Should I be optimizing for Keywords that we already rank for?
-
When selecting which Keywords to optimize for, should I choose all words that I want us to move up for? Like that my company appears ranked for 5, 10, 42, 44, etc.?
Or should I select a mix of some that rank well (top 1-2 pgs in Google) /rank near pg 5/ and some that aren't showing up in the top 50 yet?
I don't want to waste my time optimizing for words I don't need to.
Thanks!
-
Yes it is thank you.
-
Just so I can understand the question let me try to rephrase it back to you. You want to know how to prioritize your keyword targets. Specifically you want to know how much _less priority _you should give a given keyword that you are already ranking well for.
If I am understanding your question correctly, then I have to say that I don't have enough information to fully answer it. I agree with itrogers in that I think you need to factor in the traffic of each of your keyword targets. And I would add that you should factor in the difficulty of each, too. And consider factoring in the commercial intent (on noes, the tool's down!) of each. And if different keywords reflect an interest in different products or services that represent different profit margins for you, that should be taken into consideration. And ideally if you have enough conversion rate data for each keyword, that should be a factor too! And for that matter, if you can figure out how to group related keywords together such that would lend synergy to your on-page SEO, all the better.
But without a clearly defined metric for finding the efficiency of each keyword or keyword cluster (KEI isn't good enough—this is a step in the right direction, though), and without the values for each factor for your keywords, I still want to say something along the lines of "yeah, you want to target a mixture—some keywords that you are already strong in, since an improvement from position 10 to position 1 represents a ginormous (if anyone knows of a better dataset, let us know!) increase in traffic, but you also want to be working on some longer-term keyword targets that might represent more traffic in the long run, but are more difficult and so require some longer-term planning".
Is that helpful at all?
-
Cool thank you. Does anyone else have any other opinions?
-
I think you should keep optimizing for keywords that you already rank for, if you are not #1, your pages can still be better optimized. Keep them in back of you mind, but don't forget about them. With SEO, you don't have to sacrifice a lot of keywords as long as they are all somewhat related. Also, a good measurement to see if you should keep any keywords or variations or not is to check their search volume in Google Keyword Tool. That is what would tell you if you are wasting time on not.
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
-
Keyword Planning and Site Architecture
Hi all, I'd like to know your thoughts on keyword planning and site architecture. I thought it was best practice to structure your website so specific pages target certain keywords. The titles, meta desc. and content on these pages should be unique to that page. I've had good success ranking pages this way. But! How come so often you'll see a website that has no keyword planning ranking so well? Let's take the example: "Bamboo Sheets". A top ranking website in my country sells all kinds of bamboo bedding, including sheets, towels, pillow cases, etc. They have "Bamboo Sheets" in the title & meta description for the main category page (www.store.com/bamboo-sheets) - which is where it should be. But then I see it again on the homepage title & meta (www.store.com) and other pages of the website. So why aren't they cannibalizing their own pages? And why do they blog about Bamboo Sheets and not cannibalize the keyword from there? Is landing page optimization just a myth? It seems entire websites built around a keyword rank just as well, and in most cases, much better than sites with keyword specific landing pages. If you only sell one product this isn't a problem, but for websites that offer multiple products or services, it's incredibly frustrating when trying to compete. It's like Google still gives a lot of authority to keyword rich domain names and business names. Thoughts?
Keyword Research | | Onlineorders0 -
How to optimize home page for several keywords
My issue is this. I'm getting a lot of "F" grades for certain keywords to my homepage using MOZ. the thing is I can't add to many keywords to title tag without going over 65 characters. It seems the title tag is most important and even though i have keywords in content and everything else, without title tag keyword its useless. can creating more than one title tag help or will that make things worse with search engines?
Keyword Research | | DrMcCoy0 -
Keyword Help For Articles
Hello, My site is bobweikel.com Article page is here. Could you guys help me with keywords for new and existing articles around weight loss? Some ideas, though I'm unsure: weight loss tips healthy weight loss permanent weight loss weight loss program weight loss diets weight loss coaching weight loss life coaching weight management
Keyword Research | | BobGW1 -
Google keywords
I'm having trouble understanding how google determines out of my text what are the keywords and what aren't. Is there somewhere I can go that will tell me what google sees as my dominant keywords and I'd like to see my total keyword list too. We are running eCommerce and I don't think it is picking up on everything we expected it to see as keywords. I'm pretty new to this SEO stuff but I'm trying to learn. Any help would be appreciated. I understand I'm suppose to include important words in my page titles, headers and meta description and use effective markup as well so I'm just a bit lost on how I can actually see what google counts as my keywords and their level of power/importance. If this isn't possible if anyone has any suggestions on how to gauge this, I'm open to ideas! Thanks in advance guys!
Keyword Research | | ithvac0 -
Ranking history
I am having trouble on getting a ranking history for some of my keywords. Is this feature still working? thanks
Keyword Research | | cardif1 -
What Keyword reasearch tools are you using?
I'm finding the Google tool to be inadequate for our needs. Does anyone have any suggestions of a better tool out there.
Keyword Research | | Xcellimark0 -
Best keyword research tool
Okay, what is the BEST keyword research tool? I've heard all across the board, but I'm looking for preferrably a free tool, but just want to use one that can do competitive research, as well as find me a ton of long tail.
Keyword Research | | azguy0 -
How do I figure out which keyword to optimize for?
What's up guys! We run a site for tennis players and courts in the whole country - http://www.tennisround.com/. People use the site to find a tennis partner at their skill level and send each other invites to set up matches, it's also used to find local tennis courts. The question is - Which keyword(s) should we optimize the site for and how? Cheers, Alex 7h1HKYL_jJ0 sYaQH 7h1HKYL_jJ0 sYaQH 7h1HKYL_jJ0
Keyword Research | | tennisround0