Is it better to have similar or different keywords on different pages of a website?

[Ali]

I am working on updating the keywords on my company's website, and I am getting different, conflicting advice from different people.

One person suggests that I should have similar keywords on most of my pages, in order to strengthen my position with the keyword.

Another person told me that I should have as many different keywords on as many different pages as possible, in order to get a wider audience.

This is a small business website, and I am trying to boost traffic. How should I proceed, and which advice should I listen to? (Or should I ignore both of them and do something completely different?)

Any advice would be welcome. Just don't suggest going to a SEO firm.
I have already been making informative blog posts to supplement the store, but I have had almost zero traffic on them. These ranged from How-To posts about some of our products to helpful tips within the field.

I already used the Google webmaster tool to mark them as articles.

[Jake]

Certainly you can't focs on a single keyword, though some niche sites have helpful exact match domain names. Having a different page focused on a specific keyword theme is common, you can't stuff keywords effectively, these days it's better to write for the visitor not the search spiders. Quality original articles indirectly related to your business will naturally provide more keyword phrase matches and help the overall site ranking ,getting someone to such an article gets them 1 click away from your sales pages.

Be sure you are using tracking software so you can measure the effect of these keywords.

[Peter Nikolow]

I think that you must watch this video (released before few hours) before do anything. Also you must do some research about Hummingbird update.

Situation these days is getting tight for small websites and just like Jake i suggest you to use various keyword combinations (even synonyms) to explain everything.

[Mandingo]

Hi Ali,

I think your approach is wrong and will get on the wrong side of uncle Google. The emphasis should not be on the keyword but the value around the keyword. Say for example that your keyword is astrology, you will then find out as many questions as possible that people ask about astrology and answer those question on your blog. You will be amazed when you find out other terms that you will be ranking for.

Tell me whats your main keyword and I will send you over 2000 related questions about your product.

Example

how is astrology used today
how is astrology used
how is astrology used to predict the future
how does astrology affect us
how does astrology help us
how do you use astrology in a sentence
how does uranus affect astrology
how does astrology tell the future
how is astrology true
how does astrology fail to conform to the scientific method
how does astrology predict the future
how is today astrology
how far is astrology true
how is astrology used today
how is astrology related to astronomy
how is my astrology today
how is astrology different to astronomy
how do astrology signs work
how is astrology so accurate
how is astrology scientific
how is astrology science
how is astrology satanic
how is astrology so true
how does astrology fall short of being scientific
how does astrology make sense
how is astrology a sin
how true is astrology signs
how does astrology relate to the bible
how does astrology relate to psychology
how does astrology really work
how does astrology relate to science
how does astrology relate to astronomy
how does astrology relate to christianity
how do astrology readings work
how does relocation astrology work
how is astrology real
how is astrology related to religion
how does astrology predict the future
how does predictive astrology work
how is astrology pseudoscience
how is astrology prediction
how is astrology possible
how is astrology practiced
how does astrology determine personality
how does astrology affect personality
how does astrology show personality
how does astrology influence personality
how does astrology affect our lives
how does astrology affect our personality
how does astrology fall short of being scientific
how do i block astrology on facebook
how do i remove astrology on facebook
how does nadi astrology work

Good luck

[Mainak]

You said that yours is a small business website. So, my suggestion is to target only similar keywords on different pages. That's because you only need a certain kind of audience. If you had needed a wider audience, then you could have done the other way round.

[Jony]

I agree with option 1, if you want to rank your website with 10-12 specific keywords so should go with option 1, use same keywords with niche related articles for building position in search engines. The good optimization you do in your website the more good results you get in search engines. best of luck with your website

[Tammy]

It is better to have a similar keywords.You said that yours is a small business website. So, my suggestion is to target only similar keywords on different pages. That's because you only need a certain kind of audience. If you had needed a wider audience, then you could have done the other way round.