Keywords and content query
-
Hi we are in the process of redesigning a web site and I’m looking to ensure each of the pages are correctly optimized. I’m concerned that some of the pages do not allow for text or content . From an optimization perspective is there a general rule around the amount of text a page should have and the amount/ration of keywords they should contain? Any advice would be much appreciated.
-
Great answers guys thanks for getting back to me
-
Hello, I think your question can be broken down like this:
1. Is it a problem if I can't add text/content?
2. Is there a certain word count I should aim for?
3. Is there a specific number of keywords on page I should aim for?So I'll try to answer this as best I can and if you have more questions, just fire back.
1. This could be a problem if the content on page is something you'll need to rank well. It seems counterintuitive to many because "content is king" has been parroted as SEO wisdom for years, but there are times when content is NOT the primary driver of rankings, and the secret is in the intent of the searcher. Think about it like this, if you're searching "best ac repair service near me", you probably just want a short list of the best HVAC companies near you. A 3,000 word article is less helpful here than a short list of the best, and indeed when I run this very search the top 5 results are all lists. The number one result has less than 600 words, but all of them have user generated content in the form of reviews. Another example where content may not matter: "buy golf balls". You're going to get a lot of ecommerce listing style pages that are short on content but allow people to easily buy golf balls. I know this because I just ran this search yesterday to help another Mozzer. But if your page is meant to be informative, you may need the ability to modify, add, or remove content, so this could be a problem. Try to match the searcher's intent with the page and that will help you determine if this is truly an issue.
2. As we just demonstrated in example one, no specific word count is recommended for all queries. However, there was a study performed in September 2016 by Backlinko that analyzed about a million queries and one of their findings was this:
In fact, the average word count of a Google first page result is 1,890 words
This would indicate that longer content is better, but as I discovered early in my career - if you write content just to have the length it will flop. We tried it at scale and wrote the content just to have the length for about 120 websites. It performed the exact same as the content we had before it, which was about 500 words. So don't do that.
3. This one is short and easy. The answer is no. The metric you're referring to is Keyword Density, and it was short lived and shut down back when Matt Cutts was still at Google. The myth lives on but it's a garbage metric that doesn't correlate to success. Avoid using or even referencing this.
Hope that helps, let me know if you need more info.
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
-
Keywords
i have found proper keywords for my site. The site is www.anavasis.gr what is the proper way to have them in my site? Make articles in my site and link them from the homepage like: www.anavasis.gr/keyword-article and put all those links in the footer of my homepage? Which is the best way? thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | anavasis0 -
Targeted keywords for landing pages but keyword has a lot of synonyms, how is the best way to approach this?
I'm trying to target one page for one broad 2 word keyword, however, because our niche revolves around this keyword and it's synonyms, the keyword is used on every other page, thus creating the issue of non-targeted pages taking the rank instead of targeted page. I've thought of using synonyms on each page, so that no one page uses the same keyword, but felt this could be seen as spammy or could just hurt overall relevancy towards the main keyword, thus a loss of rank. I understand page authority also plays a part, but also seems that every page other than the page I want get's targeted.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
I understand it's been asked before, however moz staff is telling me keyword's capitalization is treated as a separate keyword.
So there I was looking through my rankings like every other day, when I see a lowercase and uppercase version of a keyword. Most times I see this, I see them with the same rankings, and even researched this about 5 months ago, when I came to the conclusion that google treats them the same way. However, this day I saw them as different ranks, same keyword, only capitalized 1st letter of the 2 word keyword. I asked moz staff about this, as I felt it was an error. But was met with the answer that google does indeed treat these keywords differently. My line of thought was that the rank checker didn't check both the lowercase and uppercase keyword at the same time, and SERPs happened to change when the second word was checked for rank, returning a different rank. So now, I am in doubt again, as to uppercase and lowercase keywords being different or the same in google's eyes? I honestly don't know why a uppercase keyword would have different motive from searcher than a lowercase when many time not, searchers can't even spell the keyword correctly.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
Should I concentrate keyword ranking locally or nationally?
Hi all, I have spent few last days reading here in community and watching Moz videos about keyword research. I used keywords planner tool. Here is the question. When I researched keywords I took into account search traffic nationwide UK rather then my local search volume. My photography business operates more for local customers rather then nationwide. Does it mean that I need to concentrate on my local city/region search volume rather then nationwide. After I have done Nationwide keyword research I realised that most of those keywords which are with really high search volumes are pretty much non existent in my local search results. I meant to the point that keyword search volume is under 10. Considering that I have small number of pages i could use them for, my guess is that it is no point to target those high search volume keywords as most likely those won't be my clients anyway. I might be getting all this wrong, but wanted to ask here. Thank you all, Regards, Armands
Keyword Research | | A_Fotografy1 -
Keyword research for new website
Hi guys, I'm pretty new to all this so please bare with me if I sound like a total noob. I've been tasked with doing keyword research for our new website to work out what we want to rank for. We are a b2b outsource provider of telecommunication services, contact centres etc. I'm looking for advice on how best to start the keyword research, what I should be looking for etc. At the moment I'm using a list of keywords provided by the sales team, running these through uber suggest for other variations and then putting them through Google's keyword planner. Once I've done that I'm looking at ones with higher volumes of searches with low competition. Is there anything that I'm missing? I'm trying to cross reference this with intent, looking for searches linked to people wanting help, a provider, to buy etc. Thanks in advance for any help guys, I really appreciate it. Leo
Keyword Research | | Leo_Woodhead0 -
How do I make sure my homepage ranks better than my 2nd page when I need the same keywords for both? I don't want them competing against each other for keywords.
I seen here on SeoMoz something about more than one page having the same keywords so they don't compete against each other for the same keywords that makes sense to me. But I would like my main page (homepage) to be ranked better over time rather than the 2nd page or do I just not care about the second page ranking at all and don't SEO the page very well? ,Both pages have similar content so I need the keywords for both. So im very confused on what to do with the second page. Thanks in advance to any helpful answers, i am a newbie when it comes to SEO.
Keyword Research | | DreamKandy0 -
Different pages with same keyword phrase.
I have my home page and an interior page targeting the same keyword phrase. Is this ok or would they be competing with each other?
Keyword Research | | WillWatrous0 -
Local Keyword Strategy
Good morning! I'm working on building out a new website for a regional insurance agency specializing in auto insurance for high risk drivers (ex. Tickets, Accidents, Dui's, etc.). Due to the competitive nature of our industry, I believe it is best to focus on very localized long tail keywords, instead of broad terms I don't have any chance of ranking for. Our keyword research indicates that there is an opportunity to optimize and potentially rank for keywords that include geographic modifiers for towns and cities within a roughly 50 mile radius. The problem is, there is only so much you can say about auto insurance. On the one hand, I would like to have individual landing pages for each keyword phrase. On the other hand, I don't want to look manipulative to Google or hurt user experience by creating a bunch of pages with relatively similar content. Can anyone offer some advice on how I can structure the site/content to optimize for each geographic modifier without having lots of pages that are very similar? Thank you!
Keyword Research | | matthewbyers0