Do keywords for my homepage matter?

[SEOsolver]

Prob the most n00b question of all, but once I understand this I will be able to research on my own from here:

If a search engine produces results by the keywords from individual website posts/pages, then how are the keywords I choose for my homepage so important if the general homepage meta-tag keywords are essentially ignored by the search engines? Should I repeat my primary keywords on EVERY post, in addition to the ones that relate to that individual post or am I misunderstanding something fundamental?

My new site is http://splatterMUSIC.com and I want to be at the top of the results for anyone wanting to watch music vlogs, album reviews, music lessons, funny music-related videos, new non-major label music videos, and all kinds of other concert footage, etc.

[JimSkychief]

I once used no-follow tags extensively. And at one time there was some encouragement from Google on the use of these tags. Recently I removed all no-follows from the main sections of my sites. The exception is our blog which runs on a WordPress platform. Use of no-follows on purely redundant content is very sensible. Generally, they should not be used to manipulate page rank. You might want to read Matt Cutts commentary on the subject: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

[SEOsolver]

Thanks so much. And I will try all of this. One mention is that I have nofollow tags on my category pages, (such as, http://splattermusic.com/category/reviews/albums/), because I read that allowing the search engines to crawl these pages would dilute my results. But since both of you have recommended this Report Card tool, I will look into it now and study it heavily!!

[JimSkychief]

Hi There!

It is true that you will get no SEO value from your meta keywords. The way to optimize your site is to write original content on the subjects that you want to be ranked for, making sure to use your keywords in a natural manner. It is also important that you NOT over use your keywords within your text. It is a bit of a balanacing act, and can be confusing, but there is help available...

The best tool that I have found - and used with amazing results - can be found right here at seomoz (I'm not paid to say this!). Just run the On-Page Report Card and follow the advice. You will get suggestions on keyword usage, and a whole lot more. I took every suggestion offered and have made it to page one - a move of about 40 spots.

The other thing that you might consider doing, given the diversity of your market, is to create individual pages for each of the services you want to rank for. You can create URLs with your keywords (like www.yourdomain.com/album-reviews.htm) and then optimize each page using the On-Page Report Card.

Good luck!

[SEOsolver]

Thanks you very much for the reply and great info. I'm still a little perplexed though... so by having my individual posts rank well, this will ultimately [over time] lead to my homepage showing in top results of the search engine rankings? Or is the primary goal of all SEO just for individual posts to rank well?

Maybe that's the question I am asking here: should I focus my SEO efforts on individual posts or on the homepage?

[leadsprofi]

Ok, i tell you what to do,instead meta-keywords:

1. Use keyword 1x on the Title

2. Use keyword on "H1" headings one time

3. Start the begining of the paragraph with keyword

4. Add optimized image,the name of image included keyword.jpg

5. Include the video of the song or album,

6. Make a content with a 300 - 600words, a rich content.

7. A very nice design

8. Use the keyword 3-4 times on the 400-600words document.

9, Build inbound links with a right anchor text, to the optimized page.

If you need more informations, if you are a pro member you have this amazing tool of our best seomoz community: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

and the post of randfishkin(the number one seo teach/engineer around the world )

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Best,

MetX