Theme Keyword Question

[amycorp]

Hello. Someone asked this question last month, but there was no response. Does the theme keyword have to be within the 80/15/30000 guidelines? My theme keyword phrases are within the 80 and 15 guidelines, but the competition is always over 30,000. I assume that is because the theme KW phrase is a more general phrase (ie. Dog Training as a theme KW will have more competition than Dog Training Lab Puppies as a category KW.) I can't imagine being able to find a theme KW with less than 30,000 pages of competition. Please advise. Thanks!

[DeanRichards]

Does the theme keyword have to be within the 80/15/30000 guidelines?

Yes.

I can't imagine being able to find a theme KW with less than 30,000 pages of competition. Dog Training as a theme KW will have more competition than Dog Training Lab Puppies

Of course, but "dog training lab puppies" could be your theme and "dog training boxer puppies" could be a category. It's the numbers that really count as long as your theme and category keywords are semantically related.

Theme and category keywords don't need to fit a logical hierarchy, they just need to be relevant to each other.

[amycorp]

ok. Thanks! I guess I have to drill down further. One other question.... we just have to do the matrix test (to see if there is one green line) on our theme keyword, right? Or should I be doing this test on all of my keywords?

On your example above, if "dog training lab puppies" is my theme keyword, shouldn't my category keywords all be about training lab puppies? As I understand it (and it's probably wrong), if someone finds my site because they googled "dog training lab puppies" and then they see my site is about training all different breeds of puppies, won't the be a little ticked? I would think they will be expecting to find a website about only training lab puppies, especially if my domain has that keyword phrase in the title. Am I misunderstanding how all of this works? Thanks for your help.

[DeanRichards]

we just have to do the matrix test (to see if there is one green line) on our theme keyword, right?

Right, category keywords do not have to meet the competition test.

if someone finds my site because they googled "dog training lab puppies" and then they see my site is about training all different breeds of puppies, won't the be a little ticked?

Not if you deliver on the promise of how to train lab puppies. Another way to look at it is that if you can show that lab puppy training is different in some way from boxer puppy training, then you're demonstrating expertise.

It's kind of like asking if people are going to be upset because The Cheesecake Factory also sells pies. If they go there for a cheesecake and they are able to get the cheesecake they want, then it's all good. If they go to The Cheesecake Factory and the only thing they find is pie, then that's a problem.

As long as you have what you say you have, then having other stuff too isn't a problem and in Google's eyes, it makes you more of an authority.

[Elizabeth]

Dean has given you an excellent example with the Cheesecake Shop. Here's a little addition to it. I may go in to the shop specifically for cheese cake but if I know that my friend loves pies then I may well be tempted to buy one for her if I see a really nice one.

The same goes for your puppy training. A visitor who wants to find out about training lab puppies is most likely a dog lover and may well know someone who has a boxer puppy. If your article is well written then there is a good chance that he will share that with his friend. This of course will bring you more traffic and if you can expand this by writing about various different training techniques for different breeds then "word of mouth" should bring you a lot more visitors than just the ones looking for lab puppy training.

[amycorp]

Thanks! I get it now.

[Miamelb]

Theme and category keywords don't need to fit a logical hierarchy, they just need to be relevant to each other.

(Sigh..) I just realised I had it exactly the opposite way - I have a theme keyword that doesn't satisfy the SEO competition matrix but a bunch of category keywords that do. I am thinking to just use any of the category keywords as the theme keywords instead but the problem is none of them has a significantly higher SEOT (all between 100 and 200).

I understand theme keyword and category keywords do not need to be in logical hierarchy, but do they need to be in SEOT hierachy? i.e., Does the theme keyword need to have much higher SEOT than the category keywords?

[DeanRichards]

It's important for your theme keywords to pass the competition matrix analysis, so meet that guideline no matter what.

Does the theme keyword need to have much higher SEOT than the category keywords?

Nope. Because they don't have to pass the competition matrix, category keywords often have higher SEOT.

Have fun!

[Miamelb]

Thanks so much for the clarification, Dean. That made things so much easier :-)

[AaronDBell]

Thank you, Dean! You really clarified this section of The Challenge for me. I've been revving my engine in neutral for a month as a I ran on a hamster wheel of researching keywords without understanding the true objective behind my actions. Thanks for helping me to set my car in gear.

To branch from this new-found understanding, I just really want to cure the cement here and make sure that I have it. Regarding my personal Challenge:

Let's say we had the keywords:

rock drums
rock albums download
rock music maker free
rock crazyriffs

Could we set rock drums, which in this hypothetical example passes the competition litmus test, as the theme keyword, and the other three keywords as the category keywords--assuming they pass the general PBR, Traffic, and SEOC filter?

I greatly appreciate your thoughts on this Dean and friends.

~ Aaron