How many keywords should I target?

[Martin N Smith]

I've been given soooo many different answers regarding this question. Some say 3, some say 300.

I have a fairly large website, content wise.

Your thoughts / advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers
Martin

[SaSeoPete]

Martin, I usually only target one keyword per page. If you have a large website, you will be able to target a lot of keywords, try stick to one per page though.

[Martin N Smith]

cheers Pete, so let's say I have a website with 100 pages, are you saying that I should target 100 keywords throughout the entire website?

I was sort of going down the route of 15 keywords (long and short tail) across the 100 pages....

Have screwed up with this strategy?

Cheers
Martin

[Agnel]

Increasing the visibility of the website in the search engines. Best practice is targeting one kw per page.

If you are targeting many kws for the website better you can optimize the every kw for per page. I hope this way would be useful for you.

Thanks

[hunter29]

Hi,

I believe that quality, not quantity, is the focus of targeting keywords. There is no specific rules for how many keywords and phrases you need to target. And, my piece of advice is before you start to make a list of your targeted keywords, you need to understand your target audience who are looking for your specific products or services online.

[tommen]

I target one keyword per article I write.With a blog, you can target a few keywords and write articles on these keywords.

[Martin N Smith]

this is great stuff - thanks again guys...

Martin

[SaSeoPete]

Originally Posted by SaSeoPete

Martin, I usually only target one keyword per page. If you have a large website, you will be able to target a lot of keywords, try stick to one per page though.

Nope you havent screwed up at all. You could really make this work for you.

Choose one of those pages that you would really like to rank for. This might be your best article with the most conversions or whatever. Then use the other pages on the same keyword to interlink to that main page. This way you are channeling your PR to your "money" page.

Also, you'll start to get traffic from keywords you never even thought people would type into search engines.

Pete

[Martin N Smith]

Originally Posted by SaSeoPete

Nope you havent screwed up at all. You could really make this work for you.

Choose one of those pages that you would really like to rank for. This might be your best article with the most conversions or whatever. Then use the other pages on the same keyword to interlink to that main page. This way you are channeling your PR to your "money" page.

Also, you'll start to get traffic from keywords you never even thought people would type into search engines.

Pete

nice one Pete - thanks again. What's your take on interlinking? By that I mean should I link the actual keyword text from each page into the 'money' page or just include a line at the bottom of each content page that says something like...

For more information on X, please see our other articles here

[SaSeoPete]

Originally Posted by Martin N Smith

nice one Pete - thanks again. What's your take on interlinking? By that I mean should I link the actual keyword text from each page into the 'money' page or just include a line at the bottom of each content page that says something like...

For more information on X, please see our other articles here

You definitely want to link your keyword. No "click here" text. UNLESS you want a strong call to action phrase at the bottom to entice users to click, e.g. To Lose Weight Fast, Click Here - or whatever.

When your keyword is in the main body of the article you want to link that to the main page. Also, I am sure that the other keywords you are targeting will pop up in some of these articles as they will be themed. You should link those to your other aticles on the targeting that keyword.

[Martin N Smith]

okay cool - thanks again Pete

[dzoaffiliate]

I have tested several senarios and i suggest you do the same because what works for one site may not work for you. Having said that I usually have 1-3 keywords per page. Anymore and your QS may go down or Google may see it as spam. Main KW should be the Title <h1> tag.

[Martin N Smith]

Originally Posted by dzoaffiliate

I have tested several senarios and i suggest you do the same because what works for one site may not work for you. Having said that I usually have 1-3 keywords per page. Anymore and your QS may go down or Google may see it as spam. Main KW should be the Title <h1> tag.

is that the meta title AND H1, sometimes they can be different?

Thanks
Martin

[sonamlama]

Hey Martin,

You should stick to one Keyword and post that Keyword twice in your title headline to gain more attention from Google, which will increase your rankings. As you proceed onto your body you should insert your keywords in as many places you feel would be most effective. Most importantly, you should insert all the keywords in your tag to increase your chances of beating out the competition to become ranked on google.

So, I highly recommend one keyword and use the strategies above, as this will optimize your keyword's chances of securing the rank that it deserves.

Hope this provided some insight and help for you.


-Sonam

[Kappa]

For my blog, I have about 5 keywords targeted but it grew from only one keyword. The other keywords are the primary keyword phrase without spaces, and with .com, and .tv attached, as well as a common misspelling. They are closely related but have different search results. I would hone in and start with just one keyword phrase per page as others have said, and expand as you have the time and energy. You'd be surprised how many people try to put a phrase without spaces, or part of a url into the browser, so definitely don't limit yourself.

[Splinter]

Originally Posted by SaSeoPete

When your keyword is in the main body of the article you want to link that to the main page. Also, I am sure that the other keywords you are targeting will pop up in some of these articles as they will be themed. You should link those to your other aticles on the targeting that keyword.

I wanted to discuss this further so created a new topic here.

Interlinking and cross linking articles or web pages

[Amenda Jessera]

My advice is to stick with 3-5 keywords very first. Once you get good traffic, then you can go for more keywords, That will be more profit