Can you use multiple keywords for on page for ranking?
-
I understand using a keyword (or phrase) and correctly building that into the site structure (URL, Title Tag, body, etc).
So, this question is going to be elementary, but I am starting to question myself as I write content. I have a client, for example, that has a new site and a page for Chocolate cakes. Now the other pages they built out are for Cheesecakes, Cupcakes, etc. So we optimized the Chocolate cakes page with our keyword throughout (Getting an A+ on page content grade). But now they are asking me why they can't be found for chocolate eclairs, chocolate fudge cake, devils chocolate cake, double chocolate cake, etc.
My first quick answer is that they should build more pages. But am I doing this wrong?
-
One of the ways that we have created new pages is by building a landing page system, where we did have separate pages that targeted each of the groups of consumers that we wanted to use. We created these pages at domains that were not on our main website, allowing us to target our home web page to all of those consumers and draw users in by targeting them specifically with the landing page.
If you would like to hear more about our system check out the blog post we wrote about it at https://www.jtechcommunications.com/blog/blog-detail-11
-
Thanks for the shout out Dana! I do think that WB Friday can help. I'd also suggest checking out http://moz.com/blog/mapping-keywords-to-content-for-maximum-impact-whiteboard-friday - a Whiteboard Friday from 2011 that provides more detail on precisely the multiple keywords on a single page question.
In general, Courtney, you're absolutely right. If the intent of the searchers who query those keywords are unique (e.g. chocolate cakes vs. chocolate eclairs - two very different pastries!), then you want to have different pages built to target each of those terms. It's only when the keywords AND the searcher intent directly overlap (e.g. chocolate cake and chocolate-flavored cake) that you'd go with a single term/phrase.
BTW - as you're optimizing, the on-page tool can be helpful, but there's a lot of human-factors that software can't check for, too, so applying http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization may be helpful.
Best of luck!
-
If they want to be found for "chocolate fudge cake" and "chocolate eclairs" then their work needs to begin with a dedicated page for each of those topics. Those dedicated pages will need to be very high quality compared to what is already out there and that just the start of what is needed.
These are moderately difficult queries.
If you go to the SERPs for "chocolate fudge cake" you will see some formidable competition - FoodNetwork, Nigella, About,com, Food.com, Epicurious and lots of other important domains are there already and some of them have been there for ten years or more. New content on these subjects is being added to other websites every month so ranking in these SERPs will be challenging and elusive.
To rank quickly, you need great content on an strong and established domain. If you have a new site, a weak site, a tiny site, or a just a "not very well known site", then ranking for these queries is going to take time and a lot of work spent promoting the site and its content. That means publishing content that is immediately impressive to the visitor, linkworthy and highly sharable. Then it will need to be promoted to get it noticed by people who will share it, like it, link to it.
An unestablished site in these SERPs could spend a year or two or more of weekly publishing and promoting just to begin getting traction in these SERPs - because there are so many well established sites and a large number more that are hoping to "make it".
-
Your question really has perfect timing. Rand's most recent White Board Friday video/blog post addresses this topic specifically and shows you how to go through the process of creating Topics pages that rank for a set of keywords, rather than just one keyword or keyword phrase in particular.
Building SEO-Focused Pages to Serve Topics & People Rather than Keywords & Rankings
Here's the link: http://moz.com/blog/topics-people-over-keywords-rankings-whiteboard-friday
Hope that helps! I could have paraphrased the whole thing, but you're better off learning straight from the master!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Review my website and guide me what can do for top ranking.
Hi Guys, I really need your advice for my website (bmgapt dot com). I'm loosing ranking on (Buffalo Apartments) keyword. Two months ago my ranking number is 3 but now loosing to 15 number. What can I do for get again top ranking. Thanks in advance. John Smith
On-Page Optimization | | KLLC0 -
Can a page lose ranking because it has too many bold tags?
I run a product search website for the Engineering Sector. Each of the companies listed on the website has a profile page. This page used to rank very well in google. Over the last couple of weeks these pages disappeared for google i.e they fell about 20 to 30 spots in the search results for relevant keywords like the Manufacturer Name. I was trying to analyze the page and found that Each of the Categories that the manufacturer supports was listed in "bold" and linked to the page for that category. A manufacturer can support up to 20 or 30 categories so this results in about 20 or 30 Bold keywords. Is this a bad practice? Could this be a reason for a drop in ranking or do bold keywords on a page not matter? What are your views?
On-Page Optimization | | raghavkapur0 -
Several keywords and only one page to posicionate
Hi there! I'm new in SEOMOZ and the SEO world (so excuse me if the question is so elemental.....). I'm having trouble when trying to apply the right seo strategy to one of the page of my companys corporate site. My company offers serveral services in the field of the communications&advertisement. Not being considered as different items in the services menu of the website is a requirement for the company. They want to describe them (all services) in a single page. The problem is that there's one title, one description tag, one url and many relevant keywords related. Should I convince them that this structure is a bad one regarding SEO or there's a way to solve this situation? Thanks in advanced.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Keywords & ranking
I am working for a social networking site called Yookos. Much our content is user-generated. How can i add keywords onto the site to make sure our site appears in the SERPS? Also what techniques can i use to make our social site rank highly? Do the other SEO techniques apply here?
On-Page Optimization | | seoworx1230 -
On Page Reports - Multiple URLs Appearing for a Keyword
Hello, I have a question regarding the on page reports automatically generated by seomoz When I look at my on page reports I notice that each keyword appears a number of times, each with a different url and then a grade for the on page report and sometimes a rank. I'm not sure I understand this, firstly I thought the on page reports were only generated for keywords in the top 50, does that mean the global top 50, or my top 50? Also why are they appearing for so many urls, I find this confusing and am not sure which pages to focus on improving, it's not always my intended pages that are ranking the best. I believe that I read somewhere that I can choose which pages to have the on page reports rank for, perhaps this is the solution? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks, Iain
On-Page Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
Ranking for specific pages
HI, Lets say my website is abc.com and my targeted keyword is abc for index page. Internal pages, like abc.com/apple.htm, abc.com/banana.htm. The targeted keyword for apple.htm is fresh apples, buy apples, and for banana.htm, fresh banana, buy banana. How to define these keywords in the campaign. Please suggest. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | younus0 -
Does targeting more than one keyword or keyword phrase effect rankings?
Hi, We have a homepage where we are targeting three main keywords. 'Cheap books', 'buy books' and 'used books'. We are ranking well for cheap books and making progress on the more competitive buy and used. My question is how many keywords can you reasonably rank for on one page. We are targeting other keywords on other pages and having some success - but is three the maximum or is that too many?
On-Page Optimization | | Benj251 -
Tag clouds: good for internal linking and increase of keyword relevant pages?
As Matt Cutts explained, tag clouds are OK if you're not engaged in keyword stuffing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYPX_ZmhLqg) - i.e. if you're not putting in 500 tags. I'm currently creating tags for an online-bookseller; just like Amazon this e-commerce-site has potentially a couple of million books. Tag clouds will be added to each book detail page in order to enrich each of these pages with relevant keywords both for search engines and users (get a quick overview over the main topics of the book; navigate the site and find other books associated with each tag). Each of these book-specific tag clouds will hold up to 50 tags max, typically rather in the range of up to 10-20. From an SEO perspective, my question is twofold: 1. Does the site benefit from these tag clouds by improving the internal linking structure? 2. Does the site benefit from creating lots of additional tag-specific-pages (up to 200k different tags) or can these pages become a problem, as they don't contain a lot of rich content as such but rather lists of books associated with each tag? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | semantopic0