Everyone is an SEO these days. With the wide proliferation of information available to the ordinary Joe, every Tom, Dick and Harry now thinks they know how I should do my job.
Now, this is not going to be a rant. I have nothing against people named Joe, Tom, Dick or Harry. I heartily approve of people who try to educate themselves. I suppose my real problem is with the so called self proclaimed ‘gurus’ that have set themselves up as the be all and end all of knowledge.
I actually had a long time client come down on me the other day, and tell me that a friend of his who is an SEO ‘guru’ said that the articles on his site were keyword stuffed, and that he was probably going to be penalized by Google. My reaction was one of tired disgust.
The articles in question had the keyword phrase once in the title, once in the first paragraph, once in the body of the 500 word text, and once in the last paragraph. There were also two secondary phrases used once each. Total keyword density – way less than 2%, and nowhere near the eight to twenty that could conceivably trigger a penalty.
I of course tried to explain the fact to the client, who became defensive of the guru, and attempted again to ‘explain’ to me the best SEO doesn’t look like SEO, and that Google would penalize him for ‘stuffing’ if any keyword phrases was used more than three times – title, first paragraph and last paragraph.
He wants me to cut out the secondary phrases – which do include one word from the primary – as well as the middle primary phrase in the body of the text. Sure thing. Customer is always right and all that. But it’s sad to see someone actually take their site backward by going back to an outdated algorithm, just because the so-called ‘guru’ told him to.
Of course you want an article that isn’t contrived looking. I even went back and re-read the article in question to make sure all the keyword phrase inclusions flowed naturally – they did. You can’t put either a minimum or maximum number on the amount of keywords you should use, or even be too strict about how you space them out – the idea is for it to be natural.
That doesn’t mean you completely throw everything that has been learned about SEO out the window – search engines still have algorithms, and as long as they do, SEO will be necessary. I can’t help but think the new trend that says SEO should look natural then gives you a formula to make it look natural can’t be trusted.
Ditch the formulas – except the ones known to work and known to be necessary!! Yes, the best SEO doesn’t look like SEO – but using a keyword more than twice or three times in a 500 word article isn’t going to result in a Google penalty. I promise!