Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

Optimizing for Google is the topic of most of our blog posts, and there are a few questions that arise from time to time as Google changes algorithms, and shifts focus to keep people from gaming the system and to make sure the most relevant results reach the top.

The number one question is content related, and concerns keyword density. We have gone rounds and rounds with keyword density - should it be crammed as much as possible? Should we just use keywords naturally? Is there a formula we can use to ensure good rankings?

The answer is all and none of these - the keyword density factor for Google seems to be in a constant state of flux, and is definitely more subtle than it was a few years ago. It doesn’t seem to affect rankings quite as much, and stuffing is definitely discouraged, but keywords are still important. Some SEOs recommend taking a keyword density evaluator to your competitors’ text when they are ranked at the top, and follow the trend shown by the top ten results on Google.

That makes you a follower, not a leader, and I definitely recommend concentrating more on having top notch content with appropriately used keywords for user friendliness and website navigability rather than getting into a huge time consuming process of trying to analyze exactly what density is best, or whether to include keywords in the meta tag over the anchor links!

Do, however, try to include your main keyword phrase in your title, and especially surrounding and images, just so Google knows what your article is about. A good rule of thumb that seems to weather most of Google’s various winds, is to have the keyword or phrase in the title, the first paragraph and the last paragraph for sure, then where ever it falls naturally in the rest of the article - also consider having some secondary keywords to help break up the monotony.

Readable content beats keyword stuffed garbage hands down - and do you know why? Because being number one on the SERPS only gets you so far - if a visitor clicks on your site and sees gobbledygook, they will bounce away faster than a flea and you will be left with nothing to show for all of your keyword stuffing efforts!!

Evaluating keyword density is a large part of any SEO campaign. You need to research, evaluate and decide what keyword phrases will yield best results, and then write your pages. Once you select keyword phrases for your website you need to start using them as much as you can without being too obvious. You should use your keyword phrase in several places in your page, including:

the meta title

meta keywords

meta description

h1, h2, and h3 headlines (and h4-h6, if you have them)

the first paragraph of text in the HTML

in link text

in alternate text for images

scattered throughout the rest of the text on the page

If there isn’t enough text on the page, repeating your keyword phrase in this amount can result a page that is keyword stuffed; which means that you keyword density is way too high for readers to be able to enjoy reading your content.

Readability is the key, not keyword density! Readability not just by search engines, but by your visitors. If humans find the text annoying to read they will leave your site pronto, no matter how much or little your keyword phrase appears. You can test drive your article on friends to see if they can pick out the target phrases - they shouldn‘t be able to do so instantly, but after some study it should be apparent. If it isn’t overt, but it does get the message across about what the article is aimed at, then the repetitions of your keyword phrases is probably about right and you haven’t included it too often.

Keyword density in any case should top out at about 5%. This means that out of the entire webpage content, your main keyword phrase should be no more than 5% of the total words. More than that starts looking like a keyword spammer to search engines, and can be annoying to your customers - making your pages difficult to read.

A keyword density of 3-4% usually works to get the keyword phrase across without being obvious to the customer. This still lets the search engines know what your page is about, and combines good SEO with user friendliness.

We all gather hundreds of keywords and keyword phrases in an effort to get the most results possible for our SEO dollar. We are terrified of letting any traffic slip away because we miss out on any keywords. However, if you try to optimize your website for too many keywords, the overall effect SEO power is decreased. Ultimately, the results suffer instead of improve!

You should narrow down your keywords to the most crucial ones to ensure better results. You can always add more later, once you have your main traffic flowing. How do you narrow down your keywords list? All of them look important, so how do you know which keyword phrases people are more likely to use? Do you concentrate on local and geographic search? Do you target a particular gender or age demographic?

First, analyze your approach to keyword analysis. Do you use a keyword generation tool that spits out hundreds of keyword options, or do you brainstorm with your team to come up with keywords, or do you surf the net imagining you are a customer yourself? You are more likely to get better results if you use keyword generation tools sparingly, more as a starting point for brainstorming than an end all of searches. The tools try to create a keyword phrase list based on the preset formula that is fed into the program, and can turn out various keywords in nonsensical phrases.

Best practices dictate choosing one or two main keyword phrases per page, plus up to three more secondary phrases that are associated with the main keywords. More than that will start giving you trouble as the effect for each keyword decreases. When you are short listing keywords, first come up with a broader list by becoming the user yourself. Next, add to the list the keywords which you think the users should be actually using to search your services. Don’t use too many technical terms - substitute laymen’s terms when possible.

If your website is already up and running, have a tool installed so you can see what phrases users are typing that land them at your site. You need to focus on those keywords as they are likely being searched by other users too. This is a good place to start work if you are revamping existing sites.

After coming up with the initial list, add modifiers or qualifiers that will make your keyword phrase more targeted. Many modifiers are adjectives such as cheap, affordable easy; other will be geographic qualifiers such as city, state or region. Geographic qualifiers are much more powerful than adjective qualifiers, especially for local search.

Using the right keywords is crucial to your site’s success.

Start by using one of those cool little programs that lets you see who has been linking to you. They are readily available all over the net, and simple to install; or if you use Google Webmaster you will have easy access to them from that site as well, and a lot of other things.

If you find a relevant site linking to you, see what their keywords are and how they relate. Combine them with your own set of keywords to come up with new combinations to work into your site. Google’s Tool is is a great thing to use because it actually tells you what the most commonly used words are being used in the anchor text of these inbound links. You might find that you can target whole new demographics by looking at your related sites customer base and trying to target them directly.

Keeping an eye on your inbound links is a good idea all the time. You want to see who is linking to you in case you end up with some links that would be better no-followed - this does happen, and you don’t want them giving you a bad reputation. A backlink from someone who is in cahoots with a link farm is never a good plan - reputation by association kicks in even if it is the sixth degree of separation, it will always come back to bite you on the butt.

Checking out backlinks also lets you see if any reciprocal agreements are being honored. Unfortunately, some people are unscrupulous enough to trade link postings and then renege. They think they can keep your link to them, but delete or no-follow their link to you. Remember that how someone links to you is almost as important as the fact that they link to you at all!

Don’t be thrown off course, but do try to widen your possible customer base by examining your links and seeing if some relevant connections have eluded you. Happy Linking!

The keywords you want in your content aren’t the buzz words from your marketing copy, or the basic words that everyone else will be trying to optimize for. Finding out that there are ten trillion searches for the word ‘women’s shoes’ every day doesn’t help you a bit.

Neither does knowing that the most popular search term yesterday was ‘swine flu symptoms’. What you need goes deeper and is much more complicated and much simpler - all at the same time.

You have to figure out what your ultimate customer is thinking. The customer that wants what you have, and nothing else, you absolute target demographic. You have to figure out one basic thing, one tiny vital piece of information to help you choose the keywords to optimize for.

You have to get inside their head. This is what you want to see, through their eyes as they sit down at their computer and mouse over to the search box -what do they type???

If they are looking for waterproof brown leather lace up hiking boots, and know that is what they want, they might spend the time to type it in to get past the millions of generic boots, hiking boots, brown boots and lace up boots sites. If you have optimized for the long tail, hey presto. It’s like magic - you read their mind, and here is you site in all of its brown leather lace up hiking boot glory.

I‘ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - better to be a big fish in a fishbowl than a little fish in a lake. This applies to long tail optimization perfectly. If you are ranked #1 for a phrase that is search for 10 times a week, you have cornered the market. You will get more hits and conversions off of highly targeted leads than you would if you ranked 100^th for a generic term with billions of searches a year and people who never click past page one.

Optimize for the long tail. There is NO excuse not to.
 

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