Can one optimise multiple pages for a specific keyword?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Lidia van Wyk: Can one optimise multiple pages for a specific keyword or is it best practice to only optimise 1 page in order to get a specific page to rank for that keyword?
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  Dave Elliott: Best to optimise one page. Otherwise you have multiple pages fighting for the same keyword. Pick the most relevant and optimise that.
  
  That being said.... I really don't think it does that much harm if it happens accidentally and is quite likely to happen if your site/business/blog deals with a specific topic(ie a site about marketing is more than likely to have multiple pages about marketing on it) but, it is a waste of time to deliberately target two pages for exactly the same keyword(s). Diversify, a bit so that one targets online marketing and one targets social media marketing and so on.
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  Lidia van Wyk: That was my suspicion. Thanks for the confirmation. ;
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  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 02:14:12 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/can_one_optimise_multiple_pages_for_a_specific_keyword +Lidia van Wyk
  
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