How to target very broad, umbrella keywords on the homepage

[Tendea]

Hey there SEO Mozzers,

I'm new to the SEO Moz community and would genuinely appreicate any advice/input on this topic.

I'm part of the online marketing team for a UK-based site called Tendea.co.uk. We operate an introductory platform for enabling the connection between parents and families seeking care services (childcare, pet care, senior care, home & garden care, etc.) and individuals providing care services (babysitters, nannies, pet sitters, housekeepers, etc.).  To take a US site for comparison, the services are very similar to those offered by Care.com

I'm currently having a bit of difficulty as to what very broad, umbrella keywords we should be targeting for the homepage, primarily in the meta title/description.  We've started with keywords such as "care, family services, care services, and family care", but I think these terms are almost too generic and aren't necessarily terms we really want to be ranking for.  I suggested to our in-house SEO team that we just target some of our strongest keywords from each of the individual care categories for the homepage (babysitter, pet sitter, housekeeper, caregiver, etc.).  They were against this idea, though, as we have separate subfolders that target the individual care categories and their specific keywords (tendea.co.uk/childcare, /pet-care, /elderly-care, etc.)  Essentially the argeument is that we don't want to be targeting these terms on the homepage and on a separate subfolder page, as then the two pages would be competing for each other's keywords.  Instead we're being encouraged to find some sort of umbrella terms to target for the home page that can encompass all of the care categories.

For comparison's sake, I took a look at Care.com's meta data and it targets all their specific keywords for the various care categories "Babysitters, nannies, Child Care & Senior Home care - Care.com".  Is this the right kind of strategy to take, or do you guys have any suggestions for much broader, umbrella keywords to target on our homepage?  Thanks in advance for your input!

-Mike

[CPLDistribution]

Fair point. I will try and do a quick bit of keyword research later as it may be useful to get an outsiders perspective.

[Tendea]

Thanks for your response and that great blog article by Rand (hadn't found that one yet!).

I absolutely agree with you - we want our users to be landing on our subfolders where the content is geared at exactly what they're looking to find (childcare, pet care, senior care, etc.).  Our subfolders are, I believe, in pretty good shape in terms of content and keyword targeting.  Nevertheless, it's still important to get the homepage to rank for something, especially because that's where 99% of links will point to.  I guess I'm still struggling with what broad terms we can use on the homepage that we can still realistically rank for.  As I mentioned, we started with things like "family care" and "family services", but those keywords usually rank for content that has nothing to do with the kind of services we offer.  Rand's example is simply constructed, starting with comics and breaking it down from there.  Unfortunately our site's services don't lend themselves to some kind of no-brainer, broad umbrella term.   I guess I just need to do a bit more broad keyword research and leave the specific keyword targeting to the subfolders.

[CPLDistribution]

This is a great question and something I have pondered over on several occasions.

In my opinion I would say focus on a couple of broad keywords on your homepage rather than trying to target loads of different keywords for each service you offer.

The main reason being that you want users to land on the sub folder were the content is focused around their search query as they will be more likely to convert than if they land on a generic page and have to navigate through the site to find the relevant content.

The below blog may be helpful:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-targeting-how-to-employ-multiple-keywords-for-seo-conversions