Capitalize on what works, or fix what's broken?

Where to focus ones efforts regarding keyword rankings.

[killroy]

This is something that's been on my mind for a while now. say I have some pages, maybe 100 or so. Each one is on a single focused topic (like a product for example) and optimized for a small set of keywords related to that object/topic. Now they are all related, but some are more valuable and popular then others.

I track my rankings like I should, and have some in the top 10, and others nowhere to be seen. Some bring in tons of traffic from page 4, and others hardly anything from position 1.

So my question is, should I concentrate on getting that that elusive, profitable keyword from position 10 to position 1, or rather should I gat the mediocre word form page 4 to page one so it can show what it can do?

Where is the line of diminishing returns? Should I stop once I'm in the top10 and move to the next keyword/page, or should I keep at it until I reach position 1?

What are the relative profits of moving a high paying word form position 5 to position 2, compared to moving a mediocre one form page 4 to top 5?

Should I give everything a middle ranking and then go for the top spot, or simply forget about those that didn't work right away?

Lots of questions, but really just one issue, fix what's broken, or go with the top dog?

SN

[Jakpot]

Punt

[Mohamed_E]

My traffic comes from very many pages. The top two entry pages account for 18% and 12% of total traffic (30% between them). An interesting observation is that the number two page only does well on selected phrases,but badly on the two or three most obvious (and competitive) ones. But the topic is very popular so it gets traffic.

The next ten pages between them account for another 33% of my traffic, the lowest of these produces a bit less than 2%.

So fully one third of my traffic comes in from pages which, individually, provide less than 1%.

Many of these pages deal with topics of lesser interest; they are mostly in #1 position on the SERPs (little competition) but get little traffic (little interest). But cumulatively they do add up.

I would suggest dividing your time, spending a good bit on the intermediate pages, those with enough traffic potential to justify the time, and where the competition is not too stiff.