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
-
Keyword ranking fluctuations
Hi For last month my website was ranking to 5 positions for this keyword (Magento Development Company). But recently (28-nov) it's out of 100, some time it's showing on 25 position but not showing in top 5 position. Here is my url (for analysis): https://magnetoitsolutions.com/services/magento-development/ Please explain why my keyword rankings are often not showing in the search listings. Note: There are some other keywords of different pages start getting ranking drop. please let me know is there anything i need to change. Thank
Technical SEO | | harrysamson0 -
We lost ranking for balers keywords for sinobaler.com site, What could be wrong?
From recent marketing, I have checked the backlinks droped down a lot, and some main keywords ranking also drop. How can fix this issue?
Technical SEO | | SINOBALER_Baler0 -
Can hosting blog posts with keyword anchor text on outbound links cause a penalty?
My site received a Google penalty for having inbound links from blog posts with over-optimized ("spammy") anchor text. I spent months getting these links removed. Yesterday - I received a link deletion request from a site that my site had linked out to (three links via keyword anchor text relevant to their company) in a blog post. The "unnatural link" penalty still hasn't been removed from my site. My question is: Does the penalty work both ways? For having inbound "unnatural" links ... AND for having outbound "unnatural" links?
Technical SEO | | RedNovaLabs910 -
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 -
Keyword targeting & differentiation between similar keywords
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around keyword targeting when two keywords are very similar. Here's my dilemma, lets just I sell ACE brand Widgets I'm doing well with “ACE Widgets” queries but not “ACE” How do I fix this since “ACE” is already all throughout the results page & supposedly anchor text is playing a less and less significant role in link relevancy so just getting links with “ACE” as the anchor text wouldn't really help (I wouldn't think) Just a little confused. Thanks
Technical SEO | | SheffieldMarketing0 -
New small business.. brand or keyword rich domain?
With so many keyword rich domains in circulation is there actually little option for small business right now other than to use keyword rich domains themselves e.g. (businessname)(keywords).com instead of brand e.g. (businessname.com) where competitors are using keyword rich domains and ranking high? It could be a mis-perception on my part, but, unless you have a very old non keyword domain name, if you don't have a keyword rich domain name in a competitive market you will struggle to succeed unless you have a serious SEO budget. Unless you are the next Google/Facebook/Pepsi isn't branding just a load of BS ? We are ourselves are in a predicament about which domain to use for our own website design business. We have a brand name domain name which is a 4 char domain but we also have a brand+keyword domain and are not 100% which one to use as our primary domain. Perhaps we can use the brand domain as our primary domain and then use the brand+keyword domain as an appropriately constructed single page promotional site, perhaps with unique content which links back to the brand domain? Good idea / Bad idea? I guess the overriding question is, if the content is good enough is the domain name you choose irrelevent to some extent?
Technical SEO | | NeilD0 -
Beating a keyword Domain
Has anyone here managed to beat a keyword/exact match domain to top spot? I am currently second and wondering if it is worth the time and effort to knock it off the top spot. How hard is it to get these very annoyingly favoured domains off 1st? Any help and advice much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Best Strategy For Multiple Geographic Targets
I have a client who operates and gets business from several cities in the same geographic area. Does anyone have suggestions that will allow him to get leads for the same service from multiple cities. Any help appreciated.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0