Keywords Per Page?

[Ira_Weiss]

Is there a specific number of keywords used per page and per site that get the most bang? Is there an industry standard or Search Engine specific?

I'm a Freelance Copywriter who's attempting to not only gain a greater ranking in natural searches, but also want to be able to give strategic advice to my customers when working on their Web sites.

Some contracts I've worked on for SEO companies had 3 keywords per page. Other books I've read suggest 10 keywords universal to the site with 4 per page.

Not being totally versed in SEO, and certainly without the time to do the research involved, I could use a little advice.

Thanks in Advance!

[Emark2009]

General rule: they say you should optimize a single page for one or two keywords only.

So write the content for that page around this one or two keywords.

Remark1:
The higher your linkpopularity, and the more "niche" your market is, the less important this general rule becomes. I have a martial arts site in Dutch, which is pretty niche and has good linkpopularity: this site ranks on first page of Google for a lot of words that are not considered keywords and that are not written in the Title-tag.

Remark2:
You should only write about one specific topic on one specific page. For this specific topic you can choose some variations of keywords to use in that page.
Writing about one specific topic on one page is also better for Adsense, which will serve more focused ads.

[SemAdvance]

Gert is about dead on.

With competing pages over 10million it is best to go for one keyword term per page.

I tell clients each page is an island. Make it the best island it can be and it will attract visitors.

[webmaker]

I am developing a search engine and I can tell you that keywords are becoming less and less important. You and everyone should start to learn how to produce a seperate xml file that will point to and describe all of your content and or pages. You may have heard of the Google SiteMap for example. However, Googles' sitemap will not work with all of the other search engines. Most of us that are working on this now are using the ROR format. This format will be the guide so -to-speak for our spiders. Then when we pull the basic meta, then the headers, then the content. Then comes the cross referencing and counting of words and phrases of up to 100 characters. Add some formulas(#of back links, etc are involved here) for ranking. Then you have a result.
Now for the ability to search and sort the results. Keywords can be used and or noted. This follows the Tagging Theories as well as the Clustering Theories.
In short the Title of the Page is #1 then comes the Header then comes the content. All of the above will be described in your XML document.aka ROR. Also, keywords will be used for sorting and clustering.
Now if you need keywords for a PPC. Money is the only object from keeping you from the top.
Mark my words that the combination of AJAX Technologies and Keyword/Phrase sorting and clustering and XML indexes will be the future of searching on the net. Hint* Concentrate on your article titles and then make sure that your content includes words from your title.(Especialy once in your opening paragraph) Then alter your content once a week. Most of us are just spidering for changes in content and until further notice new content is stronger in the result formula than old and unchanged. I hope that this note will help you out.

[incrediblehelp]

Remember when you are writing for "San Diego Zoo hotels". You are basically writing for all combinations, all though it is not necessary to write you copy in all the different combinations.

San Diego hotels near Zoo
Zoo San Diego hotels
Zoo hotels in San Diego
hotels San Diego
hotels San Diego Zoo
hotels Zoo San Diego
hotels near the San Diego Zoo
hotels in San Diego Zoo
etc

So you are essentially optimizing for many more than 1-2 keywords per page. The keyword order itself really doesn't matter much. Some more on keyword order

Also when writing you should creatively insert other variations like hotel, lodging, accommodations etc.. which would also greatly increase the keyword optimized for the page.

[andy_art_trigg]

... Then alter your content once a week. Most of us are just spidering for changes in content and until further notice new content is stronger in the result formula than old and unchanged. I hope that this note will help you out.

I honestly don't understand this. Are you saying that a definitive page about widgets, that is so well written and comprehensive it's the best widget article on the Internet, will drop down listings unless it's constantly changed?

[dburdon]

Ira,

for on page optimisation the key constraint is the site title meta tag. You shouldn't shouldn't use more than 64 characters including spaces in this tag.

With this limit it should be possible to optimise for 5 or 6 keywords without too much trouble. The secret is to create an interlocking combination of words. That is 6 words that make sense in a number of 2, 3 and 4 word combinations.

For an example see:

Spanish Holiday Villa

When it comes to off page optimisation there is effectively no limit.[/b]