Just how many Keywords do you typically use on a website???

Do you mean:

"How many times do you use a phrase, or how many different keyword phrases do you use?"

I do my keyword research before writing any content so that I know what phrases need to be used, and then i make sure to use it if it fits. I won't sacrifice quality though just to stuff the phrase in a few more times.

I may use use a few different long tail keywords if they fit but again I won't sacrifice quality for phrases,

In terms of one word keywords, thousands like {Diet, Calcium, Protein}

In terms of very long tail keyphrases there are millions of combinations like
{Which DIET pills are best for weight loss}
{Do CALCIUM supplements help prevent osteoporosis}
{What PROTEIN shakes build muscle mass the fastest}

I agree with Ed.

Use one (long tail) keyword phrase per page or post. Just make sure your keyword is in your title and don't worry about the rest.

One keyword phrase per page (not per site). (or 2-3 very very similar keyword phrases)
Most of the time I use one keyword phrase for the home page as well. Depending on the site and your SEO strategies you might want to use up to 3 phrases for the home page.

Search for the SILO Site Structure. It's good if you plan to have more than a couple of pages on your site.

It looks like your <title> tag is vitally important. Make sure the keyword(s) you want to rank for are in the first four words of your title tag.

Also, make sure you remember to put <alt> and <title> tags on all your images. Clickable links can have a <title> tag, too. Use 'em. They work!

I've had good results using just one or at most two related main keywords on the same page. Use a short title with the main keywords. Sometimes it's possible to work in two related keywords in the title but don't add a lot of extra words to do it.

As for the rest of the page just write good natural content without trying to include a big list of researched keywords. That's going to sacrifice quality and will not make a big SEO impact anyway. But vary your lingo, use synonyms and be sure to discuss closely-related issues.

By doing this your content is going to naturally include scores of longtail phrases and associated keywords. I frequently check my "Came from" or "referral" logs and I'm always amazed at the number and variety of longtail phrases my visitors find me with (and often on the first page of the search engines).

Many of these phrases are ones that I've never thought of nor seen appear in keyword tools. Just goes to show that a lot of keyword research is bogus.

I'd heard somewhere that Meta tags were becoming less important.

The <title> tag should be different for each page on your site.

The <description> tag should also be different on each page of your site.

These are the only to META tags that Google considers. The <title> tells Google what the page is about. The <description> will most usually be what people see in the search results.

I only design for Google. I don't have time to worry about the other engines that, in my opinion, pretty much follow Google's lead eventually anyway.

Finding good key phrases can be a chore, but the results can be great. You really need to burrow down to find longtail key phrases. It takes considerable time and effort to find good ones. It's both an art and a science.

For most people, I recommend they just write good content without worrying much about keyword content in the page. The keywords will naturally be included if there is enough text.

Where your keywords are located on the pages is important. We call that "proximity". Try to put the keywords near or at the beginning of the text on the page. You can also put a nice keyword headline for the text in <h2> tags if you already have a major key phrase in the <h1> tag.

It's not easy, guys. But it can be worth the effort.

I disagree with just about everything on this page, except the title tag, which is NOT a meta tag.

Let's get one thing straight, and it is factual and beyond debate: EVERY WORD ON YOUR PAGE IS A KEYWORD! The exceptions are stop words, such as the, in, an, a, but, to, etc.

There's no <keyword> tag on the pages (not counting met tags), so Google doesn't know what the keywords are for a page. Instead, it parses the entire page, putting all words contained into a "text vector".

This means every word you put on a page can interact with every other word to create limitless combinations of keyword phrases.

Here's what I do, and have done for 12 years: When you do your keyword research, you break your keywords into 3 categories:

Prime - About 12-30 of the BEST keywords, acccording to my research - I want to "pound away" on these. I want to use them time and time again, over and over, every where I can put them.

Secondary - About 100 (or so) of the next best keywords.

Leftovers - These are keywords that seem to have some value, but aren't really worth focusing on.

I will only use one or two prime keywords per page, in all the "usual" SEO places, and this most of us will agree on.

I'l then use as many secondary keywords as I can add to a page and still have it read naturally.

For left over keywords, I try to get any number of them onto the pages, using any number of methods.

This will automatically take care of LSI, if done correctly.

The truth is, about 1/2 of all search queries are "one of a kind", unique, searches and don't use "keyword phrases" we'll find in our research. And half of all searches, Google struggles to come up with results that are accurate.

If your pages use many different keyword phrases, then you are more likely to rank high for any obscure searches that take place, and again, these obscure searches make up about 50% of all searches.

In reality, keywords aren't on your pages, they are what is entered into Google(SEs). Google then tries to find pages with the words that match the keywords entered.

And since every word has a chance to draw traffic, I suggest using as many keywords on pages as possible, while maintaining the integrity of the page.

Those that say focus on one keyword are doing two things:
1. Saying LSI doesn't exist.

2. Discount the potential of unique search terms.

Here's my over-simplified SEO strategy I've used for 12 years:
Put as many words on as many pages as possible. Link to those pages.

This is how you get TRAFFIC. If you want rankings, optimize for one keyword phrase. If you want traffic, use as many words as possible.

Kurt, that is an awesome post. I too was about to reply that I focus on one keyword per content page...which is true. But what you're describing is my overall strategy, so I suppose I don't actually just focus on the one keyword as I do use LSI and optimize in a similar way to what you describe.

Hi Greg,

"Best" is a relative term, and each person needs to decide what is best for themselves.

There are 3 things that determine the value of a keyword:
Demand (number of searches)
Supply (number of competiting sites)
Value (Determined by the number of advertisors, and/or the amount paid for PPC)
A newer person should probably concentrate on keywords/phrases with lower competition (supply), compared to a more experience person, who should be more inclined to focus on more competitive, higher traffic, higher paying keywords.

Even if you go for low competitio keywords, they must still have some searches and value.

The key is to use one system, such as word tracker or nichebot, or any other resource and stick with it. You can't compare numbers from different sources. I prefer nichebot.

A person has to start somewhere, and as Gen. Patton said, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow". So, use the KEI when first starting out. KEI is far from perfect, but you have to start somewhere. If you are really weak on SEO, run the keywords through my Inz Tuel to find the keywords with the weakest SEO comeptition.

Divide the list into the 3 groups above, (prime, secondary, leftovers) based on the research, until you have a list of about 500 keywords.

Once you start getting some success, you use your own real life-results as your prime-secondary keywords. Sometimes this will match your initial research pretty well, other times it won't.

I usually use the keyowords in the title and then again every 100 words or so but I would not stress about it too much. Having it in the title is the main thing. If you use your keyowrds too many times this can be a turn off to search engines