On-Page Optimization Report: How Are Keywords Chosen?

[ScottShrum]

Apologies if this has already been covered 100 times!

Last month I set up a new campaign, and so far the On-Page Optimization tool has only crawled and graded three of my pages so far. I assume it takes time for more pages to be covered?

But, here's my real question: I see that the tool is giving my pages grades based on certain keywords, but the tool itself seems to be deciding which keyword to use in grading each page. To use a made-up example, my example has a page about leather gloves, a page about wool mittens, and a page about cotton mittens. The last one is supposed to be optimized for the keyword "cotton mittens," but the tool is grading it based on how well it's optimized for "wool mittens."

I can go into the drop-down at the top of the page and change the keyword that the page is graded on, and that gives me a new grade, but only for that instance. The next week, the tool is back to giving the page an F for "wool mittens."

Is that because the tool decides that "wool mittens" is the keyword for which the page has the best chance of ranking, no matter what my intentions are? is there any way to permanently tell the tool that I want the page to target "wool mittens" as its main keyword?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[ScottShrum]

Ahhh, I get it now. Joel, I read your first message as "click 'Run This Report' weekly," rather than "click 'Run This Report Weekly.'"

Got it now!

[JoelDay]

You can.

When you select your keyword and enter the URL just click "Run This Report Weekly"

Any reports you no longer wish to see you can click "Stop Running Weekly."

Thanks,
Joel.

[ScottShrum]

Thanks Joel. Ideally we'd be able to tell the tool "I am targeting this keyword with this page, so please only grade it against this keyword," but so be it.

Appreciate your help.

[JoelDay]

Hi there,

Thanks for the question!

The On-Page reports are generally automatically generated for any keywords rankings in the Top 50.

If you want to change the Keyword that it grades for you need to push "Run This Report Weekly" after changing the keyword.

If you have any specific questions I'm happy to address them if you want to email into help@seomoz.org.

I hope that clears some things up. 
Cheers,
Joel.

[SEODinosaur]

The campaign tool is not guessing, it is taking the pages that rank for the term and showing.

If you want to check each page simply use this tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

with the tool provided you can manually check the pages you want and the keywords on them.

It is impossible to get the card to 100% for more then one term however you can get it close.

[ScottShrum]

If that page is ranking for more than one term (to be clear, we're not targeting more than one term), then how does the tool choose which one to grade the page on? Does it choose the keyword for which the page ranks higher?

I just wish we could tell the tool what keyword we're targeting with the page, since right now it's guessing incorrectly.

[SEODinosaur]

** I just wish there were a way to tell the system what keyword we're trying to target with a particular page, rather than the tool pulling a keyword from the list and giving us an unwarranted "F."**

The "F" you are receiving for a page is only there because that page is already ranking in Google for the term you have selected.

For example:

If you set your keyword to "blue cat" in an SEOmoz campaign, it will check your entire website within Googles index. Every page of your site will be checked to see if it ranks in Google for the term "blue cat". SEOmoz will then return your results for the term "blue cat" if you by chance have a random page ranking for the term "blue cat" even if you did not specify the term on that page(target the term) it will show you the page where that term is ranking on the search engine. It will also grade the page for the specified term on the ranking page.

It is not pulling random data.

[ScottShrum]

I recommend using the report card tool for your main keywords and only

targeting one keyword per page... Two max.

Just to clarify, it's not that we're trying to target more than one keyword for this page. It's that we're targeting keyword A, but for some reason SEOmoz wants to rank it for keyword B. Not surprisingly, it's giving us an "F" for this keyword (since, as you have recommended, we're being very single-minded about what keywords the page targets). So, the report isn't that useful since it's showing me low grades for keywords that my pages aren't targeting.

Anyway, I appreciate your response. I just wish there were a way to tell the system what keyword we're trying to target with a particular page, rather than the tool pulling a keyword from the list and giving us an unwarranted "F." We've started to ignore the tool because of this.

[SEODinosaur]

This is not selecting random keywords... It is selecting keywords you chose for your campaign. Then it is telling you where you rank for each of those terms and which page's of your site are showing up in the SERP.

It also gives you your report card grade, just in case you would like to make some additional changes to that page, since it is already ranking for one of your selected keywords.

So your SEOmoz campaign takes your keyword, pulls the page that is ranking for that term and then grades it on which ever page is ranking. Not up to you rather up to the search engine.

I recommend using the report card tool for your main keywords and only targeting one keyword per page... Two max.

[ScottShrum]

Thanks Donnie, but that doesn't really answer my question. My problem is that the tool is automatically choosing what keywords to grade each page on, but it's not choosing the keywords I would choose. It's not a matter of me trying to rank for multiple keywords, but of having one keyword in mind for a page when the tool seems to have another in mind.

It's telling me a page is an "F" for a keyword I don't care about, when I know that I'm actually earning an "A" for the keyword that I want. I'd like the report to remember the keyword that I'm targeting, rather than randomly(?) choosing a keyword from my list and assigning a grade.

[SEODinosaur]

I like to use this report card and only target one or two phrases max per page. just type the keyword phrase you want and which page you want that keyword phrase to rank for, just follow the instructions.

Tip: getting two keywords A's for one page will be extremely challenging.