When it comes to SEO, keywords are an extremely valuable tool. Keywords are words or phrases with a high level of value or significance to your site visitors. These words and phrases are both what people type into search engines when looking for information, and also answer questions that an online user may have. But how many keywords should you put on each page? And is there such a thing as too many keywords? You better believe it!
When developing and writing your website content and company blog articles, it’s important that the style and tone come across as natural and conversational. This does more than just draw the reader in, but it’s also beneficial in terms of SEO. Let’s say you are a roofing contractor in Chicago, and attend a trade show or local Chamber of Commerce networking event.
In situations like these, you’ll be meeting people for the first time and hopefully making a lasting impression that will positively impact your business. You may introduce yourself as a roofing contractor in Chicago, but will then offer other information to help support that fact. You wouldn’t say something like, “I’m a roofing contractor in Chicago and when looking for a roofing contractor in Chicago, it’s important to hire a roofing contractor in Chicago that is experienced and reliable.” It sounds unnatural, right? No one talks like that, and your website works the same way.
Yes, ‘roofing contractor in Chicago’ is a great keyword because that is a phrase homeowners in that area would type into Google in order to find someone to help them with their roofing problem. However, your website doesn’t need to jam that phrase down their throats. It can be used just a handful of times on a page, and then utilize other components (i.e. images, videos, reviews, testimonials) to support that idea. This will feel much more natural to search engines, who will reward you for offering relevant information without going overboard.
Companies also need to be careful and avoid using too many keywords on a single page, or search engines won’t understand the message being conveyed. You may have many different keywords that you want to rank for, but you should split them up across the site. Each page should be individually optimized with very specific and relevant keywords. Here is a good rule of thumb:
- Homepage: 4-6
- Service Page: 2-4
- Sub-Category Page (within Service Page): 1-3
- About Us or Contact: 0
Tools found on sites such as Google AdWords and SEObook.com can help identify which keywords will yield the best results for you, your company, and its website. That being said, you shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of ranking for certain keywords. The more vague the phrase, the harder it can be to outrank your local competition and especially larger, national companies. In order to make it to the top of search results pages, your content really needs to support your keywords and demonstrate why your site is the most relevant choice for the user.