Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?

[Vitzz]

I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term.

I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information?

If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead?

If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word?

Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated!

V.

[effectdigital]

The pages will compete against each other under normal circumstances, but that's not necessarily an awful thing. For example, maybe your older page only achieved positions 16-30 to the keyword, but the new page might achieve a higher ranking. Unless you pit them against each other, how will you know what's best?

Stopping newer pages competing for old rankings, doesn't give a magical bonus to the old page and make it rank higher. Unless you're absolutely certain that the old page should be the 'definite' landing page for the keyword, a bit of friendly competition doesn't usually hurt much

The pages which really contend for your rankings, are those from other websites. Good luck emailing all the webmasters and complaining at them, that they are using your keywords

Sometimes, under very specific circumstances, keyword cannibalisation can come into play and cause problems. But 90% of the time it's just not really that big of a deal

The big deal is that if you write loads of pages with the same focus keyword, you're NOT writing about new keywords. And if you're not doing that, how will you increase your footprint? Often it's more lucrative to cover other, newer material rather than re-hashing old stuff

The worst you tend to get are rankings that stay largely in the same place, but their ranking URL jumps around as Google tries to decide which page to rank (and then eventually settles on one)

IMO, the worst part about keyword cannibalisation is not the fall-out from it (which is usually minimal) - it's the WASTED time, in terms of getting onto new topics to attract new visitors. Always be expanding

[Nozzle]

We like to think of all pages written around a specific topic as a content silo. Many of these pages will include the same keywords for sure. The key is to choose which page is the "head" of the silo and should rank for the main phrases assigned to that silo. Then you can use all the other pages in the silo to internally link back to the main page with the proper anchor text, thereby helping the main page (and correct page) rank for the keyword.

To sum up, you might end up with many pages that all include a specific keyword but you're going to internally link all of them to the main page using the keyword as the anchor text which is basically telling Google that all your pages are saying that the main page is the most relevant for that keyword.