Proper Use Of Keywords

[Viktori]

I've been writing for and promoting my blog for a while now, and I've been meaning to "take the next step" for a while now, by which I mean I would like my articles and other decisions to be more deliberate in terms of making my blog a lot more searchable. I thought a good place to start would be to finally take notice of using keywords instead of just writing as I pleased. Would you recommend this? If so, what would be the best first few steps to build towards this goal? What would you say a good balance is for an average 500 word article, and what would be the best way to go about it and what are the things I should avoid? I know there is such a term as keyword stuffing and I would like to know how something like that would affect my site's overall rank and profitability as well and how best to avoid it.

 

[Rube]

When you have picked a keyword for your article you should use it in the opening paragraph, and again in the closing paragraph. Use keywords in subheadings and hyperlinks, as well as featuring them in the title and tags for the post.

Keywords should only be repeated in a way that look natural. If the article begins to look repetitive you are overusing the keyword.

Use a free keyword finder tool to find the best ones for your article. Google has one, and there are several free keyword tools that also include Google results. Don't stick to single-word keywords, pick a phrase or two that you think people might enter into a search engine when looking for the type of information you provide.

 

[Nymph]

Search engines like Google want to find the most relevant and high quality information for the user surfing their engine, meaning writing in a well-researched fashion while adding a bit of your own uniqueness and personal flair, especially for a blog, will reel you far and help you rank higher. Like Rube stated, for every article or post you're thinking about creating, find a few low competition keywords to be the limelight of your post and mix them up. Make use of internal linking, that is, linking to other articles within your site if a part of the current article pertains to it. About 2-4 times per article is fine and sometimes it's nice to have none at all. There is no one formula you can just implement and magically be at the top - be natural, but informed. Put in your keywords with sentences you think will fit and then spew out quality. It will work over time.

 

[BruceBanner]

I'm not sure I understand what your goal is. If you are currently writing articles for kw terms that get very few searches, you'll get very few visitors, regardless of where you are ranked. It makes sense to do what you're considering -- targeting keywords that get larger search amounts. You have to keep in mind that this alone probably won't do much so far as your rankings.

For most niches, there are quite a few excellent keyword targeted articles sitting on pages 12 thru 25 -- so quality is NOT the issue. Do you have other plans to help your rankings? And what is more important to you-- rankings or traffic?

 

[invisibled]

I think it is better to keep your target keyword in mind, and including it in your articles. But make sure that you do not include it excessively as that is considered stuffing and will lead to ban from search engines.
If you write naturally and stay on topic, you will naturally include the keywords in your writing. However, you should still try and include your main keyword atleast a couple of times.
Also try to use the related keywords instead of using the same ones over and over again.

 

[carlalexander]

First and foremost you should avoid keyword stuffing, assuming you have selected a not so competitive keyword. The optimum percentage of keyword that you 500 word article should have is between 3-4% and never past 7% as Google would automatically assume that you have keyword stuffed you article. Also use variants of the keyword and mix it up e.g Google keyword, keyword Google, keywords for Google. At the same time, you should use it in the first sentence of you article and the last sentence, in one of your sub titles.

 

[littlebelgianwriter]

I decided to take a closer look to this thread because I do wonder about the use of keywords myself. At school I was taught to use as many synonyms as possible when writing a text. Repeating keywords seems like doing the opposite to me. At times I find it difficult to find the right balance and at times I feel some articles written using keywords tend to have an unnatural feel about them. 3-4% on a 500 word article would mean the same word used 15 - 20 times in the same text. That still seems like a lot of overkill to me.
SEO is useful to me and I want to learn about it. However I think it might drive readers away at times.

 

[ozadin]

I would recommend using 1-2 percent of your actual keyword, and the rest LSI. LSI are words similar to your keyword, so if your niche was dog food, bowls would pop in there somewhere. This is very related to your keyword, and at the same time, you're writing content naturally and organically for humans. By no means should you start stuffing your article with them, but you don't get penalized by Google if you use a lot of LSI words.

 

[littlebelgianwriter]

Thank you very much for this excellent suggestion. I had never heard of LSI but the way you explain it, I am pretty sure it would work for me.

 

[jean]

Main keywords and their LSI keywords/phrases are important. They should be embedded in the article wisely, and the flow of the article should be smooth and related to the keywords. When everything seems naturally built up, and is a quality content then Google and other search engines will take notice of that content and rank it higher.

Keywords in the title, URL, meta tags, and content will affect your page ranking either positively or negatively depending on how you use them.

 

[wasi90lk]

Proper use of keywords is extremely important, if you are looking to gain traffic from search engines.

Some people may tend to overlook keywords, but keywords often influence traffic.

 

[semaphore.v]

The first thing you need to do is come up with keywords that describe the content of your website.