Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How many keywords max can I optimize each page for?
-
I don't want to over optimize by doing 1 keyword per 1 page, but then if I do more, seomoz on-page tool report doesn't give an A grade for each keyword I optimize.
I usually optimize for max 3 keywords that are very closely related, meaning they use the same words. Ex.
dentist los angeles, los angeles dentist, dentist in los angeles
Am I on the right track or what's your recommendation? Should I create different landing pages for each keyword?
-
Hi, are you talking about the keywords that one can add to a page or words that make up the title and content tags? Thanks.
-
Google does not care if you target 1 keyword or 10. The problem you face is, all other factors being equal, a competitor who only targets one word on a page will always beat a page which targets multiple words.
Ranking in search engines is purely a competition. I recommend you go all out and try to rank #1 (or as high as reasonably possibly). Once you have achieved top rankings for your primary keyword, THEN you can try to get greedy and diversify to multiple keywords.
-
Yes but then how get a good on-page optimization if you are doing like 10 keywords per page? I mean, it's not possible to put 10 keywords on title, h1, url etc. Don't you think Google will question what the site is all about if you go more than 2-3, it's just becomes very difficult.
-
i would quickly add, if you don't have much linkjuice then stick to 2 terms max per page.
-
Below are the results of the keywords you shared (and more) from SEMrush (www.semrush.com).
Based on those results, I would focus on "dentist los angeles". That is tied for first place as the term with the most traffic. Next, you have a choice as to which you place the most importance upon..."dentist" or "los angeles". I prefer your niche rather then your location. Why? It is far more relevant to capture searches for "Dentist ???" then for "los angeles ???".
In competitive niches, you usually need to focus a single keyword target per page. If you focus more then one, you can or will be beat by others who practice more focused SEO on their page.
| Keyword | Δ Volume | CPC | Com. | Results | Trend | |
| dentist los angeles | 1,300 | 14.69 | 0.87 | 19,500,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| los angeles dentist | 1,300 | 15.52 | 0.89 | 19,800,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| cosmetic dentist los angeles | 590 | 22.86 | 0.98 | 2,050,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| dentist in los angeles | 480 | 11.62 | 0.94 | 21,900,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| los angeles cosmetic dentist | 480 | 20.84 | 0.90 | 3,940,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| los angeles dentists | 480 | 12.24 | 0.85 | 9,600,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| dentist in los angeles ca | 260 | 10.57 | 0.90 | 8,740,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| los angeles cosmetic dentists | 260 | 11.18 | 0.92 | 3,730,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| dentists in los angeles | 210 | 10.85 | 0.85 | 9,600,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| dentist west los angeles | 210 | 9.22 | 0.88 | 7,800,000 || | | | | | | | | | | | |
-
There are no hard and fast rules for how many keywords you can optimize each page for. It can be as little as one word to a many as ten or more.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tactical-seo-how-many-termsphrases-should-i-target-on-a-single-page
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I replace categories with a static page
Hello there. I want to replace all of WordPress categories with static pages so that users see a well designed and constructed presentation of all the articles within each topic instead of just a long list of excerpts. I've already done this with 2 categories and although it is hard work I can't help feeling it is a much better thing for my users. However, I'm concerned that I am embarking on this project without being totally sure that it makes sense from an Seo point of view, or whether there are any downsides I haven't thought of? My idea is that the WordPress categories are set to noindex and nofollow. Search engines should find all of my static category pages and all of the content within each category will be spidered from there instead. Just to be sure you know what I mean here is a link to a normal category - https://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/category/consumer/ and here is my static page replacement for it - https://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/consumer-rights-appliances/ Both pages contain links to all articles within the category except the one generated by WordPress is just a long paginated list, and my replacement is a proper category page, which is hopefully far more useful . Can someone please confirm that there are no downsides to this strategy? 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | Snowdune1 -
Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?
We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick
On-Page Optimization | | Deluxe0 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
On-Page Optimization | | Grafimart0 -
Target keywords on homepage or sub page?
Is it better to target main keywords on a site's homepage, or in a sub page. I would usually assume the homepage, but if the domain for the homepage doesn't include the keyword is it better to have a sub page with an exact match URL? For example we target the keyword "abc123" Is it better to optimise the homepage: brandname.com Or create a page to target it: brandname.com/abc123/ And leave the homepage to target brand keywords, but link to the "abc123" page. Whats the best option?
On-Page Optimization | | timscullin0 -
Do alt tags count towards on page keyword density?
Hello...I have written a bunch of content for my site using a useful tool called Scribe SEO which recommends keyword density at 5% if I remember correctly. So all my my newly written content is below this level but I am left wondering if by adding alt tags with my chosen keywords I will be considered to be over the limit and cause a red flag? Can anyone clarify this for me please?
On-Page Optimization | | Wallander0 -
Optimizing for another keyword than the menu name
Hi I would like to hear if someone could help me decide whether or not it is important regarding SEO that the menu name is the same as the keyword we want to rank for. The site is a static site and one of our most important keywords. To give an example. Our menu name is "cars" and we want to rank for "cheap rental cars".
On-Page Optimization | | KennethK0 -
Tag clouds: good for internal linking and increase of keyword relevant pages?
As Matt Cutts explained, tag clouds are OK if you're not engaged in keyword stuffing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYPX_ZmhLqg) - i.e. if you're not putting in 500 tags. I'm currently creating tags for an online-bookseller; just like Amazon this e-commerce-site has potentially a couple of million books. Tag clouds will be added to each book detail page in order to enrich each of these pages with relevant keywords both for search engines and users (get a quick overview over the main topics of the book; navigate the site and find other books associated with each tag). Each of these book-specific tag clouds will hold up to 50 tags max, typically rather in the range of up to 10-20. From an SEO perspective, my question is twofold: 1. Does the site benefit from these tag clouds by improving the internal linking structure? 2. Does the site benefit from creating lots of additional tag-specific-pages (up to 200k different tags) or can these pages become a problem, as they don't contain a lot of rich content as such but rather lists of books associated with each tag? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | semantopic0