One per page.
One primary keyword, which is really one question the page answers. Everything else (the variations, the related phrases, the long-tail versions), follows from writing that answer properly, rather than from a target you set in advance.
That is the short answer and it is unsatisfying, because the question assumes there is a number. There used to be. There is not any more, and this guide explains what replaced it.
The short version
- One primary keyword per page. Not a limit, but a focus.
- Secondary keywords are not a quota. They are the other ways people ask the same thing, and you will use them naturally if you answer the question fully.
- There is no keyword density target. There never was an official one.
- Two pages targeting one keyword is the real risk, not too few keywords on one page.
Why “How Many” Is the Wrong Question
The question made sense when search engines matched strings. If Google looked for the literal phrase “cheap running shoes”, then having it on the page mattered, and having it more often plausibly mattered more.
That stopped being how search works a long time ago. Google resolves meaning: the entities involved, the relationships between them, and the question behind the words.
The practical consequence: “cheap running shoes”, “affordable running shoes” and “budget running trainers” are not three keywords you need to fit in. They are one question, and Google knows they are one question.
So counting keywords measures the wrong thing. What matters is whether the page resolves one question completely.
Primary and Secondary Keywords
The terms are useful as long as you do not turn them into a checklist.
The primary keyword
The one question the page exists to answer, in the words most people use to ask it.
There is one per page. Not because more is penalised, but because a page trying to be the best answer to three different questions is not the best answer to any of them.
A simple test: if you cannot state what the page is about in one sentence, it has more than one primary keyword and should probably be more than one page.
Secondary keywords
These are the other phrasings of the same question, plus the narrower questions that sit inside it.
For a page on “how many SEO keywords should I use”, the secondary set is things like “how many keywords per page”, “maximum keywords for SEO”, “keywords per blog post”. Same question, different wording.
You do not need a target number of these. If you answer the question properly and cover the obvious follow-ups, you will use them because that is how the subject is discussed.
What people usually mean when they ask for a number
Usually they want reassurance that the page is not under-optimised. The honest reassurance is: if a reader who searched that question would finish your page satisfied, the page is optimised enough.
Keyword Density: The Number That Does Not Exist
You will still find advice recommending 1%, or 2%, or “one mention per 100 words”.
None of these came from Google. There is no published density target, no threshold, and no tool that can tell you a page is correctly dense because there is nothing to measure against.
What does exist is the failure mode at the extremes.
- Too few: the page never plainly states what it is about. Rare in practice, because writing about something usually involves naming it.
- Too many: the phrase appears where it does not belong and the text reads badly. This is keyword stuffing, and it is a documented spam policy, not a grey area.
The useful test is not a percentage. Read the page aloud. If a phrase appears somewhere a person would not have put it, take it out.
Types of Keyword, and Why They Get Confused With Counts
A lot of the confusion about “how many” comes from mixing up types with quantities. These are categories, not a list to tick off.
| Type | What it means | Example |
| Short-tail | Broad, high volume, vague intent | “seo” |
| Long-tail | Specific, lower volume, clear intent | “how many seo keywords per page” |
| Informational | Someone wants to understand | “what is keyword density” |
| Commercial | Someone is comparing before buying | “best keyword research tool” |
| Transactional | Someone is ready to act | “buy semrush subscription” |
| Branded | Someone already knows who you are | “ahrefs pricing” |
The mistake is reading that table as six keywords a page needs. It is one page per intent, and intent is what separates them.
An informational page and a transactional page on the same subject are two pages, because the reader wants two different things. Two informational phrasings of the same question are one page.
Long-tail is not a separate target
Long-tail phrases are usually narrower versions of a question you are already answering. A page that covers “how many keywords per page” properly will also pick up “maximum keywords for a blog post” without you planting it.
The exception is when the long-tail query has genuinely different intent. “How many keywords should I use” and “how many keywords can I track in Semrush” share words and share nothing else.
The Real Risk: Two Pages, One Keyword
People worry about using too few keywords on a page. The more common and more damaging problem is the opposite direction: several pages going after the same one.
When that happens, Google has to choose between your URLs. Sometimes it chooses badly. Sometimes it chooses neither.
What that looks like in practice
Auditing this site’s indexing report turned up a clean example. Two URLs existed for the same idea:
- An article, “10 Ways to Write Content That Is SEO Friendly”
- A Web Story, “10 Best Ways to Write SEO Friendly Content”
Two URLs, one question, different formats. Both sat in Google’s crawled – currently not indexed bucket. Google had fetched both and kept neither.
Neither page was thin and neither was spam. They simply competed, and the competition was resolved by ignoring both.
How to check your own site
- In Search Console, filter by a query and look at which pages get impressions for it. Two or more of your own URLs is the signal.
- Search your own site for your main topics and see how many pages come back.
- The fix is usually a merge, not a rewrite. One strong page beats two competing ones.
Choosing the One Keyword for a Page
Four steps, in order.
- Write the question the page answers, as a sentence, in plain words.
- Find how people actually ask it. Search it, read the autocomplete suggestions and the People Also Ask box. That is real phrasing, free.
- Check the results page. If what ranks is a different format from what you planned (comparisons where you wrote a service page), the page will not rank no matter how it is optimised.
- Check you do not already cover it. If you do, the job is improving that page, not adding another.
A look at what competitors cover is useful here, mostly for finding the follow-up questions you had not thought of.
When a page can target more than one
There is a legitimate exception. Some pages answer one question that people ask in genuinely different words (“SEO audit” and “website SEO check”), where the intent is identical.
That is still one question. You are not targeting two keywords; you are recognising that one question has two common phrasings, and using both naturally.
The line is intent. Same intent, different words: one page. Different intent: two pages.
Finding the phrasing, without paying for it
You do not need a paid tool to pick one keyword for one page. Four free sources cover it:
- Google autocomplete. Start typing the question and read the suggestions. That is real query data.
- People Also Ask. The follow-up questions, in the words people use. Also a good map of what your page should cover. See how PAA boxes work.
- Search Console. For pages you already have, this shows the queries bringing impressions, which is often not what you targeted.
- Your own inbox. How customers phrase the question is usually closer to how people search than how the industry writes it.
Paid tools add volume estimates and difficulty scores. Volume is useful. Difficulty scores are estimates and can be badly wrong: a keyword export used for planning on this site rated “seo services” at 45,700 monthly searches with a difficulty of 1. Open the results page and look at who is on it instead.
Where the Keyword Goes
Placement matters more than count, and it is a short list: the title, the H1, the first paragraph, and naturally through the body where it belongs.
That is genuinely the whole thing. There is more detail in where to add keywords, including the places people put them that do nothing.
One thing worth knowing about titles specifically: Google’s documentation says title link generation is fully automated and draws on the title tag, the visible heading, H1s and other prominent text. Stuffing the keyword into all of them does not reinforce the signal. It increases the chance Google rewrites your title. The on-page checklist covers what that changes.
Three Things That Do Not Count
These come up in almost every discussion of keyword quantity, and none of them is worth your time.
| The idea | Reality |
| Meta keywords tag | Google has ignored it for well over a decade. Filling it in does nothing in either direction. |
| LSI keywords | Not a technique Google has described, and not what the underlying maths refers to. Covering the topic properly is the real version of this advice. |
| Exact-match everywhere | Repeating the exact phrase in every heading reads like a machine wrote it and invites a title rewrite. |
The LSI one is worth being specific about, because it appears on pages that otherwise give good advice. The instinct behind it is right. Use the related language a real writer would use. The name attached to that instinct is borrowed from something unrelated.
A Note on Pages That Already Rank
If a page sits between positions 11 and 20, adding keywords is rarely what moves it.
Those pages already have relevance. Google has decided they are about the right thing. What usually holds them back is depth, internal links, or the site’s authority.
Check the queries the page already gets impressions for before changing anything. Often it is ranking for a question you did not intend, and the cheapest win is to answer that question properly. Striking distance keywords covers the workflow.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many keywords should I use per page?
One primary keyword, meaning one question the page answers. Secondary phrasings of that same question will appear naturally as you answer it. There is no required count for secondary keywords.
How many keywords should a blog post target?
The same answer: one question per post. A post covering four questions competes with itself and tends to rank for none of them.
What is the maximum number of keywords for SEO?
There is no maximum, because keywords are not something you fit into a page. The real limit is readability: when a phrase appears somewhere a person would not have put it, you have gone too far.
What keyword density should I aim for?
None. No official target has ever existed. Write the page for the reader and the density takes care of itself.
Can two pages target the same keyword?
They can, and it usually hurts. Google has to pick between them and sometimes picks neither. On this site, an article and a Web Story covering the same idea both ended up crawled and not indexed. The fix is normally to merge them.
Do I need to use long-tail keywords separately?
Not as separate targets on the same page. A long-tail phrase is usually a narrower version of the same question, and a page that answers the question thoroughly picks them up. A long-tail query with genuinely different intent deserves its own page.
Should I still fill in the meta keywords tag?
No. Google has ignored it for well over a decade. It costs nothing to leave empty and gains nothing to fill.