How many keywords should I target?
-
Hi there
I'm looking for advice from the community on how many keywords to target. What are the pros and cons of:
-
focussing on the 40 keywords that we rank for already, with specific attention paid to those where we are on pages 2-5.
-
Spread our link building / onsite optimisation work a little further - and continue to target all 280 keywords on our list as and when they are appropriate to target.
I'd love to hear what strategies people recommend.
Thanks
-
-
Every day I work to produce new content that will expand my keyword reach. Every day.
-
Thanks everyone for your comments - I will report back in a couple of months!
-
Thanks Chris - I think you're right. I was spreading myself too thin before!
-
Thanks Philipp - makes perfect sense and was the direction I was leaning anyway!
-
The hardest part about what you're proposing is effort dilution. Say you have 10 people working your 40 keywords. That's 4 keywords per person (this is oversimplified for the sake of argument). Now you're proposing by increasing their load 7 times to 28 keywords per person. Do you think that you will get the same quality of work? The answer is a likely "No" and you might not realize that until your rankings tank (which is part of what happened where I work).
The first thing I would do is categorize your 280 words. I use three categories
- Primary - This is an important word to our site. It needs to be prominent in the site (titles, H1, etc). If it's a phrase it should appear together in nearly all circumstances.
- Secondary - This word is less important but still important. If it's a phrase it needs to appear together whenever possible but it does not have to unless there is a page focused on it. In some cases this might be a shorter version of a primary phrase (i.e. "spinning widgets" is encompassed by a page on "spinning blue widgets")
- Tertiary - These are typically long tail words. They have no focus page and are not a primary focus but we want the traffic. The phrase mostly does not appear together but the words should be sprinkled where appropriate. Here we expect the search engine to do the work of pulling the words together
Once you've categorized your keywords you can then look at your site with "SEO glasses" and begin to structure your site and content to use the keywords in a meaningful manner.
-
Hi Heather,
There is no correct answer to this, but personally I would work on a manageable set at a time. Try grouping them and create content and optimise accordingly. The unfortunate thing about working on many keywords at a time is that your effort becomes diluted.
Hope this helps.
Dan
-
Your decision on how many keywords to focus on at one time could depend one how much content your site already has, what time frames your business objectives call for, and how many woman-hours per week you have to put towards it.
Often, it is better to be spending money that you do have than money that you don't, which would lead you towards going after low-hanging fruit first (option 1) so that you're seeing the faster ROI that that can bring. Then prioritize the creation/optimization of content for the rest of the project in segments according to remaining business objectives or product/service profitability,
-
Hi Heather
I think those 2 options are not exclusive. First focus on your top 40 keywords as you suggested. In a next step, by all means target further keywords. The point is that you'll probably have to create extra content so you won't be able to expand to 280 keywords in one go. But try to integrate those in your content planning to prioritize content that promises lots of search traffic.
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
-
URL Indexing with Keyword
Hi, My webpage url is indexed in Google but don't show when searching the Main Keyword. How can i index it with keyword. It should show on any SERP when the keyword is searched. Any suggestions.
Technical SEO | | green.h1 -
Please take a look at my keyword usage
Hi All, Traffic to few pages of my site is dipping from last couple of months. When I analyzed one of the web page (http://ow.ly/IEkt307dfNr) in Moz tools, it is warning that the keyword "dance classes" is used excessively in the page (30+ times). But, it is used in genuine manner; because that page is a listing page of "dance class teachers" who provide the service, we added "dance classes" under each of the provider. It helps users to connect with the teach easily. Is this okay or will it fall under keyword stuffing? Should I change something?
Technical SEO | | Avinash_12340 -
Question about keywords on multiple pages
Hello all great to be apart of this community, My question is: I am trying to rank for two separate "two keyword" searches which are "BBB boost" and "ZZZ boost" I am planning to put "ZZZ boost" on my homepage/landing, and "BBB boost" on my second page where the end user actually purchases said product. "ZZZ boost" - receives around 22,000 monthly searches and "BBB boost" - around 5000 monthly searches Because each of these share the one keyword "boost" in them, will it affect my ability to rank for even one page on the "two keyword" phrase? Or will it cause both pages to come up in the google search results on either "two keyword" phrase because they share the same word "boost" in them? If so does that affect the ability to rank 1 page since they share the same domain name, will it divide page ranking/serp ranking?
Technical SEO | | zerk890 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
How to target similar keywords for Main Category / Sub Categories?
Hi all, This is from an on-site point of view for an ecommerce site - Just looking for a bit of advice about how i can create different pages for similar keywords, by this i mean lets say i have 4 categories: Main Category = High Definition Sub Cat 1 = High Definition Camera Sub Cat 2 = High Definition Recorder Sub Cat 3 = High Definition Kits First lets focus on the Main Category: Would you not want to mention Camera / recorder / kits in any of the main category title / meta tags / h tags etc? From a navigation point of view its impossible not to have those words mentioned there, and from a product point of view obviously the "cameras" are going to be on the main category page also... Obviously we can create some written content also, which i presume again would be best not to mention cameras / recorders / kits? OR would it be wise to mention them, but link to those pages? NOW if we look at a Sub Category - Say 1 (Camera) Now obviously everywhere we type in "high definition camera" we are typeing in the keyword for the main category, so is there anyway to limit the effect of this, so that a sub category wouldnt rank above a main category for its keyword... for example if we were to make sure any time the word "high definition" is mentioned in title / meta / h tags, or any specific written content that the word "camera" is directly after it... Also, perhaps in the content of all three sub categories make sure 1 (or would you advise more) link to the main category using keyword "high definition"? Any advice on the above would be greatly appreciated... Also bare in mind i am talking about on site only, i'm just thinking from a creating the page point of view, i know we can try and force the issue afterwards with a few backlinks etc.. On a different note, a simple question... When you do a site:mysite.com search in google... is the list google then presents you in order of how "important" googls see's the pages on that site? Or is it just hompage then random? thanks James
Technical SEO | | isntworkdull0 -
Old domain vs. New keyword domain - Thoughts?
Okay. I'd like to get opinions as to what everyone thinks about domains lately. Here is any example: The current domain is general in nature, in fact, it's a persons name because they are a real estate agent. So the domain is something like JohnDoe.com. Current stats: Has approx. 130 linking domains pointing to it. Has over 300 incoming links from these linking domains. The link profile is clean and not spammy (not to say there are not a few that might be here and there) Was bough in 1994 The new domain would have very little value except it would be keyword rich such as PortlandHomesForSale.com (just an example). What are your thoughts. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JordanRussell0 -
What if my brand name is my keyword?
Referencing the new 'over optimization' penalties.. What if your company name was "Buy a Burrito" and your website website was buyaburrito.com (not a real site), and your main keyphrase was "buy a burrito". Will Google treat all Branded Terms as exact or phrase match keywords and penalize you?
Technical SEO | | daviddischler0 -
Should you target non-plural if you are ranking highly for plural kw?
Let's say you get a ton of traffic and top ranking for a plural version of a keyword but almost 0 traffic for the non-plural version. Is it a good idea to try to allocate resources to the non-plural version?
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe0