H1 and H2 copy

[Caffeine_Marketing]

Does the targeted keyword need to be embedded in a longer phrase for the H1 and H2 or is it better to have the keyword by itself?

[effectdigital]

That depends upon the page which you have produced. If for example, your target keyword was "mortgage calculator" and you had created an actual mortgage calculator for your site, it would be fine to just have the keyword by itself. Let's imagine a different situation, where you still want to target the same keyword ("mortgage calculator") but you have instead written a blog post comparing different mortgage calculators. Someone searching for "mortgage calculator" would want to find an actual calculator (quickly) and not your post, so using the keyword on its own would be a little manipulative. Instead you'd use an H1 / H2 more like "Mortgage Calculators 2019: Ten Calculators Compared and Reviewed"

Basically it comes down to how closely your content and URL(s), match the intent of the searcher - and how much effort has been invested in your attempt to rank. If you're targeting big, competitive keywords with blog posts then your targeting is wrong and you should look to make it more long-tail in terms of targeting. If you have something new and exciting to add to the web (where new functionality forms part of the content, remember content ISN'T 'just text') - then maybe targeting larger keywords is somewhat feasible

[Caffeine_Marketing]

thanks you for the advice

[effectdigital]

Not a problem!