undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Primary versus secondary keyword

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Primary versus secondary keyword

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
10
13.9k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • seoanalytics
    seoanalytics last edited by Jan 11, 2018, 7:34 AM

    Hello,

    Can someone give a example of what primary and secondary keywords are and how to implement that in a sentence ?

    Thank you,

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
    • Nigel_Carr
      Nigel_Carr @seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 4:05 PM Jan 12, 2018, 4:01 PM

      Hi seoanalytics

      I have spent hours trying to help you on this thread and the other two or three you have started! I have patiently answered every question you have asked, in detail. If you still don't understand what I am saying after acres and acres of help and advice then that's it from me.

      https://moz.com/community/q/sentences-rdf-format

      https://moz.com/community/q/asking-a-natural-question-in-h-tags

      https://moz.com/community/q/bolded-words-in-search-results

      https://moz.com/community/q/user-intent-and-ranking

      This comment is simply idiotic, but more than that it is insulting:

      "I have more chances of winning the lottery than ranking..."

      Please don't bother me again.

      Have a good weekend.

      Nigel

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • seoanalytics
        seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 2:43 PM Jan 12, 2018, 2:43 PM

        I am trying but let's be honest I have more chances of winning the lottery than ranking...

        It is a matter of what words goes with which word surrounded by other words and only the computer know that, doesn't it ?

        In the past I managed to get from 3 rd page to 3 rd position on a requested keyword just by adding 3 lines of text and the reason was just that the words used correlated well with the other words but honestly this was luck.

        If someone has a technic that works that isn't luck I can't wait to hear it 🙂

        Nigel_Carr 1 Reply Last reply Jan 12, 2018, 4:01 PM Reply Quote -1
        • Nigel_Carr
          Nigel_Carr @seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 9:12 AM Jan 12, 2018, 9:12 AM

          I have no idea what Alchemy API is.

          No, write your own content with your own researched keywords.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • seoanalytics
            seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 8:54 AM Jan 12, 2018, 8:54 AM

            How about I I used alchemy api and use all the keywords of someone ranking 1 st to write my text, could it also work ?

            Nigel_Carr 1 Reply Last reply Jan 12, 2018, 9:12 AM Reply Quote 0
            • Nigel_Carr
              Nigel_Carr @seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 8:47 AM Jan 12, 2018, 8:47 AM

              Hi seoanalytics

              I think you get the idea. I'm not saying that tablet is a perfect synonym for laptop but I think you do understand what I am saying!

              Good luck with it

              Regards

              Nigel

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • seoanalytics
                seoanalytics last edited by Jan 12, 2018, 6:49 AM Jan 12, 2018, 6:49 AM

                Thank you for sharing the link about rank brain.

                I do understand that it isn't necessary to pepper my content with all the possiblity semantically connected keywords are it won't look natural. However, from what I understand the idea is still to use those semantically connected keyword but naturally.

                For example about Laptop chargers if I wrote a sentence like this would ok ? I have used semantically related keyword such as voltage, battrary, tablet and transformer.

                "Laptop charger come with different voltages, 110 and 220. Once you have selected the battery that matches the voltage of your tablet you are good to go. If you can't find the correct voltage by a transformer and then plug it in. "

                Nigel_Carr 1 Reply Last reply Jan 12, 2018, 8:47 AM Reply Quote 0
                • Nigel_Carr
                  Nigel_Carr last edited by Jan 11, 2018, 4:21 PM Jan 11, 2018, 4:19 PM

                  Hi seoanalytics

                  The whole area of primary and secondary keywords (or Keyphrases) has largely been overtaken by Google's new Rankbrain AI system of determining themes and relevancy. So don't think in terms of these terms - also please don't listen to anyone focusing too heavily on LSI's as these have mostly been debunked as a load of flannel used by SEO's to impress, although leading SEO Brian Dean still insists that they have some effect on SEO. If you start researching LSI's you will end up in a rabbit hole from which you will never emerge! to advise - 'use your primary keyword a couple of times is nonsense'.

                  Think of your website like this:

                  Each page represents a theme - for example as Alick300 has used 'Laptop chargers' You need to think about writing chunky, relevant content around the term 'Laptop Chargers' but you do not need to mention every 'secondary keyword' you can think of to pepper the text with. Write compelling copy using semantically connected words like batteries within the content.

                  By all means, search related terms like batteries, tablets and transformers (are they still a thing?) but if you think in the way of 'Primary keywords' and 'secondary keywords' you will risk overusing certain terms, not having free-flowing writing and turning your intended customer into a brief visitor. Think of the use of synonyms as well - (the Bike/Bicycle analogy is a good one).

                  Modern SEO is about writing semantically connected and lexically relevant content in such a way that you engage your website visitor and ultimately convert them into customers. The more you engage, the longer the 'dwell time' and the more you satisfy user intent.

                  Have a read of Brian's latest post on Rankbrain - it's pretty brilliant and you should come away inspired!

                  https://backlinko.com/google-rankbrain-seo

                  There is no way of outsmarting Google by determining and hoofing in endless keywords and phrases. Modern content needs to be well written with perfect grammar and spelling and theme focused.

                  Also, break it down into easily readable chunks - this helps the user to stay engaged as opposed to being lost in long paragraphs. Pretty much like I have here.

                  Use Google search box to help and 'related search terms' at the bottom of the page to find semantically related phrases.

                  I hope this helps,

                  Regards

                  Nigel

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • NickW816
                    NickW816 last edited by Jan 11, 2018, 11:55 AM Jan 11, 2018, 11:55 AM

                    Great answer Alick300! I would also add that the primary keyword and secondary keywords (sometimes referred to as LSI keywords) should all work together to help the search intent of the user. Writing longer, quality content that naturally uses your primary keyword a couple times and a ton of secondary keywords that still relate to your primary is a great way to get a page ranked quicker than normal.

                    For example if your a handyman that wants to rank for electrician + "your city", it's helpful to talk about electrical repairs, panel installations, electrical service, house wiring, etc. integrating this secondary keywords into your page not only helps your ranking for electrician + "your city", but also electrical repairs + "your city", panel installations + "your city", etc.

                    Nick White
                    SEO Services KC
                    https://seo-kansas-city.com/

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • Alick300
                      Alick300 last edited by Jan 11, 2018, 11:34 AM Jan 11, 2018, 11:34 AM

                      Hi,

                      Primary keywords are the main keywords for which you want to rank. You are optimizing this keyword so that you can rank in Search engines. e.g Laptop chargers has the highest search volume

                      Secondary keywords mean those keywords which plays supporting role.

                      E.g Laptop batteries and chargers and Universal laptop chargers

                      Hope this helps.

                      Thanks

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Spiros.im

                        Will I loose from SEO if I rename my urls to be more keyword friendly?

                        As a good practice of SEO is to have your keywords in the links. I am thinking of doing some optimization and change my urls to more effective keywords. I am using shopify and there is an option (a tick) that you can check while changing the url (ex. for a category, for a product, for a blog post). This will give a redirection to the old post to the new. Is it good practice? Is it risky for losing SEO or it will help to rank higher because I will have better keywords in my links?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 2, 2019, 11:39 AM | Spiros.im
                        0
                      • seoanalytics

                        Fresh page versus old page climbing up the rankings.

                        Hello, I have noticed that if publishe a webpage that google has never seen it ranks right away and usually in a descend position to start with (not great but descend). Usually top 30 to 50 and then over the months it slowly climbs up the rankings. However, if my page has been existing for let's say 3 years and I make changes to it, it takes much longer to climb up the rankings Has someone noticed that too ? and why is that ?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 2, 2021, 12:48 PM | seoanalytics
                        0
                      • emarketer

                        Why my website disappears for the keywords ranked, then reappears and so on?

                        Hello to everyone. In the last 2 weeks my website emorroidi.imieirimedinaturali.it has a strange behavior in SERP: it disappears for the keywords ranked and then reappears, and so on. Here's the chronicle of the last days: 12/6: message in GWT: Improvement of the visibility of the website in search. 12/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked 16/6 the website reappears for all the keywords ranked with some keywords higher in ranking 18/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked 22/6 the website reappears for all the keywords ranked 24/6 the website disappears for all the keywords ranked... I can't explain this situation. Could it be a penalty? What Kind? Thank you.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 16, 2016, 10:17 PM | emarketer
                        0
                      • Kingalan1

                        What Constitutes Keyword Stuffing?

                        Greeting MOZ Community: I have been attempting to add certain keywords phrases to the home page text of our real estate web site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). When I check the keyword density and look at the keyword cloud, the frequency of certain terms appear substantially higher than they should be (see attached keyword cloud and keyword density chart.  Certain terms like "office space" have a 5 or 6% frequency which seems high. Last thing we need is a Panda penalty. When I viewed the code for the home page (see enclosed), I noticed HREF tags, SRE tags and ALT tags repeating certain keyword phrases, driving up their density. I have attached a keyword cloud for the home page of a competitor and the use of language seems more diverse. Does Google take the text in these various tags into account? I know the ALT tag is important for SEO, but how about the others? Does the use of text in the tags for this page make the overall page look spammy? Also, there are text and tags for the carousel in the home page that appear in the code for the home page. If this code were somehow concealed, would we be better off from an SEO perspective? Thanks, Alan pkM7CZG 1DFFMZ0

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 8, 2014, 12:55 AM | Kingalan1
                        0
                      • RG_SEO

                        Will multiple domains from the same company rank for the same keyword search?

                        I'm trying to convince people that we need good marketing reasons for starting multiple domains, as it will be more difficult to rank multiple sites. Does anyone know if Google actively discourages multiple domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same keyword? We are creating a separate content website which is related to an existing company website. Would you agree that is best to have these sites on one domain with the content site on a sub-domain perhaps? I'm worried about duplication of effort and cross-keyword targeting in particular. These sites would not have duplicate content.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 18, 2013, 7:33 PM | RG_SEO
                        0
                      • Travis-W

                        Ending URLs in .html versus /

                        Hi there! Currently all the URLs on my website, even the home page, end it .html, such as http://www,consumerbase.com/index.html Is this bad?
                        Is there any benefit to this? Should I remove it and just have them end with a forward slash?
                        If I 301 redirect the old .html URLs to the forward slash URLs, will I lose PA? Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 21, 2013, 5:24 PM | Travis-W
                        0
                      • salvyy

                        Exact keyword URL or not?

                        Hi all, I have a quick question about the proper use of permalinks. Let's say that I have a website about sports and I want to create an internal page dedicated to shoes. I know that the keyword "shoe" has 15.000 monthly visits, while the keyword "shoes" has 1.000 monthly visits. How do I have to name the internal page? http://www.example.com/shoe or http://www.example.com/shoes (with a final 's')? I would think that by naming the URL http://www.example.com/shoes, the search engine would consider that page for the keywords "shoe" and "shoes", but I am not sure about it. Should I create a URL that only focuses on one specific keyword ("shoe", in this example) or a URL that may encompass more than one keyword ("shoe" and "shoes")? I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time and help. All best, Sal

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 14, 2012, 9:20 PM | salvyy
                        0
                      • ATMOSMarketing56

                        How to Target Keyword Permutations

                        I have a client that wants to rank for a keyword phrase that has many permutations.. ex. "Alaska Hill Country Resort", "Hill Country Resort Alaska", "Hill Country Alaska Resort" But I'm wondering if I should target these all on the same page or not. I'm assuming all of these permutations are actually valid searches because I did my keyword research for 'exact match' keywords and got results like this.. (let me know if I'm missing something here, or if this sounds right) [Alaska Hill Country Resort] - 230 Local Searches [Hill Country Resort Alaska] - 140 Local Searches [Hill Country Alaska Resort] - 30 Local Searches The phrase we're targeting is their main keyword phrase, so I've chosen their home-page as the page to rank for this phrase. My thought is to optimize for the most popular phrase (ex. "Alaska Hill Country Resort"), and sprinkle in the other phrases throughout the copy. Next I would run a link-building campaign targeting the main phrase first.. then the next phrase, and so on, so that my anchor text is more heavily focused on the more popular terms, but I would also make sure to include the less popular terms. Do you think this is the best way to go about this? Do I really need to make individual pages for each of the permutations, or is it okay to target them all on one page since they are essentially the same keyword?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 6, 2012, 3:52 PM | ATMOSMarketing56
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.