How many keywords should I optimize a page for?

[cinzia09]

Hi,

There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page.

What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages.

I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to:

1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords,

2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page

3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps.

My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it.

Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[impactzoneco]

How many products and categories do they have? And will these change by season, year, etc.? Will the number of products grow fast or do you see them staying stable for the near future (18 months to 2 years).

The reason I ask is that planning for future growth -- or no growth -- can help you determine the best solution.

-- Jewel

[ClaytonJ]

Hi agree there is no right answer - but we need a starting point, and the below works very well for us.

We target 1 keyword per page, however, expand on same for context to the main keyword.  So let's say someone makes a blog on "I can't sleep".  We would target  "cant sleep" -  as the head term as in Australia that has circa 1900 searches a month.  "Ï cant sleep" is 590 per month.  So in this instance, we would recommend the URL for the content www.website.com.au/cant-sleep

The Title

Cant Sleep | Why Cant I Sleep | Forty Winks

H1

I Cant sleep

H2 (Not overly necessary, but if we can squeeze it in)

What do to when you cant sleep

This is a rare term where the grammar is not ideal. But that is what we would recommend consistent with customer queries. One keyword per page gives you a starting point, then as the page is crawled by google webmaster lets you do a deeper dive into what it perceives the page should rank for.

Adjust accordingly and deliver what the customer wants.

Hope that helps.

[BlueCorona]

Hi there,

The bad news is that there's no "right" answer to this question. Search engines only reveal so much about what goes into their ranking algorithms, so it's hard to say what strategy is the best one.

One thing that's for sure, though, is that you want to avoid Google viewing your keyword optimization as keyword stuffing. I would strongly advise against the second option you mentioned (optimizing for several different keywords), because that would mean you'd mention three or four different keywords multiple times, which Google might view as keyword stuffing and/or providing a poor user experience. Both of these things could result in lower rankings.

The safe, and generally effective, bet is to choose one primary keyword that's as specific and relevant to your page as possible while still averaging a decent monthly search volume, and back it up with a secondary keyword that's also extremely relevant but isn't your primary keyword because it doesn't have as high a search volume. That way, you'll draw relevant search traffic to your page without it feeling spammy.

Hope that helps. Happy optimizing!