but Google understands the intent and returns the best result even if that is for a similar phrase.

This is also a good read in relation to the copywriting process:

http://www.highrankings.com/matt-cutts-seo-copy-339

Really, in 2012 and beyond, we don't want to be forced to write crippled copy to force our keywords in. Google should (and does) understand that for people to write better content, they have to be freed of the requirement to do stupid things to work keywords in to copy.

I would do some searching around those keywords, group them by intent and check the difficulty of each and see what comes up and use that to help guide your hand. If you can get several keywords on one kick-ass page then you only have one page to promote!

Hope that helps!
Marcus