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Sounds good! You have been very helpful Matt.

I am assuming then that if I wanted to target a few other related keywords I could link from this new page to the these other pages. So for example in "Our Database Developers" page I could link to "Our MS Access Programmers" for more specific content? Or do you think just having one page (i.e. Our Database Developers) with a sub-section will suffice?

Last question I promise! Using your approach you changed the keyword to plural. I read somewhere that it was not recommended to do that since most people search for singular keywords. Also, according to Google there are more results for the singular keywords. What are your thoughts on that? Am I going not going to rank for the singular term then?

Again thanks a lot! Your insight is very helpful.

Hey Matt,

Once again I really appreciate your feedback! I agree with your statement about a mess, that is why I am trying to figure out how to incorporate those keywords in without making my site awful and untrustworthy.

Haven't got any title tags yet. Our home page is a summary page of our services and a statement letter of what we are trying to accomplish.

Our menu items are the following. The top menu items are not pages but are there just for organization.

• What we do
  • Database solutions
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
  • Mobile Solutions
    • Android
    • iPhone
• How we do it
  • Why Us?
  • Our process?
  • Your Role
• Clients
  • Who we work with
  • Testimonials
  • Case Studies
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
    • Mobile
• About Us
  • Who We Are
  • Contact Us

Thanks for the input Matt!

I have looked at the top ranking sites and they are either forums, wikipedia, job postings or individual developers. For some of the keywords, there are some companies but the page doesn't seem tailored at all instead it's a huge mess with a little bit of everything.

I have my site structure similar to what you describe. Home->General Database (listing 3 options)->page for each option

The main problem for me is that all the main terms for me involve developer or programmer or consultant. So as I explained before, it seems odd to have those type of keywords under the current pages since those are explanations about the solution / services. The plurals I've read its not a good idea and it doesn't seem to drive as much traffic.

I can produce enough content about these things. What I meant about a stretch was if the team profile's were abstract ones i.e. instead of mentioning who in our company does it, it describes we have a 'database developer or access developer'.  We are small so one developer does more than one thing. Perhaps I need to think about your responses for a bit longer and see if I understand fully what you mean.

Oh I see. That is an interesting approach. So instead of forcing a page to adapt to a keyword I create content directly related to it  like a page for the developer or questions/answers on types of databases.

The problem with the developer page is that the work is done by the company so the developer might be the same for 2 different types such as "database developer" and  "MS Access Developer". The related work is already shown in our case studies.

Having said that, I guess I could just have a small excerpt for the previous work and link to the case studies. For the page about our database developer I guess I can make an abstract profile for it since it could be one or many people. So I could have something like 'Your reliable Database Developer'  and then showcase general skills, previous projects and experience. What do you think? Is that what you mean? It's a little bit of a stretch though.

We were hoping to target the main keywords on our main pages while the others through our blog. I like the FAQ question as well though. Thanks!

My company is in the service industry, in particular we create databases for companies to use in house. Therefore, when I think of what we do, I think "database solutions".

We have 3 different types of services/approaches we take which I created keywords for those.

Through research I found that people don't look for database solutions, instead they look for the type of database i.e. "inventory database" or "database developer" or the technology used.  I understand 'funneling' of a site from general to specific so I understand how to deal with the first type of keyword. But what about the second. Having my general database page optimized for 'database developer' would be awkward. Specially in the anchor text in my menu link.

Any suggestions? Common strategies used for this type of scenario? Is it ok to still have the internal link be 'database solutions' but then optimize the page for 'database developer'? I'm a newbie struggling with keyword research/selection so any insight would be much appreciated!

Hi JP,

Thanks for the response. I understand the concept of 'silo-ing' which does make the navigation better, but I feel that doesn't take away the spammy effect. Perhaps I don't fully understand it, but I believe in my case it would be like this

Database solutions->Access->ms access programmer->ms access programmer in San Francisco

Database solutions->Access->ms access programmer->ms access programmer in Los Angeles

Database solutions->Access->ms access consultant

then pages on the same level would then link to one another correct ie consultant and programmer or San Fran and Los Angeles?

I understand about the cannobilization of keywords ie target one or two keywords per page per site so they don't compete with one another. That makes sense.

The thing I don't understand about these methods is that:  wouldn't they all have the same sort of content (almost duplicate)? What use is it to the user to navigate all these pages? Or the point is for them to land in them (landing page) and hopefully get a conversion? Is the method solely as workaround to target different keywords while minimizing the spammy effect? Can you provide an example of how you use 'silo-ing'? Is your content extremely similar? or do you tailor each page for the keyword?

I am currently trying to plan how to optimize my site based on keywords. I read and I understand site architecture and usability http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo , but I am still somewhat confused about how to target each keyword per page or when

http://www.seomoz.org/img/upload/splitting-keyword-targeted-.gif

Let me give you an example. We build databases for SME's using 3 different technologies. One of them is MS Access.

Based on PPC campaigns and keyword research some of the possible keywords might be

ms access programmer

ms access consultants

access database experts

According to the link provided, should these be separate pages? I feel if they were, our site nativigation would be cluttered and clients would not be benefiting from them at all. It might even lead to some redundant data which I believe is bad right? My feeling is to make one page and target one keyword, but I'm not sure.

For example, see one of our top ranking competitors

http://www.justgetproductive.com/content/access-programmer/index.php

Please, look at the footer? Is that actually how I should structure my links? I hope the answer is NO! Then again, if I do just have one page targeting one keyword, what do I do about the others? Do I just try to use blog posts/articles addressing those keywords? Do I not target them at all?

Thanks for any advice, please keep in mind I am just getting started. My approach is to create a plan to outline everything before I put a lot of time into it.