Keyword tracking over time

[Hardley111]

Hi is there a recommended amount of keywords that I should try and optimise for on my site?

[Travis_Bailey]

That's a very broad question. Generally I don't recommend more than a couple keywords per page. It would be ideal if the keyword(s) work well and make for an attractive title.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but if you want the page to do well for puppies - you should talk about puppies. If you want the page to do well for kittens, you should talk about kittens. If you want to go for kittens vs. puppies, you should go after that.

If you're concerned about keyword density, that's a myth. Saying something X amount of times per word guarantees nothing. Hopefully no one told you keyword density matters.

[MoosaHemani]

No rule here, do as you want but it is always ideal to pick the final list of keywords that you want to target on your website and divide per page. Try not to target more than 2 keywords per page; ideally I only target singular keyword per page (work well for ecommerce type of site).

Again, there is no rule by the book but this is something I have experience over the year and what works for me plus logically if you are going to target less keywords per page you will be able to create content accordingly and people who are naturally linking to you will be able to link to particular page instead of the home page only.

Hope this helps!

[DougRoberts]

It depends on a lot of factors, so as Travis and Moosa has said, there really is no fixed rule here.

What resources do you have available (time/money/people) to build any additional content/assets that you need to target new keywords? How easy is it to make changed to the website in order to do the on-page optimisation?

What the competitive landscape like?

How mature is the site and what's it's current performance in search? If the site already has a strong domain authority maybe you can start to target those juicy head-terms that'll bring you lots of traffic? Putting your effort into one or two keywords can make a big difference.

If your site doesn't have the authority you need to compete for these terms. Then you'll potentially need to look at a wider range of longer-tail, less competitive keywords. These won't have the same traffic volumes, but at least getting a share of the search traffic will be achievable.

What is the market/niche your site is in? I've seen sites that are so specifically targeted that there really isn't a broad and diverse range of keywords that the site can target. I've also seen businesses struggling to find search traffic that just isn't there - their customers just don't think to look for them on the internet.

In summary, the key really is to prioritise. Think about what's relevant to your business and what is achievable (be honest about this) with the resources you have available. Small incremental growth is better than trying to bit off more than you can chew.

There's no reason not to have short/medium/long term aims for the keywords you want to target.

Also remember it's not just about the volume of traffic, but the relevancy too. A small number of visitors that buy your product are better then thousands that don't.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Hardley,

I think you will find these posts from The Moz Blog very useful:

Stop Thinking Keywords, Think Topics by Kate Morris
Keywords to Concepts: The Lazy Marketer's Guide to Keyword Research by Cyrus Shephard

Christy

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Hardly, did any of these responses answer your question? Please give us an update, thanks!

Christy