Keywords question for the Great Ones...

[jessiesc]

Not sure if this belongs here or not, so move it if you need to:

I looked for a topic on this subject here, but didn't find one.

I have read several conflicting articles on keyword targeting. By targeting I mean using the same keywords on every page or using different keywords on each page.

I have done both and notice quite a change in some of my statistics.

For instance, I started out with the same keywords on every page and have moved up quickly on MSN Page 1 and 2 now for my main keyword phrases (nothing on Yah and Goog). I use a tool to track my link popularity and engine sturation (both I got here, thanks).

This tool showed us moving up steadily in both areas. I thought "Great, I'm moving in the right direction".

Then I read an article that said to use different keyword phrases on different pages. So, I went through ALL my pages and re-did my keyword phrases for each page.

Afterwards, using the same tool showed a signigicant drop in both categories. So much so, I got scared and reverted all my pages and keywords back to my original.

Now, we're climbing again.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time

[judyo]

I don't really have a succinct answer, just my opinion. Prior to studying seo I also had the same meta info for each page. Once I learned more I changed it up. I wrote the page and decided what the best kw's would be to target for that page. I then geared it towards those kw's and used that in the meta description & tags.

I don't have any before & after statistics as at the time I was still in G's sandbox and didn't do much tracking back then. However, to me it just makes sense to be able to optimize for different kw's throughout your site so you can appear for a variety of searches.

I have many, many #1 positions for different kw's in MSN, getting good position in Yahoo for my Cook County site for different kw's and inching up in Google. I'm still not finished optimizing for many other kw's (well, we're never going to be finished). I guess I mean I still have to start on optimizing for some newer kw's.

I just don't see having to optimize for the same kw's on each & every page of your site. Seems like you're boxing your site in to only a couple of kw's, where you should be opening it up for many kw's.

[kyle422]

Whatever is getting you the most hits on the search engines seems like the best short term route (your whole site going after a couple of keywords). But in the long you will want to do as Judy suggested. The more "bait" you put out in the water the better chance you will actually attract something. Not the best analogy but you get the gist.

[u2man]

Use different keywords for different pages. PPC will tell you what keywords to target also and then create the pages.

[kid disco]

It depends...

[jessiesc]

It depends...

on?

[kid disco]

on?

Purpose...

[jessiesc]

Purpose...

You don't say much do you

[Eric Blackwell]

Allow me to expand on Kid Disco's point since he seems to be shy...(not normal for him!! )

Targeting a few kw phrases on your index page and others on other pages of your site seems to be the option of choice of most of the REALTORs that I know (and many of the best on this site as well).

That having been said, it is possible to rank for quite a few kws on one page alone...example

City Real Estate
City St Real Estate
City State Real Estate
City Homes
City St Homes
City State Homes
City MLS
City St MLS
City State MLS

All are possible with a well optimized home page that is optimized for City St State Real Estate Homes and MLS.

Having to optimize ANOTHER page for those terms may be more difficult than just spreading the optimization out a bit on the original page.

The other side of DEPENDS is that much traffic can come from specific kws that are NOT easily optimized on one page. An example of this would be suburb names, other area names (like Southern Indiana for us in Louisville), and so forth. These would be good candidates to take elsewhere to optimize on a separate page.

Hope this helps...

Eric

[jessiesc]

Eric,

Thank you very much for clarifying this

I appreciate the time you took to detail this and have given me a clear understanding.

You the Man!