In the SEO realm, keywords play a pivotal role, offering a seemingly unavoidable aspect. While SEO experts, myself included, advocate for prioritizing more substantial metrics over mere keyword rankings, the reality persists: achieving a commendable rank on Google for keywords boasting significant search volume typically translates into website traffic.
However, the endeavor to monitor keywords comes with its costs. Whether investing time in manual rank checks or allocating funds toward a keyword-tracking solution, there exists a necessity to limit the number of keywords tracked per page and website.
This prompts the question: “How many keywords should I track?”
And here comes the quintessential sentence found in many SEO discussions:
“It depends.”
Why Are Keywords Important For SEO?
Keywords play a crucial role in the success of any SEO campaign. In fact, SEO would be rendered ineffective without the use of keywords.
The significance of keywords lies in their ability to communicate to search engines the subject matter of your website and its individual pages.
Without keywords incorporated into your content, search engines lack the necessary context to accurately rank your web pages for relevant search queries.
Keywords have been integral to search engine ranking algorithms since the inception of modern search engines and continue to be a fundamental factor in determining the ranking of web pages.
Now that you grasp the importance of keywords in SEO, let’s delve into the question of how many SEO keywords you should target per page.
How many SEO keywords should I use per page?
Each page on your website should focus on a single keyword. If there are variations of the keyword, consider creating additional pages dedicated to each variation.
It’s essential to be specific while ensuring that the keywords are integrated naturally and logically. This approach helps in reaching your desired audience, particularly through Google.
Moreover, it demonstrates to both Google and your site visitors your expertise in your industry, establishing you as an authority and attracting more potential customers.
Therefore, to make a significant impact on your audience, stick to one specific keyword per page, even if the page serves as a gateway to related sub-pages.
- For top-level pages like categories, remember to incorporate contextual internal linking to lower-level posts.
- This process helps Google understand the relationship between pages, enhancing your chances of dominating the SERPs and showcasing your expertise.
- Once implemented, your site’s content will be optimized for keywords, ensuring sustained traffic growth.
- This ongoing traffic potential enables you to refine your content effectively.
Primary vs. secondary keywords
Primary keywords represent the terms you aim to elevate in search engine rankings. These keywords typically possess substantial search volume, capable of driving significant traffic to your website.
Referring back to the example mentioned earlier, primary keywords encompass all phrases related to purchasing laptops online.
As a general guideline, primary keywords should appeal to a broader audience and should be strategically distributed throughout your website’s content.
It’s advisable to incorporate primary keywords into titles, headings, anchor links, as well as the introductory and concluding sentences. Aim to include 2-3 primary keywords per page, with a minimum of one.
For instance, if your business involves selling laptops online throughout Texas, your keyword list might feature phrases such as:
- buy online laptops Texas
- purchase laptops online in Texas
These keywords serve a complementary function, bolstering the primary keywords and offering additional context.
Termed as LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords, they should be seamlessly integrated into your content to enhance its value for readers.
While secondary keywords may not possess the same SEO significance as primary ones, incorporating them can still contribute to surpassing competitors.
Examples of Secondary Keywords:
If your business focuses on selling laptops online in Texas, some effective secondary keywords to consider include:
- Lenovo laptop shop near me
- buy Asus laptops
How to Select Keywords for Your Website?
a. Step into your customer’s perspective
- Keywords reflect your audience’s search queries rather than your content offerings.
- Understanding and identifying your customers’ needs and language usage is crucial.
- This understanding aids in creating pertinent and captivating content, leading to improved rankings and increased traffic.
b. Assess your competitors
- Reviewing your competitors’ pages to identify the keywords they employ can assist in pinpointing keywords for targeting.
- This analysis expands your idea pool and highlights any overlooked keywords.
c. Utilize research tools
- To determine suitable keywords, compile a brainstorm or seed list encompassing descriptors of your product, service, or information.
- Additionally, employ keyword research tools to augment or refine your list and validate phrases, thus narrowing down your preferred keywords.
d. Stay updated on your keywords
- Regularly monitoring and analyzing your chosen keywords is paramount.
- Update trending keywords or phrases and incorporate any new keywords utilized by competitors.
How Many Keywords Should You Aim for on the Homepage?
As a business owner or marketer dealing with a diverse range of products or services, you might ponder, “How many keywords should I aim to target on the homepage?“
It might seem logical to target all keywords relevant to your offerings on the homepage. However, treating your homepage like any other page on your site is advisable.
Consequently, trying to optimize the homepage for each of your 10 distinct products or services is not recommended.
Instead, focus on the primary product or service your business provides and tailor your homepage to target those keywords.
For instance, SEOptimer primarily concentrates on targeting the keyword “SEO audit” on its homepage, despite offering various tools such as its keyword tool and embeddable SEO audit tool.
Conclusion
I’ve provided a framework for estimating the number of keywords to monitor, but it’s widely acknowledged in digital marketing that our guidelines are more flexible than rigid. They’re akin to markings made in chalk on a sidewalk, subject to change.
You might discover that you prefer to monitor significantly more or fewer keywords than the suggested amount.
Perhaps you don’t prioritize tracking rankings at all! What truly counts is that the tracking you undertake holds value for you and your clients. The precise quantity matters less as long as it serves your purposes effectively.
By now, you should have a clearer understanding of the optimal number of SEO keywords to target per page.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How many keywords should be used per 1,000 words?
When crafting a blog post spanning 1,000 words, it’s recommended to incorporate your keyword approximately 10–20 times. Personally, I usually adhere to a 1% keyword density for a 1,000-word blog post.
2. What is the optimal frequency of keyword usage in an SEO article?
Rather than focusing solely on the quantity of times a keyword appears, the ideal SEO strategy emphasizes proper keyword placement. Typically, it’s advised to include a keyword once or twice within your content—whether in the title, headers, or body.
3. Can an excessive number of SEO keywords be detrimental?
Presently, Google discourages overly optimized websites that prioritize SEO tactics over providing valuable content to users. Such tactics can potentially lead to a decline in Google rankings rather than an improvement, as a consequence of excessive keyword usage.
4. How many keywords constitute too many?
The inquiry of “How many keywords should be present in my Google Ads account?” yields varying responses. Concerning ad groups, a common recommendation falls within the range of 20-25 keywords, with an upper limit of no more than 30 keywords per ad group.
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