How Many SEO Keywords Should I Use?
- Connor Glaze
- May 31
- 13 min read
TL;DR:
Generally, each page should stick to one primary keyword and a handful of secondaries.
Different page types call for a different approach to keyword selection and implementation.
As always, it’s crucial to prioritise the user experience and avoid keyword stuffing.
“How many SEO keywords should I use?” is one of the most common questions I hear from clients who are just getting started looking to boost their organic traffic for the first time.
Like many things in marketing, it’s a simple question that annoyingly lacks a simple answer.
In this guide, I’ll explain how many SEO keywords to use for any given piece of content, why it matters, and how to avoid some of the common mistakes when it comes to on-page keyword optimization.
Note: This is a comprehensive guide that covers keyword selection and use from multiple angles.
If you only need one specific question answered, here are a few jumplinks you may find useful:
How Many SEO Keywords Should I Use?
Short answer: one primary keyword, and somewhere between one and five secondaries.
Anything more than this and you’ll not only be creating unnecessary work for yourself, and potentially increasing the risk of poor-quality content.
The primary keyword is the main term you want a piece of content to rank for. It should give your target audience a clear idea of what they’re going to get out of the content as a whole, and feature prominently in your H1 and H2 headings, as well as in the body of the content.
If you’re writing blog content to generate traffic for an ecommerce store selling chef’s knives, for example, your primary keyword might be “Types of sushi knives”.
Secondary keywords are keywords associated with the same topic as your primary keyword, which you may also be able to rank for using the same piece of content.
For our sushi knives example, your secondary keywords might be “Deba”, or “difference between a Nakiri and a Usuba.”
The aim in optimising your content is to include both your primary and secondary keywords as much as possible in a given piece of content, within reason.
As with anything in SEO, the top priority should be to ensure your content is useful to your audience. If you stuff keywords into the content to the disadvantage of the page’s quality, you’re only going to hurt your user experience and your rankings along with it.
Google’s official guidance has been saying the same thing for years: “focus on helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people,” rather than simply to manipulate search rankings.
With an increasing proportion of the industry using AI for SEO, it’s more important than ever that you don’t let a fixation on how many SEO keywords you should use get in the way of creating content that’s:
Written for real users, not just search engines or bots.
Truly useful and trustworthy.
Based on your own genuine expertise or experience.
Original, not derivative.
Easy for both humans and machines to understand.
Struggling to balance SEO keyword inclusion with quality content? My SEO-friendly content writing services provide unique, high-quality content to help you build traffic and leads effortlessly.
How Many SEO Keywords Should I Use Per Page?
Again, there's no universal magic number.
However, a useful framework I’ve used to help clients rank throughout my career includes: one primary keyword and between two and five secondary keywords per page. Shoot for the lower end of that secondary range for shorter content (under 1,000 words), and work towards the upper end for longer, more comprehensive pieces.
Where people tend to get unstuck is when they conflate "the keywords I'm optimising for" with "the keywords I'll mention". You're optimising for a handful of targeted terms, so you'll naturally mention dozens of related terms as you write quality, in-depth content. These are two different things, and muddling them is how you end up either over-optimising a page or wildly undercounting your keyword usage.
From a keyword density perspective - that is, how often your primary keyword appears as a proportion of total word count - the generally accepted sweet spot sits somewhere between 1% and 2%.
Above 3%, you're likely stuffing; below 0.5%, and you may not be giving search engines enough signal. That said, research from leading SEO platform Rankability suggests that Google's algorithm has evolved well beyond simple keyword counting. Now, it’s more about interpreting semantic signals, context, and overall page quality as primary ranking indicators. The density figure is a useful guardrail, not a target.
A practical formula for working out your keyword usage:
Primary keyword mentions = (Total word count × 0.01) to (Total word count × 0.015).
Secondary keyword mentions = 1-3 mentions each, distributed naturally throughout the content.
So for a 1,500-word service page, you're aiming for roughly 15 natural mentions of your primary keyword, and a handful of mentions each for your two to four secondary keywords. For a 500-word product description, that drops to around 5-8 primary keyword mentions, with one or two secondary terms each appearing once or twice.
The formula gives you a ballpark, not a blueprint. Always read back through your content before publishing. If the keyword use sounds mechanical or repetitive, do some pruning. Your reader's experience should always come first.
Example Keyword Selection Tutorials
Tutorial 1: Selecting Keywords for a Blog Post
Scenario: You run a website for a small London-based artisan bakery and want to write a blog post targeting people who are curious about sourdough bread baking at home.
Step 1: Start with a seed keyword in a Keyword Research tool
Open your chosen SEO tool (e.g. Ahrefs or SE Ranking) and type in your seed keyword - in this case, "sourdough bread" - and select the UK as your target region.
The tool will return a full keyword overview with various metrics, including monthly search volume, keyword difficulty (KD) score, cost-per-click (CPC), and search intent classification. You'll also see organised lists of keyword suggestions, for example Similar, Related, Low Search Volume, and Questions.
Step 2: Identify a viable primary keyword
Your seed keyword "sourdough bread" likely has a high search volume but also a high difficulty score - meaning it's fiercely competitive. For a newer or lower-authority website, going head-to-head with established baking brands on that term isn't realistic. Instead, look at the Similar and Related keyword tabs for longer-tail alternatives.
You might spot something like "how to make sourdough bread at home" - solid monthly search volume, lower competition, and a clear informational intent that maps perfectly to a blog post.
This should be your primary keyword.
Step 3: Select two to four secondary keywords
Scroll through the Related and Questions tabs for terms that cluster around the same topic and intent. Good candidates might include:
"sourdough starter recipe"
"sourdough bread for beginners"
"why is my sourdough dense"
"sourdough hydration ratio"
Filter for terms with manageable KD scores and search volumes that suggest a real audience is looking for them. You don't need all four - two or three strong secondary keywords are plenty.
Once this is done, you’ll be ready to export your shortlist.
Step 4: Check SERP intent alignment
Before finalising your selection, look at the SERP overview for your primary keyword within SE Ranking.
Are the top-ranking pages blog posts and how-to guides, or are they ecommerce category pages and recipe videos? If the SERP is dominated by long-form editorial content, you're in the right territory. If it's mostly product listings, the intent doesn't match a blog format and you should revisit your keyword choice.
Step 5: Assign and write
With your primary and secondary keywords confirmed, you have your keyword brief: one dominant term to anchor the content, and a cluster of related terms to weave in naturally across your headings and body copy.
Tutorial 2: Selecting Keywords for a Localised Service Page
Scenario: You're a plumber based in Bristol who offers emergency callout services. You need to optimise a service page targeting local customers.
Step 1: Enter a localised seed keyword
Open SE Ranking's Keyword Research tool and enter "emergency plumber" with the UK selected as the target location. For local SEO work, you'll get more relevant data if you can narrow it down further.
Most good SEO tools allow you to select specific countries, which for a local business is worth doing in conjunction with looking at local modifiers in your keyword variations.
Step 2: Look for geo-modified keyword variants
In the Similar and Related tabs, filter specifically for keyword variations that include your target location - "emergency plumber Bristol", "24 hour plumber Bristol", "plumber Bristol emergency callout". These are your primary keyword candidates.
Compare the search volumes across these variants. "Emergency plumber Bristol" will likely show lower absolute volume than a national term, but that's expected and fine - you're targeting a highly specific, high-intent local audience. A lower-volume term where you can realistically rank beats a high-volume term where you can't.
Step 3: Use the Competitive Research tool to validate your choice
Navigate to SE Ranking's Competitive Research section and enter the URL of a well-ranking local competitor - another Bristol plumbing business that consistently appears in the top few positions.
Go to their Organic Keywords report to see exactly which terms they're pulling traffic for. You'll often surface secondary keyword opportunities you hadn't considered, such as "boiler repair Bristol", "burst pipe Bristol", or "plumber near me Bristol".
Step 4: Select secondary keywords that support local intent
For a localised service page, your secondary keywords should reinforce both the service and the geographic relevance.
Two to three secondary keywords is sufficient - for example, "24 hour plumber Bristol" as a secondary, alongside "emergency plumber Bristol" as your primary, plus one service-specific term like "burst pipe repair Bristol."
Step 5: Cross-check with Google Search Console (if available)
If the site has existing data in Google Search Console, filter the Performance report for queries the page is already showing up for. You may find the page is already generating impressions for terms you hadn't targeted - these can become secondary keywords to optimise more deliberately.
Need support mapping keywords to site content? My affordable SEO packages cover comprehensive SEO content strategy, helping you ensure every page is pulling its weight.
How Many Keywords Should I Use for SEO - Quick Page Type Guide
Different types of content serve different purposes and attract different search behaviours.
Here's a quick reference for how many keywords to assign to each page type:
Homepage - 1 primary keyword (typically a broad brand or category term), 2-3 secondary keywords. Keep it focused; the homepage communicates what your business does, not a dissertation.
Service page - 1 primary keyword, 2-4 secondary keywords. Include both the service type and a geographic modifier if you're targeting locally.
Product page - 1 primary keyword (usually the product name or type), 1-2 secondary keywords. Product pages tend to be short; over-stuffing is a real risk.
Category page (ecommerce) - 1 primary keyword, 2-3 secondary keywords. Category pages sit higher in the purchase funnel and should reflect broader product-type intent.
Blog post / article - 1 primary keyword, 3-5 secondary keywords. Long-form content has the most room to absorb secondary terms naturally.
Landing page - 1 primary keyword, 1-2 secondary keywords. Landing pages are laser-focused on a single conversion goal; additional keywords dilute that focus.
FAQ page - 1 primary keyword per question cluster, with each answer naturally incorporating question-based long-tail variants.
Local landing page - 1 primary keyword (service + location), 2-3 secondary keywords (related services and/or additional local modifiers).
SEO Keyword Placement
Choosing the right keywords is only half the job. Where you place them within a page also matters - both to search engines trying to interpret your content and to human users trying to get something useful out of it.
The good news is that Google's own representatives have been clear about this for years.
John Mueller has repeatedly advised that keywords should appear where they're most visible: in titles, headings, subheadings, and throughout the content in a natural, readable way. There's no secret hack here - good keyword placement is fundamentally just good writing structure.
That said, certain placements carry more weight than others:
Title tag - This is the single most important on-page element for signalling keyword relevance to search engines. Include your primary keyword, ideally towards the beginning of the title. Keep title tags between 50 and 60 characters so they display fully in search results. A well-crafted title tag also functions as ad copy - it's what convinces a user to click through.
H1 heading - Your H1 should include your primary keyword and should broadly mirror your title tag, though it doesn't need to be identical. Every page should have exactly one H1.
First 100-150 words of body copy - Placing your primary keyword early in the body content helps search engines establish the topic context of the page quickly. It also reassures human readers that they've landed in the right place. That said, don't force it - if the keyword reads awkwardly in your opening paragraph, write the paragraph naturally and place the keyword in the second.
Subheadings (H2s and H3s) - Subheadings are an effective and natural place to incorporate both your primary keyword (where relevant) and secondary keywords. They give structure to the page, improve readability, and provide additional topical signals to search engines.
Body copy - Distribute your keywords throughout the body of your content, but let them occur where they naturally fit. At the 1-2% density range discussed earlier, your primary keyword will appear approximately every 50-100 words in a typical article - frequent enough to establish relevance, but not so frequent that it reads as mechanical.
Meta description - While meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor, including your primary keyword here encourages Google and tools like ChatGPT to bold it when displaying your result to searchers whose query matches - a visual cue that can meaningfully improve click-through rates. Make sure to keep meta descriptions between 120 and 155 characters.
Image alt text - Alt text serves primarily as an accessibility feature for screen readers and secondarily as an SEO signal. Include your primary or secondary keywords in alt text where they genuinely describe the image - avoid shoehorning keywords into alt text that doesn't match the image's content.
URL slug - A clean, keyword-inclusive URL (e.g. /emergency-plumber-bristol rather than /services-page-4) provides a minor but real ranking signal and also improves the clarity and credibility of the link when shared.
SEO Keyword Cannibalisation
Keyword cannibalisation is a problem that tends to sneak up on websites as they grow. It happens when two or more pages on the same site are competing for the same keyword and the same search intent - essentially, your own pages are fighting each other for the same position in the same results.
The consequences of keyword cannibalisation are more damaging than most people assume. When multiple pages target the same keyword and intent, search engines may not know which page to rank for a given query - resulting in fluctuating or lowered rankings, lower click-through rates, and higher bounce rates.
The top two results earn nearly three times more clicks than the third result, meaning that splitting ranking power across multiple URLs can have a disproportionately large negative impact on performance.
There's also a backlink problem. Keyword cannibalisation decreases the value of backlinks and diminishes their impact on rankings. If two similar pages each attract three high-quality backlinks, their collective value pales in comparison to a single page with six quality backlinks pointing to it.
It's worth noting that cannibalisation has evolved as a concept in the modern SEO landscape. It's important to distinguish between "keyword cannibalisation" - multiple pages targeting the same keywords - and "content cannibalisation" - multiple pages covering the same broad topic.
Both can dilute a website's topical authority and confuse users, but keyword cannibalisation specifically impacts search rankings. Google has also become considerably more capable of identifying search intent over the past few years, which means that even pages targeting slightly different keyword variants can cannibalise each other if they're serving the same user need.
How to avoid keyword cannibalisation
The most effective prevention is planning. Before creating a new piece of content, run a quick search in Google using “site:yourdomain.com "target keyword” to see whether you already have pages indexing for that term. SEO competitive research and content tools can also surface overlaps across your existing content.
If you discover existing cannibalisation, the typical remedies are:
Consolidating the competing pages into a single, more comprehensive piece and redirecting the weaker URL to the stronger one using a 301 redirect.
Differentiating the intent of each page more clearly, so one serves informational search intent and the other serves transactional intent.
Using canonical tags to signal to Google which version of a page should be treated as the authoritative one, in cases where separate URLs are necessary.
Improving internal linking to direct authority signals towards the page you most want to rank, rather than spreading them thinly across multiple similar pages.
The overarching principle is the same one that runs through every element of keyword strategy covered in this guide: each page on your site should have a distinct purpose, serve a distinct audience need, and be the best possible resource for a specific topic.
Build to this standard, and keyword cannibalisation becomes much less likely to take hold.
How Many SEO Keywords Should I Use - FAQs
Knowing how many SEO keywords to use is a fundamental step in building sites with a high chance to rank. By sticking to a few basic rules, and making sure you balance keyword quantity with a commitment to quality, useful content, you’ll quickly be able to attract the traffic you’re looking for and convert more site visitors into paying customers.
I’ll wrap up with a few FAQs on how many SEO keywords you should use to ensure you get the best results. For more support on your SEO, be sure to check out my other blog posts, or get in touch to find out how my affordable SEO packages can help you.
How many meta keywords should I use for SEO?
None - and this is worth emphasising clearly, because the meta keywords tag is one of the most persistent misconceptions in SEO. The <meta name="keywords"> HTML tag was used by early search engines in the 1990s to understand page content, but it was so widely abused through keyword stuffing that Google officially stopped using it as a ranking signal over fifteen years ago.
Does keyword density still matter in 2026?
Keyword density still matters in the sense that it gives you a rough guardrail against over-optimisation, but it's far less central to SEO than it once was. Modern search algorithms are sophisticated enough to evaluate topical relevance through semantic understanding rather than simple keyword counting. A 1-2% density for your primary keyword is a sensible benchmark, but you should prioritise natural, high-quality writing over hitting a precise percentage. If your content reads well and covers its topic thoroughly, the keyword density will typically take care of itself.
Can I target the same keyword on multiple pages?
Generally, no - not if those pages are serving the same search intent. Targeting the same keyword across multiple pages creates the keyword cannibalisation problem outlined above, splitting your authority and confusing search engines about which page to rank.
The exception is when two pages target the same broad keyword but serve clearly different intents - for example, a product page targeting "noise-cancelling headphones" (transactional intent) and a blog post targeting "are noise-cancelling headphones worth it" (informational intent). Even then, you should monitor both pages in your chosen SEO tool’s rank tracker to confirm they're not undermining each other.
How many keywords should a 500-word page target?
A 500-word page should target one primary keyword and one to two secondary keywords at most. At that length, there's limited space to incorporate additional terms without the content feeling forced or thin. If you find yourself wanting to optimise for more than two or three keywords, it may be a signal that your page needs to be longer, or that some of those terms would be better served by separate pages.
