Often times when we create pages on our websites, we have this doubt whether we should target this page for a single keyword or is it okay to target one page for multiple keywords? There are two approaches to this.

First one is to target one page for as many keywords as possible so that it has the chances for ranking for a broad range of keywords and not just one keyword. Search queries and phrases are often “Broad” in nature so the more diversified and broad your keyword range is, greater are the chances for ranking for a range of keywords and not just one particular keyword.

The second approach is a bit more direct. You choose one keyword and create a page on your website which targets only one keyword. That’s it. It does not include variations of the primary keyword, the page is built specifically to target and rank for a single keyword.

The first approach is more universal in nature and it is the way most people build their websites. This is because it is really problematic to create a new page for every single keyword your business is targeting. For example, if you have a website or an e-commerce store which sells Garments, you can have one page on your website which targets women’s clothing. There is no need to create 500 different pages on your website which targets each individual keyword such as women’s skirt, women’s blouse, women’s suit, women’s scarf and so on. You can, of course, make use of categories to differentiate different products but in general, it is better to have one main page which showcases all the products which you want your visitors to buy.

If the website in question is a blog and you want to target the phrase – “Women’s clothing for summer”, it is better to create only one page on the website which target’s this phrase and other related phrases. There is no need to create 50 different pages which target each individual keyword related to “Women’s clothing for summer”.

The end result will be tons of pages with similar content (not necessarily duplicate content because each page has content around a particular focus keyword). But the user experience, in this case, may not be positive since they have to go through 50 different pages to find all the content which could be served with only a handful of pages and not a particular page for a particular keyword.

In a Google Webmaster thread post, Google employee Aaseesh Marina said that it is okay to target one page for multiple keywords as long as the content is relevant for both the keywords. Here is what he said

If the content on the page is relevant for both the keywords, then I don’t see an issue. Make sure the content is providing useful information to user queries around those keywords. If multiple pages on your site are leading users to the same information, I’d just keep one page since there’s no value to users from all the other pages that this one can’t provide.

So the takeaway here is that if the two keywords in question are very much similar, there is no need to create different pages for targeting them differently. You can include the two keywords and their related search terms on the same page and have only one page on your website which has been optimized for both the keywords. But the important thing to note is that the content on the page should provide useful information to user queries and users should be satisfied with the content and they should not bounce off. In short, the content should be quality content and not thin content. There is no additional value to users to navigate through tons of pages to find the information or product which can be very well served from a single page.

Hence, before you start optimizing each and every keyword from your keyword research spreadsheet, here are a few things to ponder upon

  • There is no need to create a unique page on your site for targeting a specific keyword. Similar keywords or phrases or long-term search queries can be optimized in a single page.
  • Don’t create additional pages on your website because you think each keyword deserves a unique page so that you can focus your efforts in making sure it ranks higher. It doesn’t work that way.
  • If you have tons of pages on your website which has been created just for the sole purpose of making it rank for a single keyword, consider grouping them together in a single page. Make life easy for users and search engines.

If you are trying to rank for “Best shoes for men” and “Best footwear for men”, create only one page on your website which targets these two keyword or keyword phrases. If you are trying to rank for “Best shoes for men” and “Best toys for children”, in this case, it is okay to create two different pages on the same website because the nature of the topic is different and each topic demands a dedicated page for its content.

Creation of more pages on a website should depend on the topic theme and not for how many keywords you are trying to rank for in search engines.