1) Keyword-Focused Pages
Why it Killed Yesterday
One of the primary roles of SEO from the beginning has been to optimize content to rank for keywords. In the past, many SEOs told you to target only one keyword (or phrase) per page in order to keep it focused. I never subscribed to this strategy, but I did understand the concept of having a narrowly focused page on a particular topic.
While keyword density has been a dead SEO tactic for years now, keywords on the page still mattered. And the more ?focused? you kept each optimized page, the better chance you had at ranking for the key phrase you are targeting.
Why it Will Get You Killed Today
With the Hummingbird update, Google has basically rethought how they want to analyze pages and implemented some new technology to do it. Instead of focusing on the keywords themselves, the search engines are now looking at the ideas represented by the keywords. In other words, it?s not the keywords that the page is ranking for but the topic.
When you optimize content for keywords, you?re being shortsighted. Remember, Google has access to billions and billions of pages of content. And they have the computing power to analyze that content in order to understand what makes one page better than another. If you want to rank for ?snow skis,? but your content fails to say much about things that skiers find important (other than they type of ski they use), you?re going to miss the mark. By a long shot.
Google knows what?s important to skiers because they?ve analyzed thousands of pages of content written by those very skiers. They know the language, the lingo, the style and, ultimately, what skiers want to know about their skis, ski slopes and performance in a variety of snow types. Just repeating the word ?snow skis? over and over again just won?t cut it.
How to Kill it for Tomorrow and Forever
Does all this mean that we no longer optimize pages for keywords? No. But now it?s less about the keywords and more about optimizing the content for the topic. So if you?re selling snow skis, you need to talk about different ski types, the terrain for the skis, ski flex, width, etc.
Yes, you?ll use the term ?snow? and ?skis? on the page and probably more than a couple of times, but you?re not focusing on those words. Instead, you?re focusing on the function, perception and value of the skis in relation to the skier.
Keep in mind that in order to rank for your given keyword, you don?t have to write the be-all, end-all authoritative piece on snow skies. In fact, that may not work well for the audience you?re trying to reach. Not everyone is ready for Every Skiers Guide to Skis, Terrain, and Downhill Performance. Determine what message you need to get your visitors to take the next action, and then write the most authoritative piece you can with that focus.
Focus on the topic in relation to the visitor?s need. You can literally write dozens of authoritative pages on a single topic, all with a slightly different focus. Each of those pages will rank for different sets of keywords, which should tie directly into what type of content a particular searcher is looking for.