Keyword distribution in the whole site
-
I've been taught during a SEO course that the whole site has to contain the chosen keywords with a fixed proportion of optimized pages, that should be like this:
50% of pages optimized on the most relevant keyword (just one keyword)
25% of pages optimized on secondary kewords (depending on the size of the site, could be a few pages for each secondary keywords)
25% of pages on long tail keywords.
the teachers was a very respected SEO professional, but I've never seen this strategy anywhere in other articles or SEO guides.
what do you think about it?
It's true that it brings visibility for the top keyword?
does it lead to cannibalization?
what others strategy do you use? -
My definition of relevant in this case is: the keyword is often used in sentences with the term.
If my keyword was cold cereal, the words milk, bowl, and spoon would be relevant. I could then build pages for the long tail search terms:
Cold cereal bowl
how much milk should I put in a cold cereal
What is the best spoon to use with cold cereal
On each of those pages, I would link to my main page which is optimized for the keyword cold cereal using the anchor text "cold cereal", but only if it made sense to me as a user to see that phrase linked. Sometimes you have to be creative in your content copy, but most of the time it can be done and make sense to the end user.
Google is very good at recognizing these relevant keyword patterns.
-
It does make sense. But what is your exact definition of "relevant"? How is the keyword used in the content?
-
It is important you keep in mind the terms relevancy verses optimized. A page can be relevant to a topic (main keyword) without being optimized for that keyword. When this is the case, you can focus on a long-tail keyword for a sub-page and have relevancy for the main keyword. You would then want to link to the main page with the main keyword from the sub-page.
In this case I would say that what you learned in your class is true, keep AT LEAST 50% of the pages RELEVANT to the main keyword, but not optimized to the main keyword.
The end grading factor though is, what works for your site? A lot of SEO is trial and error based upon bsaic principles. Sometimes you just have to try what your gut tells you to do and watch and see if that works, if not try the next idea.
-
it was a one day beginners course, and we was talking about a 100 pages site targeted to national audience (italy) as an example.
but was presented as a general startegy.
Now I'm not a total newbie anymore, I have worked on some sites with goods results using this technique.
Nowadays I'm working on a 100 pages site, targeting to USA whole market. I've find relevant keywords for the market and I'm making decision about pairing pages and keywords.
My question is: is the strategy illustrated good for a site like that? how many pages I have to optimize for each relevant keyword? I have about 30 keywords, and 8 among them are the most importants
-
Hi David,
Build your site for your audience, create good content they will want to read, learn from or simply be entertained by. For on page SEO use the seomoz on page optimization tool and target one keyword per page. You can also use scheema.org to add some meta descriptions, this will helo the search engine determine what you page is about.
For external link building:
50% Anchor branded name / URL
25% Diverse anchor text
25% Exact Match
Hope this helps.
-
The first thing I would take in to consideration is, how much did you pay for the class? Was it a quick one day thing, a couple hours long or a week? How in depth was the instructor able to go? For a complete newbie just getting in to SEO with a small website (4-5 pages) these would be some good tips because it would give them experience optimizing pages and watching a keyword start to climb. With a site that small, it's most likely something that is trying to climb in a local search. In a small populated area doing local SEO, this would work very well to rank in most areas.
There is a possibility this could lead to cannibalization, but it all depends on how you structure the 50% of pages that are "optimized" for the keyword. Ask yourself, "Is there one page that is clearly about my keyword that others reference?"
Other strategy to ask yourself is, "Does it make sense to the user or just the search engine?" Search engines themselves don't buy anything.
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
-
Help! A site has copied my blog!
My site tanked on July 21 and I have been working so hard to bring it back up but nothing is working. Today I looked at "Links to Your Site" on Google Webmasters and I see a copy of my site on another URL. mysite.eemovies.org/mycategory/mypost The domain name is eemovies.org and then all my stuff is wrapped around it and all my content is there! How do I stop this?!
On-Page Optimization | | 2bloggers0 -
Duplicate lower and uppercase keywords
I get significantly different report cards for the same keywords with and without uppercase letters on the same URL. The only difference between the two sets of keywords is the first letters of every keywords, e.g.: "Air freight" - results in an "F"
On-Page Optimization | | DigiTeamatDSV
"air freigth" - results in an "A" Should I stick to lowercase keywords only - and won't the search engines ignore the case anyway?0 -
If I want to rank well on one keyword would it be better to optimize multiple pages on the website for the keyword or should I only optimize one page for that keyword?
If I want to rank well on one keyword would it be better to optimize multiple pages on the website for the keyword or should I only optimize one page for that keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | CustomOnlineMarketing0 -
How would you optimize a news site with no defined keywords in mind
Hi I have setup a news site giving young writers a (paid) place to write mobbly.com but I want to promote it. there is no specific keyword apart from the top of the individual article should I choose some or just let each article do its own thing any advice would be greatly appreciated
On-Page Optimization | | jimsterg1640 -
Content Tabs and Keyword Stuffing
I am in the process of drawing up content templates to guide my company's marketing team in creating SEO optimized content as we move over our retail website to a new platform. On each product page, we will have multiple tabs that are crawl-able, each one containing different chunks of information on the products. Within each tab, I was thinking of breaking up the content and adding SEO value by using headers (h2 or h3) that have a keyword included. So, for example: "How The PRODUCT NAME Works" and "User Manuals for your PRODUCT NAME." Between the multiple tabs, in headers alone, the main keyword for the product (which will usually be the product name) will be on the page 7 times. Between this and the keywords that are part of the actual content (ex: product description), is this too many keyword instances? I know headers are often skimmed or skipped when used to simply break up the content, so I don't think they will impact user experience too much. However, I would love some feedback on if you agree with that and if you think I should cut down on the number of keywords or if I am headed in the right direction. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Keyword Landing Page Transition
We are redesigning the site to launch soon. We are a manufacturer. Our most valuable keyword currently ranks around 8th on Google in a competitive market and responds with a link to our product selection page as the landing URL. This link / URL is currently listed on every site page in a right column menu with the keyword as the anchor text. My concern is that I have redesigned this product selection page, and would like to change its file name to include the keyword as well as use the same keyword anchor text. And to complicate the matter, for political reasons my boss has asked me to consider keeping the old product page available to alleviate board concern (not rational, but may be required). Since the old page shows similar information to the new selection page, if I keep it, I am considering calling it a "Visual Selector" as opposed to the "Product Selector" menu name for the new page. I will list both in a list under the keyword product name on the home page menu and then drop the old selector page link on all other pages to lower visitor confusion. So the alternative choices to proceed are as follows: 1. Keep old and new product selection pages a. Show both on all page menus (Keeps the old page visible to Google, duplicating the current presentation for current keyword landing page) b. Only show old product page on home page menu to alleviate the Board concerns (Keeps the old page visible to Google, but with one link) 2. Get rid of the old product page and redirect URL to new one (our primary keyword would be ranked on its own merit and the current Google ranked page would redirect to the new one) Number 2 is the logical method for users, but I am nervous about dropping and/or redirecting the current landing page which ranks my best keyword at 8th in a competitive market. Your recommendations or comments? What do you predict Google will do in these three scenarios? Hope you can follow this maze... Thanks! George
On-Page Optimization | | rhawk0 -
Spammy keywords on a page
My client's website has a box of text on each page that is spammy and horrible to read and stuffed with keywords. The text boxes are there only for search engines as they mean nothing to humans. I say remove them as it must be doing more harm than good. However, my client is scared to remove them as the text has been there on each page for ten years and he is worried about a drop in visitor numbers if they are removed. Is he right to be worried?
On-Page Optimization | | mascotmike0 -
Number of Pages a Site Contains
Hi, How does the number of pages indexed from a single website affect that websites ability to compete in the SERPS? Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | Jurnii0