Which is the better keyword strategy? Specifying page or seeing what ranks?

[RikkiAyers]

I recently began using another third-party tool that requires a list of keywords and the URLs I want those keywords to rank on (for example, "vegetarian recipes" on www.123.com/vegetarian-recipes). Is this a better strategy than using the Moz ranking tool to see which pages on my domain my target keywords are already ranking for? I can see how the former might mean we miss opportunities but the latter doesn't necessarily show how my priority pages are doing for specific keywords.

[jasongmcmahon]

As much as I love MOZ - ranking pages for keywords is very useful, though saying that you should add the keywords you want to rank for to certain pages anyway; & be somehow being aware of how they rank at any given time.

[EGOL]

If a person considers his business and the industry where he will compete, the keywords that are most profitable or most precious are usually obvious.   Having identified them, the work is then to build one very high quality page for each of those keywords and then forming that page into a finely-crafted arrow with characteristics that will defeat all opponents.

When in difficult contests, multiple subpages are then built, each to attack a subkeyword and these are prepared so that they might provide deep content resources, backlinks to the page attacking the root, and demonstrating to Google and all visitors that yours is the world's best resource.

The attack might be short but if the prize is worthy, years might be required.  And, for this deep knowledge and strong writing skills will be required of you, and possibly assistance from allies.

The tracking most valuable for all of the above is the ranking position of your root and primary subkeywords.  As time progresses you will hopefully see increases in the rankings as you put your work forth.  Those ranking increases will be the fuel that  keeps you moving forward and keeps your mental energies high.   Nothing is more valuable than mental energy when in this type of competition.