25 replies to this topic

[enner100]

I am an alternative therapist. My website has pages covering all the things I can help with. Each page covers a different topic such as stop smoking, weight loss, self harming, depression etc.

How many keywords per page is best? Am I best aming for one keyword per page or more? for example for the stop smoking page should I try and aim for one keyword such as "stop smoking" or more than one such as "stop smoking" "stop smoking easily"

[torka]

"Stop smoking easily" contains the phrase "stop smoking". Optimize for the one, and you're automatically optimizing for the other.

You can optimize pages for more than one phrase. In the case of the "stop smoking" page, you might also want to consider optimizing for "quit smoking", for instance.

--Torka

[mal4mac]

You should use wordtracker to see if people are actually searching for these phrases. Do some lateral thinking to find other phrases - there might be lots of searches for phrases like "cheap fags online". (Note fags is British slang for cigarettes!) If you can capture smokers looking for their fix, then you might persuade them to find a better way.

Torka - how would you optimize for the two phrases you mention? For instance, it is important to have the keyword(s) in the title but having a title like "Stop smoking - quit smoking" involves saying the same thing twice.

Would you could have something like "Stop smoking - quit today"? This keeps the three keywords contained in the two phrases. Then you could use "quit smoking" in a heading and in the body text.

After that, you could experiment to see if "Quit smoking - stop today" worked better.

Looking in Google, quitnet uses both these phrases in the heading and is in position 2, so perhaps such repetition isn't too bad! Then again, their title is awful.

I notice that one site uses "quit smoking" twice in the title and appears on SERPS 1 for "stop smoking" but not for "quit smoking"!

You should avoid needless repetition (did I already say that?:-)

[Jill]

but having a title like "Stop smoking - quit smoking" involves saying the same thing twice.

So?

[gobeyond]

I assume you are targeting a local clientele. So, don't forget to include local city or county name in your keyword phrase.

Say if you are debating about whether to use "quit smoking" or "stop smoking", you can use Google Trends to figure out which one is used more often.

http://www.google.com/trends

You certainly can optimize more than one keyword phrase per page, but the more keywords you target on a single page, the less weight each one would have.

[Jill]

Say if you are debating about whether to use "quit smoking" or "stop smoking", you can use Google Trends to figure out which one is used more often.

Why would it matter? You should never choose between two good phrases. You should be using both, plus the hundreds of others that also relate.

[mal4mac]

Why would it matter? You should never choose between two good phrases.  You should be using both, plus the hundreds of others that also relate.

But which one first? What if "stop smoking" is has ten times the competition and ten times the traffic of "quit smoking"?

If I had never had previous success with competition at the level of "stop smoking" I would go for "quit smoking" first - otherwise I might end up smoking

For a beginning SEO surely it's best to shoot for a few easy phrases first to build up the confidence.

[Jill]

What do you mean by "first"?

There's no beginning, middle or end to SEO. No first, second or third.

So I don't understand the question.

For a beginning SEO surely it's best to shoot for a few easy phrases first to build up the confidence.

In terms of competition, if you want to go for less competitive phrases, then yeah, those will be easier to rank highly for them.

But what good are they if nobody searches for them in the engines?

Since you can shoot for tons of phrases all at once, you should choose a wide variety of competitive, and non-competitive phrases all at the same time.

[NobleSavage]

Let me add a question:

Say you have 2 words "easy" and "hard". "Easy" is less competitive and "hard" is much more compeitive.

Which page would do better in the serps when searching for "easy"

a) the page optomized only for "easy"

b ) the page optomized for "easy" and "hard"

c) It makes no difference

d) no one really knows

e) I might as well follow the price of tea in China as it's likely to produce the same results as worring about my key words at this grandular of a level

[jehochman]

F) You've skipped several steps.

There are bazillions of sites about "quit smoking." Are you special enough to rank among all those sites? What are the odds of somebody somewhere in the world searching on Google for that phrase actually hiring you?

Once I make you really mad by questioning your business model, you'll probably blurt out a sentence that explains your competitive advantage. Being local may be it.

The other thought I want you to ponder is what sort of SEO you need. Your business requires a certain degree of trust. You may get your best leads from personal networking and referrals. If that's your strategy, then you want to brand yourself and optimize for your brand, and your name. You also want to get the people who send you referrals to link to your site from theirs.

SEO isn't the be all, end all. You can build a successful business without ranking for any exciting terms.

[prawin]

SEO isn't the be all, end all.  You can build a successful business without ranking for any exciting terms.

I 110% agree.
Thank you Sir ( )

Prawin

[NobleSavage]

F)  You've skipped several steps.

There are bazillions of sites about "quit smoking."  Are you special enough to rank among all those sites?  What are the odds of somebody somewhere in the world searching on Google for that phrase actually hiring you?

Once I make you really mad by questioning your business model, you'll probably blurt out a sentence that explains your competitive advantage.  Being local may be it.

The other thought I want you to ponder is what sort of SEO you need.  Your business requires a certain degree of trust.  You may get your best leads from personal networking and referrals.  If that's your strategy, then you want to brand yourself and optimize for your brand, and your name.  You also want to get the people who send you referrals to link to your site from theirs.

SEO isn't the be all, end all.  You can build a successful business without ranking for any exciting terms.

Sorry - I hate thread hijacking - maybe a mod can move it..

That's great and all, but what if you don't have a business and you are not trying to sell anything... you just need a page to do well.

[jehochman]

Nobel Savage, sorry I don't understand your point, and please don't quote an entire post like that because it just makes the thread unreadable.

[torka]

"Selling" takes many forms. Maybe one doesn't have a product one is offering in exchange for money, but rather one wants people to sign up for a newsletter, or download a free screensaver or write a letter to their congressperson or go out and circulate a petition around their neighborhood, or whatever.

In order to inspire people to do what you want after visiting your page, you have to "close the sale" -- whether you choose to think of it in those terms or not. I know lots of people in not-for-profit niches who get the heebie-jeebies whenever the word "selling" comes up, but that's exactly what they're doing. They may be promoting the heart-warming glow one gets from giving a child a better life or saving an endangered species or electing a slate of reform-minded candidates to replace the corrupt bums in office now, but -- bottom line -- they're "selling" the benefits of their "product" just as surely as Ron Popeil and the Home Shopping Channel.

Whatever the purpose of your page is, whatever it is you want people to do, people have a limited amount of resources (time, money, energy, etc.). Why should they expend those resources doing whatever it is you want them to do as opposed to what somebody else is asking them to do (or simply vegetating in front of the TV)?

Unless you know your niche and you understand and can express to others what it is that makes your page "the" page to visit, you're likely going to waste a lot of time pursuing activities that are less-than-optimal for the ultimate success of your project, whatever that project might be and however you define success.

Unless your page is going to do a better job of promoting whatever response it is you want than all the other pages out there trying to promote a similar (or opposite, as the case may be) response, then what's the point of it ranking well? It's just as we often say around here when talking about product-sales oriented pages -- all the rankings and traffic in the world won't do you any good if your page won't convert visitors into customers. "Conversion rate" doesn't just apply to commercial activities.

So, for instance, if you're trying to inspire political action on a particular subject, there are plenty of other sites trying to inspire political action -- some of them agreeing with you, some of them opposing the point of view of your site, others focusing on entirely different issues. Among the pages that focus on the same issue as you do, why should your page rank higher than the others? What about your page makes it different, unique, special -- worthy of a high rank? What is its Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

Does it really need to rank highly for a nationwide audience? If you're trying to save a local park, you don't need to rank well for "park preservation". You need to rank well for local terms.

In the case of the "quit smoking / stop smoking" site, if the site owner is targeting a local clientele for personal one-on-one sessions, ranking well nationwide for the generic phrase "stop smoking" is simply going to bring in a lot of untargeted traffic from people hundreds or thousands of miles away who can't take advantage of the "product" being offered. If, on the other hand, the site owner is marketing a CD or phone consultations or some other "product" that can be delivered remotely, ranking for the more generic term would be appropriate.

Thus, it's important before rushing off to pursue rankings to be sure you've got your business model in order -- know your USP and make sure your page properly expresses it so others will know it, too -- so when you do get traffic, you'll be in the best position possible to convert that traffic into something useful.

If on the other hand one's page really and truly isn't trying to inspire/persuade people to do anything at all, then why would it need to do well? I mean, sure one might want it to do well -- we all want our children to succeed. But if the page has no purpose other than to sit there and look good, then what would be the need for it to rank well other than to boost one's ego?

--Torka

[NobleSavage]

I understand all that. But removing all other factors which page would do better or do you really have no clue? Sometimes it helps to break a problem down an focus on one thing. So in my example, removing all the other factors which page would do better?