Originally written on Friday, 24 April 2009 at 22:18 edited 7th April 2010

I would like to dispell a common SEO myth throughout the small business community.

Yesterday I was asked about keywords and how many I would target for a companies website, mainly their homepage. My answer was “two or three keywords/phrases per page” the reply was how much will you charge for more keywords?” “No extra and I do not recommend anymore than that” was my reply – silence ensued.

The reasons for my answer is simple;

1. Too many targeted phrases per page dilutes your chances of being ranked well.

2. Your index page is your top priority but you have other pages in your site that are just as important and carry a message/product that you want to get across to your potential customer.

3. Each page should be treated individually and targeted for different keywords and phrases to ensure multiple listings for your site.

4. Deep linking – not just building links in to your home page – is essential and helps your internal pages to be ranked well.

5. Don’t leave your keyword research to chance or use just one SEO tool to find out about your target markets trends, common sense should prevail and lots of hard work and research, research, research – particularly into your competitors high rankings.

And my final tip? Research, research, research – well you can never have too much 😉