Keyword
In short
A keyword is the term someone types into a search engine. For optimisation it is the unit that makes demand measurable: how often a term is searched, how contested it is, and what the person searching actually wants.
Volume is the less important half
A term with high volume and the wrong intent brings visitors and no enquiries. Someone looking for a definition does not want a quote, and someone wanting a quote will not read a definition.
So intent comes before the number. Is the person after an explanation, a comparison, or a supplier? Each of the three needs a different page.
Why difficulty decides the choice
Because a term held by twenty established sites is not a target for a young domain, it is an occupation. The honest route runs through longer, more specific terms with less competition.
One example from our own measurement: in Switzerland the term it outsourcing schweiz carries 2,900 searches a month at low difficulty, while managed it services schweiz falls below the measurement threshold. Same service, different word — and the demand sits on the word.
One term, one page
Two of your own pages on the same term do not rank twice, they rank against each other. They split the internal links and force the search engine into a choice it would not otherwise have to make.
When two pages serve the same term, merge them rather than keeping both. That is also the stronger move, because the surviving page inherits everything.
How we handle it
We pick terms by intent and difficulty rather than volume, and check before every new page whether an existing one already serves the term.
Approach: SEO.
A term in your quote that nobody explained?
In a strategy call we translate the offer in front of you — even when it did not come from us.